As I reflect on the journey over the last week I can see the years usually obscured from view. Much of the transitions I recall were taking our little space in the world and molding it into what my children needed, what our creativity inspired us to, and finding that ever-increasing return on space invested.
The big change was always molding our home to the stage our children entered. That is responsible for so many of the biggest changes of all. We would tear into things we always dreamed of changing, and remove things that were once so sentimentally critical to our daily lives to pave the way for accommodating our boys' next phase. It was exciting for them and for us as well.
This week, we have come full circle, once again sleeping in the same room that we had when we started in this house 22 years ago. In that room, the labor began leading up to the birth of my sons, the nightly routine of getting those newborns ready for bed after a bath. At the time, it felt like those days would last forever.
As the years passed, our space grew smaller and we remodeled a room downstairs. Meanwhile, on the main floor, the rooms transitioned from one purpose to another. This is the 4th remodel of the master bedroom in 22 years and I have noticed that it is much harder to do now. Thank goodness for experience and muscle memory. Pain is temporary.
There is a pain that I really did not anticipate though. It is the realization that I cannot simply rewrite the purpose of the rooms in my home to accommodate the needs of my sons anymore. In this part of their lives I have to believe that while I was making the physical changes within our home to allow them to grow at that respective point in time, I was also giving them tools in which they hold inside them to know how to navigate and survive.
To say that I am amazed and impressed with the people my sons have grown into would be an understatement. They never stop showing me how intelligent and discerning they are. It is a joy to watch.
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