Time

It's 10:20 Sunday morning and the house is quiet except for the sounds of the white noise machine raining in the babies' room. I feel like I've been awake for half a day already. I put them down for a nap and tip-toed out out of the house, off to Peet's to get some coffee and breathe on my own for a few minutes. My husband and I keep different hours, more so lately. He is up until very late, fixing the many broken things in our new house, putting away boxes of random stuff that we carted (well, he carted) from the old house to the new. He likes to sleep in as late as he can. I get up with the kids usually between six and seven and try to be in bed by ten so the feeling of being shot from a cannon directly into the center ring of a circus isn't quite so difficult in the mornings. I've never been a sleeper-inner. It usually doesn't take me long to snap into the day, awake and alert. It's different with babies because I go from asleep to being very needed and very not in control. Since they were born I've often thought of waking up earlier to give myself some "me" time--to write or to meditate, or realistically to check Facebook and read blogs. The few times I've set the alarm it's gone off and I've groggily debated getting up, only to sink back into sweet warm blankets, choosing to spend my "me" time asleep.

Time is funny. I sneaked out of the house and drove the mile to Peet's, driving around the block first to re-trace the steps we took with the stroller and the dog, searching for the soft, little brown shoe that fell off somewhere during our walk this morning. Found it. Drove on, feeling how different it feels to be alone in a car. Different even than driving with sleeping babies in the car. The quiet is different.

Everything feels different on my own. I can park wherever I want, not thinking about loading two babies into the double-stroller or trying to carry two carriers inside. It doesn't matter how long the line is. I can look around, eaves-drop or space out without paying attention to the two little people with me. It's stolen time and it's sharp and sweet.

I got my latte in a ceramic cup and scored a table. I sat down to write an anniversary card to my husband
--43 months together. The anniversary of our first date, when we shyly met outside a sushi restaurant after exchanging some promising emails. Three years and seven months.

Met in 2010
Engaged in 2011
Married in 2012
Welcomed our babies in 2013
Preparing to welcome two more babies in 2014

Holy moly. That's a lot. It feels like a lot.

I wrote my card and drank my latte. Got back in line to get a cup of coffee for my man. By this time I was feeling like I'd been gone too long, that I'd come home to everyone awake and cranky. I told myself I was allowed to leave, allowed to take a moment.

I drove home and opened the door to silence. Two peacefully sleeping babies. A sleeping husband. A dog who greeted me anxiously as she doesn't care or can't tell whether I've been gone five minutes or five hours--it's always an eternity.

I reclaimed myself in an hour, with coffee and people-watching and solitude. Time is a funny thing.