Just a Season

I went ice skating today.  The first time in over ten years.  My feet hurt now; I think they've widened (or my skates got narrower in storage in grandma's basement...)
I remember the cold January afternoons, trudging across the field from my house to the frozen pond in the neighbor's horse pasture.  I was fifteen probably; my little brother ten.  Second hand skates slung over our shoulders, and maybe warped old hockey stick tangled through the laces.  We'd lace up, quickly, fingers numbing.  I'd try to figure out how to glide backwards, fast, or spin on one foot like they did so effortlessly at the Olympics.  I wasn't so effortless.  My tailbone would ache after some afternoons of hard falls.  Still, we'd be back out in another day or two.  Sometimes we'd bring shovels after an overnight snow.  Sometimes the sun warmed the top layer and we'd carve through a layer of slush around the edges.  Our boots would serve as goal posts.
I met my husband, a hockey player up through college.  We bought a house close to several rinks.  He played a few pick up games from time to time, but we got busy.  Jobs, new house projects, then I was pregnant, then the baby, then another and another and another...
Suddenly it has been more than ten years since I laced up my skates.  Maybe twelve.  And I'm pregnant again, of course.  But today was my husband's day off.  My six year old, my five year old, and my three year old convinced grandma to bring over her stash of yard-sale-find-kid skates, and to watch the two year old for an hour.  And we went to a local rink so my kids could feel ice beneath their blades for the first time.

They tell me it's just a season.  This time when the kids are small and so needy; it won't last.  But I've been hearing that for seven years.  I'll keep hearing it for at least several more.
"You'll sleep - when they're older."
"You'll have date nights - eventually."
"You'll go out shopping with your own friends - when they can be home alone."
"You'll go out for coffee - when they are all in school."
"You'll have time to do all those things you can't - when the kids are grown."

I know they're right.  I'll miss these days, the days of small things.  The cuddles, the funny quotes, the innocent giggles, the early mornings when I don't get my coffee until I've gotten everyone else dressed and fed - they won't last.  I'll reminisce.  And I'll do things on my own - like go to the bathroom without interruption - and it will be quite pleasant.  
But this season, it is somewhere between long and endless for me.  I keep having kids.  I homeschool.  I don't work outside the home.  I have a child with a handicap.  So this season, I can't treat it just like a summer or a winter that will pass with a spring thaw, or when the school bus comes to pick up the youngest for kindergarten and leaves me suddenly alone on the doorstep.  I can't look at it as an interruption to my real life. It IS my life, the fullest part.  It is not incidental.

I don't want to just endure these humble years, counting the minutes till I'm "free."  I might almost claim to have more purpose to living now than in any "season" previous to little children.  There are moments it feels like diapers will never end; when their bedtime can't come soon enough for me to get to the quiet "me" time after it; when I can't imagine life beyond Cheerios under the table.  But I'm not living each of these moments just to pass the time until I can take up my "real" life again.  This is it.    
It is true I can't do everything while I have little ankle biters.  But I couldn't do everything even when I had no kids.  So instead of considering all the things I'm unable to do, it is time to get creative to figure out what I can.
I always used the excuse that I was too pregnant or had a little one so I couldn't go ice skating.  I can't carry a baby around the ice safely, and if I fall hard, it could be damaging for the bun in the oven.  But I'm always pregnant, and I always have a little one.  So today, grandma happily watched the 2 year old at nap time.  And I was always holding a little someone's hand on the ice so a tumble involving dangerous speed or force was more unlikely than getting in an accident in the car on the way to the rink.
It was fun.  It wasn't like it was fifteen years ago, but I don't want to go back in time and miss the joy on my five year old's face as daddy guided him all the way around the rink.  Or the three year old's excitement when the zamboni past the glass just inches from his upturned face.  Or the sparkle in my husband's eye as he grabbed my hand and told the six year old to take a picture of us on this long awaited "skate date."

No, I can't just sleep in whenever I want these days.  I can't just take a long road trip (the potty breaks would be maddening).  I can't just stay out late with friends.  I can't just live for myself.
That's good.  Enough with the "I can'ts."  I can live for others.  I can do a lot of stuff that I don't consider when I treat this as "just a season."
This is life.  Time I figured out how to live it fully.  And see if I can cajole a foot rub out of my very sweet husband.
We'll just have to see if I can manage that.