It is quiet in the morning as I unload the dishes. There is enough light to make it seem like it is later than it actually is. A deer is cavorting in my yard. The vegetation looks sinfully lush. A baby deer gambols outside the fence waiting for the mother. Amid the greenery, I spy one tree with yellowing leaves and my heart sinks. I shake my head and return to my dishes. I try to shake the yellow off my head but it is stuck, reminding me that this lovely warm weather will soon give way to cool and then the cold weather.

A couple of hours later, I am treated to a rather harsh rant from one of my older children about how controlling I am. In all the anger and accusations, there are nuggets of truth that hit hard. I am quiet when it unfolds, listening, recording in my head for me to replay in silence.

The rest of the day is a series of chores that seems unending. It is when I am folding clothes, where my hands do the needful without the need for my head to interfere, I go back to the morning. The yellow leaves from the morning seems like a premonition of impending change. Change that I don’t enjoy. Each year I dread the cold season, often longing for and counting down to the Winter solstice so that the light can return to my life.

The outburst from the morning feels like that single yellow leaf fluttering to the ground in the midst of verdant greenery. It is a marker of what lies ahead. I tell myself that the greens give way to yellows and the yellows to bare trees and come spring, the leaves come back. All I have to do is be patient and wait and steel myself for the exorable change headed my way.

Parenting Reflections Identity Motherhood Musings Reflections Teenage