This morning I had a random but startling revelation. I was dropping Jacob off at school, and as I looked at the front door I had a flashback to last June. I was coming out of school--possibly after his field trip on his birthday, which was the last full day--and all of the graduating 5th graders were coming into the school together, maybe after a ceremony elsewhere. Or maybe there were just a lot coming into school first thing in the morning, and you could tell who they were because they were dressed up. Regardless...it hit me at that moment that Jacob would be one of them in another year. It felt blissfully far away at that point, even though I knew that the year would inevitably go so fast. And sure enough, this morning it hit me that in about three months, that year will be over and he'll be done at that school. In fact, three months from today he'll be turning 11! It seems like yesterday that we were playing on the school playground right before he was starting there as a third grader. The same thing happened with the three years at his last school--from Kindergarten to the second grade moving up ceremony, just like that. And yes, I know it'll be the same for Carter. We just got our next-to-last report card for both kids, so we're two-thirds of the way through the year. I know Carter has come a long way, but I can barely believe we're here already.
I freaked out even more this morning when I realized how fast three months can go. I figured out that three months ago we were preparing for Christmas, and that doesn't seem like that long ago at all. The first few months of the year typically drag because of the weather and a general lack of highlights aside from Carter's birthday. But I suppose this year, between the surgery and all of Jacob's sports, things have kept moving right along. So in that same amount of time moving forward from now, we'll be at the end of the school year, in the thick of the awesome summer weather, and prepping for a very big year for Jacob. Crazy. It's going to be here so fast!
Mind you, the weather is still making it feel like we're in the thick of winter. It was over 50 today on the first day of spring, but it's snowed pretty much every day this week, and after a two-day respite we'll be back at it Friday and into next week. It'll be April before we get any decent weather, apparently. Easter is late this year, too, so I feel a bit like we're all just sitting here waiting for spring in any form, and by the time those triggers get here, we'll practically be launching head-first into summer. Whenever I think about April being 10 days away and realize that we've done absolutely nothing spring-ish because of the weather, I get a little nervous about how quickly it's going to happen when it finally does--and I'll have to change out closets and fill Easter baskets and clean out the flower beds all at the same time. I know that once the good weather hits, we'll be keeping busy outdoors on weekends and have more activities going on, and time is going to fly even faster. Of course, yesterday I had the realization that we never really played in the snow this year--mostly because it either melted too fast or the weather was too cold or windy to stay out and enjoy it--and I quietly bemoaned the loss of memories that were never made. They're only little once, and we only get so many winters to play.
Lately I've had a lot of those moments where I see an old picture of Jacob or think about something he did and realize that Carter is now way older than Jacob was in that moment. Carter definitely seems younger than Jacob--his size, baby face, and laid-back personality all contribute--but when I think that at this age Jacob had already been playing youth lacrosse for over a year, or that Carter's only a couple months shy of a year older than Jacob was when we went to Disney, it blows my mind. We're planning on signing Carter up for martial arts at some point soon, so I won't feel like we're so behind on the organized sports thing. With Jacob, getting him into sports was a priority, but Carter is so much more laid back that it fell off the radar a bit. Sometimes I feel like we get so busy with daily life that we forget how on-the-ball we may have been with something years ago when we had less to juggle. Funny how priorities can shift, I guess...or maybe I'm just that tired.
Speaking of lacrosse, this Friday will be Jacob's last house lacrosse game, maybe ever. He's more than ready to quit the sport entirely, but he has to slog through another few months of travel since we're already paid up for that. He's gone through three complete house seasons now without a win (Friday should not change that), and it's definitely taken its toll. Add in not getting playing time over the summer and then not making his same travel team, and it's pretty clear that any confidence he had is gone. It's just not fun anymore (not that "fun" is really in his vocabulary for sports, per my previous post), but it's still a sad end of an era. Five and a half years of time and money and effort...and while I'm sure he learned a lot along the way, it all feels a bit empty now. I really thought he'd play lacrosse forever...or at least into young adulthood. That's what made all of our efforts worth it--we were building something important and long-lasting. And maybe someday he'll go back, but I very much doubt it. Basketball has taken over, seemingly forever (again), but with a very competitive high school team in his future, who knows where that will go? Either it'll go well, or we'll find ourselves in a very similar situation in a few years when this sport loses its luster. Let's hope not, though.
Anyway, time is flying by. The days are long but the years are short, as they say. Daily life keeps us busy and I find myself wishing away time to get through work, only to struggle through tough evenings with the boys and a house full of chores. Rinse, repeat, and hope for the weekend. But all that wishing away is dangerous. I remember a story in a book I once read (in the context of physical purity in a pre-marital relationship) about a magic ball where you could pull out a string to fast-forward time. The person in the story used it to forward through the "boring" parts, but suddenly they found themselves with no more string and life was over. They had missed so much of life because those insignificant moments actually added up to something significant. I feel like that's my problem right now, too, so I'm trying to appreciate our family moments when I can--the few peaceful ones we have, anyway. It's all going fast enough even without a magic string, and I know it won't be slowing down anytime soon. I just need to settle in and enjoy the ride.
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