It’s Halloween, my favorite holiday. The Boys have changed costumes three times a piece and have settled on a Vampire and a green army man.

We drive over to a suburban housing development 5 miles from the house as we have mostly older people near us, with no decorations out and the neighborhood is really only two blocks anyway.

   We decide to park and walk the blocks and immediately I am filled with nostalgia. Kids are SWARMING along the sidewalks but it’s more than that. It’s the young mom’s walking with strollers and toddlers. It’s the groups of friends with their beers sitting by fire pits and having potlucks in the front yard, congratulating one another on one-upping the jones’ once again in the décor department.

     I remember the last year in our home, now three years past. The last holiday with a friend who felt like family, and the heartache of her leaving us with no word, no warning. I remember lavish parties of Halloweens past, with crazy punch and festive foods that the moms would sit and enjoy as all the dad’s took the kids out. I miss the comraderie of those communities.

            And then Alan says, “ C’mon, you don’t need to wait at the driveway, lets move up the block.” And I do, for a minute. But he’s reminding me every few houses, as I slow down and wait for the boys. “Give them space, look at all the other kids their age, their parents aren’t even out here!” and he is right. Our kids don’t know anyone here yet, they only have each other for now, I know he’s right. I have to give them space, even if they are yelling the contrary to me. “Wait Mom! Why are you so far ahead?” I reassure them, I’m just ahead, just outside of the street lights, watching and waiting until they are done. But all night long, Alan has to continue to gently remind me, to move ahead, give them space. And I resent it, but I do. Because he is right.

            The next day, the kids lie on the couch in a sugar comma, so we go out without them to pick up some things. We stop at Qdoba for lunch. A lovely young family are sitting across the restaurant. They have a daughter and a son. He has just mastered the art of holding a fork and is still using the overhand grip. I laugh, mention to Alan how close that seems and yet, it’s a decade past. And I begin to say, “I hope they don’t blink, if they do they will find themselves trick or treating half a block…” but the words stick. And suddenly I am THAT woman. The middle aged, overweight crying woman trying desperately to pull it together, hide it behind sunglasses. And I say to him. “It’s not even that we held their hands too long, it was that we just looked down and realized. Realized that time was done. “

Like that car ride home, when you pull into the drive and can’t believe you are there already. You struggle to remember the minute detail, some marker of the passing time.

I’m sure this thought isn’t new, and I cringe at the cliché of the situation. But suddenly I am overwhelmed with how very very unfair it is. The early days are so long but the years so short.  And I know that I need to be more grateful of the time I have been spending with my kids, as it is more than most get. And the time was good, important, meaningful. Traveling, discovering, uncovering and learning along with them. Not just hours of mindless tv or surviving but really living our lives with them. And I have to be grateful and still, there is the sour taste, the bitter, “It’s not fair” playing along the tip of my tongue. Because it isn’t fair. I squandered so much time in those early years, just trying to survive, wondering if I was doing the right thing, trying to find the right path. Working too long for the wrong things. I heard them say, it goes quickly but I couldn’t have known. And now, now I’m afraid to blink.