“These are the days.
These are days you’ll remember. 
Never before and never since, I promise, will the whole world be warm as this. 
And as you feel it, you’ll know it’s true that you are blessed and lucky. 
It’s true that you are touched by something that will grow and bloom in you…” 

 

You know that song? It’s by the 10,000 Maniacs, who I’ve heard of but never given much thought about. But I’ve had that song in my head this week. Actually, not the whole song cause I don’t know it well enough. Just one line:

 

These are the days you’ll remember….

 

The words have been following me around, refusing to be ignored. As if they are trying to tell me something.

 

It’s been busy around here. It always is, but the past month has been busier than normal. We welcomed our son Lincoln into the family. My daughter Georgia graduated high school. She sang a solo at Overture Hall that night in front of over 2000 people. Lincoln smiled for the first time. We figured out the financials to send Georgia to the college of her dreams. I picked up a stomach bug, then Brice got it two weeks later and threw up on our front lawn. I twisted my ankle on the basement steps. Steve was home for two weeks after the baby was born. Family and friends coming from all over to meet Lincoln. I turned 40.

 

These are the days you’ll remember…

 

It feels like a whirlwind, so much life all at once. I never really put the baby down but somehow he’s gained 3 pounds and has outgrown his newborn clothes already. The clothing just sits in sad piles around the house waiting for me to tuck them away as the keepsakes they will inevitably turn into. I’m not ready yet. Just like all the toiletries that I needed just after his birth for dealing with the trauma that childbirth wrecks on the body. I no longer need any of them but they sit in my bathrooms anyway. I can’t let go of them. Lincoln’s birth already feels impossibly far away. The details blurring and the rough edges getting sanded off until it’s more of a story and less of a feeling.

 

This last month has been so full. These events, so many of them so very long awaited, reduced to mere memories already. Fractions of feelings that come back in slices then get lost in the shuffle of diaper changes and dinner needing to be made. I wish I could press pause.

 

These days. The good and the bad. The little moments that add up to being our lives.

 

So I try to stay present. To allow each moments it’s time. To not rush out of one and go searching for the next, whether I label the moment as good or bad. Because they go by quick. So quick. The kids will grow and leave. I see this now.

 

 These are the days you’ll remember…