Quiet

I’m alone this week. My partner is away on a work trip until Saturday. My kids are, and have been, elsewhere for some time.

Thanksgiving has just passed, Christmas is right around the corner. The house is quiet and not, at the same time. It rings with the sound of memory. Laughing, arguing, hurrying, playing, cooking, entertaining, doing homework, singing (as my boys did extremely well for years). Train sets and Legos, video games and TV shows. Family holidays and school events, doors slamming and the dog barking. Chorus concerts, plays and musicals, girlfriends and breakups. Years when they wanted to be where I was all the time, becoming years when they wanted to be behind a locked door, morphing into times when they want to talk about the future. Birthdays, graduations, college moving days. The good and great, the bad and ugly, of raising kids over the years. Time passing.

Music is playing tonight, I’m having a nice dinner. I’m happy that the kids are grown up and moving on with their lives. I wouldn’t change it if I could – it’s the way things should be. But when I’m alone, this house reminds me of what has passed.

Sometimes it’s too much and I want a blanker slate – a place that doesn’t resonate with so much memory. Tonight, for some reason, it’s just enough.