I’ve been here 9 months. My parents’ home no longer feels like my own. This is now home, my place, my own. We get home from work, from daycare, from school. The backpacks lay on the floor as the kids settle into their home routine. Homework is checked, videos are played, cards are scattered on the table from the game we played the night before. Dinner is done, and we sit and eat leftovers that used to be spaghetti sauce and is now transformed into Sloppy Joes. One kid makes a valiant attempt to eat it, letting most of it land in the trash. The other asks for seconds. Dishes are cleared, yet the mess remains in the kitchen as we pick up the game we left the night before in an attempt to finish it. It doesn’t happen. Again. But lessons are taught on winning and losing, and doing so with grace. I’m not sure if it will be ever learned. But the lessons continue. We curl up on the couch to watch the next installments from our favorite TV show we are furiously trying to catch up on. And time drifts away as we allow one more. Just one more. Maybe another one. Please let’s watch to the end? Only if you promise to get up ok in the morning. Both kids curled up to me, looking to me for safety from the suspense of the show. Both with eyes closed shut and laughter in their throat. I let one curl up against me, his little fingers playing with mine as he leans into me, tired but not quite ready for bed. But the show does end. And bedtime was an hour earlier. They make me go up the stairs with them. Did you brush your teeth? They swear they did with sly grins on their faces. I check their toothbrushes. They’re wet. They’re giggling. It’s so hard to know if they are fibbing these days. I tell them I’ve decided to trust them as they giggle and swear that their teeth are clean. I give each the mom look and a kiss goodnight, turning out the light on my way out. I leave my bedroom light on as their safety until I get back upstairs. The mess still remains downstairs, slightly picked up from their halfhearted cleanup. I step over it and out to my backyard. An orange cat slinks back under the fence, probably sniffing at the apples that are rotting on the ground. The tree already has blossoms, only buds right now but holding the promise of white puffs in a few days time. It is the sign of spring, the time when everything wakes up from the long winter and suddenly becomes alive again. And all I can think of is that I never cleared the leaves that are still littered under the tree, along with a few apples I would rather not touch. If this is mine, I should really make it mine, clean it up, plant something pretty. Soon. The kids will be gone next weekend, spending time with their other grandparents, giving me a momentary lapse from motherhood. And all I want to do is spend it alone in a quiet house. Yet here I am now. Alone. In a quiet house. I have the time to clean it up, make it enjoyable, make it so I can actually relax at night. I go back in the house and the kitchen reminds me of my promise to fill the dishwasher. I settle into the sink, rinsing glass after dish after fork, putting each one away in its spot. Then I start on the pots. One still holds the remains from dinner. And I go back and forth about whether to save it or not. I hate to waste it. But since it has been sitting for so long, the garbage wins out. But rather than put it in the trash, I take it out on my garbage disposal instead. The sink turns orange and fills with water as the meat clogs the drain. I run the disposal, spraying it with water until it swallows everything that wasn’t eaten. It’s gone. And I’m done. I just want to sit, enjoy the silence, maybe share it with a little Jack Johnson. And I settle back into my routine of being on my own, accepting this place I’m at. It’s ok. I’m ok. And I brush away the questions that still remain, letting them flit away as quickly as they came. I have my place. I have my family. We have a certain way of doing things. It would be awful if anything changed that. Am I right? Yes, I’m right. I’m right, aren’t I? Aren’t I?

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