One of the hardest things for me to learn over the past two years is how to let the list go once in awhile. I’ve always been this way – a checker-offer, an on-to-the-next-thing person – and while that can be a good thing in some ways (especially if you’re self-employed)…I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve woken up at 2A.M., thought back on the day, and thought to myself: god, I wish I had just stopped moving moving moving for a second and been there.
It makes me crazy sometimes, how much I want to slow the clocks.
Yesterday afternoon I took Indy to the playground – way too late: it was almost dark, and we were supposed to be at a friend’s house for a playdate in just a few minutes. But on the way into the supermarket to pick up a few things for dinner he spotted the park across the street and said, “Playground?” and I thought…
Groceries can wait.
It did get dark, about ten minutes after we got there…but every inch that the sun went lower in the sky, the leaves on the trees grew redder.
And so we stayed, for more than an hour, running around in the light of the streetlamps. I cancelled my plans with my friend; dinner was pushed back; bathtime didn’t happen until far too late; it didn’t matter. We threw leaves at each other, climbed to the top of the playground and said “READY?!” in unison before sliding down the double slide at the same time, and chased each other in circles around and around and around.
Eventually I did have to say that it was time to go back to the car; it was getting too cold.
But I’m so glad I let those groceries go. Because something about last night makes me think that it might – hope that it might – be one of my son’s first memories ever: just laughing with his mother in a pile of leaves in the twilight.
