On Wednesdays

I've been doing dangerous math.

Not money (except... always).
Not the studios (except... always that, too).

But summers.

How many weeks we'll be away (far fewer than I’d imagined).
How many days Sebi is in camp (every possible day, with extended hours).
How many days I’m telling him “mama’s gotta work” while someone else takes their kiddo to the beach.
…and, heartbreakingly, how many summers are left before he doesn't really want to spend them with me anymore.

It's enough to make me wonder if I'm getting it wrong.

This time feels impossibly fleeting.

And comparison? She's nasty. I don't recommend her.

And, with all that being said, I KNOW better than to live in an imagined summer.

No one handed me this life. I chose it. And right now, it has uncertainty. But it’s meaningful and I cherish it, so it isn’t fair to it to wish it away for another version.

While motherhood has a way of introducing clocks you never noticed before, what’s the point of those clocks if you’re not fully present in today o’clock.

***

I went back to last summer. I remembered what it taught me.

The lesson wasn't to take more vacation.

It was to inhabit the ordinary.

To look up.

To walk slower.

To say yes to ice cream before pizza (anytime, really).

To stay outside another ten minutes.

***

I’ve been doing the math wrong this whole time.

I'm counting time off.

He’s counting Wednesdays.

The Wednesdays where I finish work early.

Where we pick out a new library book.

Where dinner happens on a patio.

Where we lose track of time building a fort until bedtime arrives with dirty feet.

And maybe that’s enough. Enough is abundant.