The change of seasons from summer into fall and winter has always been a time that stirs up nostalgia in me.
This is the season of preparing for holiday celebrations, and I feel nostalgic for a whole series of small, one-off memories of otherwise long-forgotten or even insignificant moments from childhood Thanksgiving and Christmas preparations.
This is the season of college Christmasfest rehearsals, and I feel nostalgic for choir memories, for college moments, and for the days when there was the perfect mix of of alone time time, quiet space, and coming-of-age introspection.
In recent years, this is the season of saying the long goodbye to my father, which evokes a different sense of nostalgia, laden with a lot of "what ifs" and "if we had only knowns." And so this is also a season where I feel nostalgic for all memories of my dad and all the things that I associate with him - food (especially holiday meals and treats), music (especially holiday music), and family memories (especially all of our accumulated family traditions).
As if that all weren't plenty of nostalgia to keep my head and heart occupied, this is also a season of nostalgia for my pregnancies and my births.
Sam is about to turn four. Ellie is closing in on one year.
Three years apart, the turn from fall toward winter has been a season of late-pregnancy, of feeling babies squirm in my belly, of making endless preparations for the newest members of our family.
Yesterday, I was visiting two church members in the hospital, and passed by the maternity ward on my way to their rooms. My heart immediately flashed back to the feelings of meeting my tiny babies for the first time, the feelings of anticipation, the feelings of loving possessiveness for these new children that were mine to care for and mine to love.
It is funny how my heart can associate a bland, boring hospital wing with everything good and beautiful and joyous. It is funny how my heart can spin two abnormally long post-birth hospital stays into some magical time where the world only truly existed in the comings and goings and protected space of a hospital room.
I think that I feel such an intense nostalgia for this because our journey to parenthood was so long and bumpy. When Sam was born, there was the excitement of finally having a baby in our arms...but also a certain finality. Because we knew that it might be just as hard or impossible to have another.
And then when Ellie was born, again, that excitement of having a second baby! And a girl, at that (to make for an unexpected match set)! But also that same immediate grief of knowing that this might be it for us.
Every time we start talking about future plans, we postpone the conversation to a later date. My heart doesn't know what it wants right now. I don't know what my body thinks (or what my doctor thinks). Ellie is way too young for us to be worried about the question anytime soon, and life is busy-on-the-edge-of-crazy right now, so the idea of a third child in the house is a pretty hilarious one right now.
But the truth is that we will, at some point, need to make the decision, one way or the other. And it is entirely possible that the decision is "no." It is also entirely possible that even if our decision is "yes," that bad luck will overrule us and say "no" for us.
And so when late fall brings me back to memories of pregnant anticipation and birth and new motherhood, there is beauty in those memories, but also grief. There is an intense longing to get back into that emotional space, as if I could go back in time, just for a few moments, to experience all over again those new and beautiful feelings.
Instead, I will imprint on my heart today the feelings of having an almost-four-year-old spontaneously say, "Mama, I love you. Even when you are far away, I still love you. No matter what, I still love you." And the feelings of a ten-month old giggling and crawling as fast as she can across her classroom floor to get into my arms when I pick her up.
And let me tell you. Those are pretty amazing feelings. Enough - more than enough - to fill up my heart to overflowing, especially in this most tender time of year.
This is the season of preparing for holiday celebrations, and I feel nostalgic for a whole series of small, one-off memories of otherwise long-forgotten or even insignificant moments from childhood Thanksgiving and Christmas preparations.
This is the season of college Christmasfest rehearsals, and I feel nostalgic for choir memories, for college moments, and for the days when there was the perfect mix of of alone time time, quiet space, and coming-of-age introspection.
In recent years, this is the season of saying the long goodbye to my father, which evokes a different sense of nostalgia, laden with a lot of "what ifs" and "if we had only knowns." And so this is also a season where I feel nostalgic for all memories of my dad and all the things that I associate with him - food (especially holiday meals and treats), music (especially holiday music), and family memories (especially all of our accumulated family traditions).
As if that all weren't plenty of nostalgia to keep my head and heart occupied, this is also a season of nostalgia for my pregnancies and my births.
Sam is about to turn four. Ellie is closing in on one year.
Three years apart, the turn from fall toward winter has been a season of late-pregnancy, of feeling babies squirm in my belly, of making endless preparations for the newest members of our family.
Yesterday, I was visiting two church members in the hospital, and passed by the maternity ward on my way to their rooms. My heart immediately flashed back to the feelings of meeting my tiny babies for the first time, the feelings of anticipation, the feelings of loving possessiveness for these new children that were mine to care for and mine to love.
It is funny how my heart can associate a bland, boring hospital wing with everything good and beautiful and joyous. It is funny how my heart can spin two abnormally long post-birth hospital stays into some magical time where the world only truly existed in the comings and goings and protected space of a hospital room.
I think that I feel such an intense nostalgia for this because our journey to parenthood was so long and bumpy. When Sam was born, there was the excitement of finally having a baby in our arms...but also a certain finality. Because we knew that it might be just as hard or impossible to have another.
And then when Ellie was born, again, that excitement of having a second baby! And a girl, at that (to make for an unexpected match set)! But also that same immediate grief of knowing that this might be it for us.
Every time we start talking about future plans, we postpone the conversation to a later date. My heart doesn't know what it wants right now. I don't know what my body thinks (or what my doctor thinks). Ellie is way too young for us to be worried about the question anytime soon, and life is busy-on-the-edge-of-crazy right now, so the idea of a third child in the house is a pretty hilarious one right now.
But the truth is that we will, at some point, need to make the decision, one way or the other. And it is entirely possible that the decision is "no." It is also entirely possible that even if our decision is "yes," that bad luck will overrule us and say "no" for us.
And so when late fall brings me back to memories of pregnant anticipation and birth and new motherhood, there is beauty in those memories, but also grief. There is an intense longing to get back into that emotional space, as if I could go back in time, just for a few moments, to experience all over again those new and beautiful feelings.
Instead, I will imprint on my heart today the feelings of having an almost-four-year-old spontaneously say, "Mama, I love you. Even when you are far away, I still love you. No matter what, I still love you." And the feelings of a ten-month old giggling and crawling as fast as she can across her classroom floor to get into my arms when I pick her up.
And let me tell you. Those are pretty amazing feelings. Enough - more than enough - to fill up my heart to overflowing, especially in this most tender time of year.
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