My Sleeping Kids Think it's an Hour Earlier

Okay, hear me out. There’s going to be some payback for this consolation on the other end…Like, say, in about 30 - 40 minutes when I have to wake my children in their cozy beds and explain that it’s 7:45 Am, not 6:45 Am. We will already be running late for school at that point.

BUT, for the next 30 minutes, I still get this time — in the nook that used to be the pantry that now houses a small desk and a bookshelf — the first room of my own in twelve years, since before I was married — and where I’m greeted each morning by the sole light across the way.

I get this sliver of darkness, and the blues shifting in the sky as the sun rises.

And that’s really the point right?

To be in this moment.

I’ve felt, for the past two weeks — as the health scare of coronavirus has escalated — that I’m riding a wave: the ones I tried to catch as a kid in the salty Atlantic, at Ocean City, on a boogey-board with my older brother.

When hours just passed, before I had any regard for time.

That feeling when it catches, and the water propels you in whatever direction it wills.

I don’t usually feel this surrendered to all of my plans being tossed in the air and canceled and rearranged.

Maybe it’s the camaraderie of us all riding this uncertainty together.

I feel oddly at peace. I don’t even write anything in my planner at this point (Yes, I still keep a paper and pen planner).

I am absolutely in this moment, here at my desk. The sun has fully risen.

I will wake my kids and start our day, wherever it takes us.

No, not yet. I think I’ll let them sleep for five more minutes.