September 2013

Although over a week has come to pass since ringing in the new year, the shadows of 2013 still linger. In that darkness, I peer into the mistakes of yester-year. 2013 shall remain an unforgettable year for me.

September marked the beginning of a new school year, the second for my eldest son and the first for his younger brother. I was excited! Somehow, someway, I was now a mother of not one, but two school-aged children. The days of diapers and bottles, of sippy cups and strollers, onesies, breast-feeding and breast-pads, braxton hicks and contractions; somehow those days were behind me and the time had finally come, the one my mother had promised would mark the end of the struggles and troubles of being a stay-at-home mom. The day that I could bathe before my precious little ones, the day that the dishes and the laundry and the fur and the toothpaste wouldn't pile up. The day that I could wake up and just be Patricia again. I wouldn't be the drill sergeant barking at the crumbs on the floor and counter, I wouldn't be the nagging wife who complained about the beard clippings around the sink.  Don't get me wrong, I love them dearly and they mean the absolute world to me, but the gray hairs, they don't lie... and they began to grow with a fury.

But apparently no one else received the memo my mom told me about.
Things weren't getting better...they were already on their way to getting worse. I knew that the "happily ever after" wasn't coming.

Years before, my husband and I spoke of plans to celebrate our ten year anniversary together in September 2013. Gradually the date got nearer and nearer, but as the day came and went, not a word was mentioned. The silence of that day was nothing compared to the emphatic noise the year had become.


TBC