Have you ever had a moment when Life just sneaks up and wallops you? It’s like you are chugging along, knowing that everything isn’t perfect or whatever, but, still, you’re getting “it” done. You are in a place where you feel like you can coast along and that you have everything under control, when, suddenly … WHAMM-O!! Some little, seemingly innocuous something grabs your attention and brings up All The Feels.
This happened to me a couple of months ago, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. It was such a little thing, but isn’t that the way of Life sometimes? It’s those little things that can, somehow, bring up the biggest and most unexpected feelings. My husband and I were sitting in a restaurant near our home, chatting about nothing in particular. And this family with a little girl happened to walk by. The little girl was, probably, around 2 or 3 years old, and she was the most adorable little doll. She had that sassy kind of toddler walk happening, and blonde hair in two little “twin tails”. She was clinging to her mama’s hand with one hand and carrying her favorite stuffy in the other.
I can’t explain it, but seeing that little girl brought out All The Feels for me. One second, I’m sitting at the table, chatting away with my hubby. The next second, I have tears rolling down my cheeks and can’t talk for the huge frog stuck in my throat. And, of course, my husband thought I had lost my mind. And I could not explain it to him.
In that moment, it was like a dozen years and more of memories and emotions and longing jumped right up and bit me on the nose. It’s not like this little girl even looked like my daughter did at that age. But there was just something about her — the way she walked, the sassy way her “twin tails” flipped around as she passed by our table, the way she clung equally tightly to mama’s hand and her stuffy — it just reminded me so much of my daughter at that same age. And I felt the strongest feeling of longing and regret. Y’all — I miss those little kid years. I miss them so, so, sooo hard. Maybe it’s because I only got to experience them one time, since my daughter is an only. That wasn’t my plan, but it’s the way things worked out for me. As I said, it was a longing that sprang up inside me in that moment, and it was so strong it took the breath right out of me. You can tell I am struggling to explain it, even now, after I’ve had time to ruminate over all of it.
Which leads me, round-robin, right back to the title of this post: the Time Machine. Do you ever wish you had a time machine? It wouldn’t have to be anything elaborate with bells and whistles and sirens or anything like that. In fact, it would be even better if it didn’t have any of those trappings — just a simple something that lets you slip through the stream of Time and quietly land in a place where things were easier or more simple or just, somehow, better. Because the thing about Time and Life is that you can be right smack in the middle of something you will long for later with your entire being, but you don’t even realize at that moment. At the moment you are in the midst of it, everything seems so, so, so hard, and all you can think about is how to keep moving forward so you can get through it. It’s like you’re so busy just getting through it that you don’t take the time to slow down enough to look around you and see the beauty of it all.
That’s how it was for me, during those little kid years. Life was hard, y’all. I basically was a single parent because of my husband’s work. He worked crazy law firm hours and had to travel a lot for work and for conferences and for client development. Do not get me wrong. This is not a dig at my husband at all. He was working hard to support us and give our daughter every advantage. He traveled and worked those hours for us, and I will always admire him and be grateful to him for that. But knowing the reasons behind the long hours and days or weeks away from home doesn’t make it less lonely when you are the one left behind to handle all the home things. I had given up my own career to stay home. I had some small, closely guarded hopes of penning the novel I had always dreamed of. (For what it’s worth, I did first drafts of two novels. But never managed to make it farther than that.) But, overall, I felt very down about myself and my life. Pregnancy and childbirth did a number on my body. I gained weight that I could not take off, no matter how little I ate or how much I exercised. In a part of the country where you are judged by what you do for a living, I presented little to no value to those around me. I was not of interest when I accompanied my husband to work functions or bar gatherings, so I faded into the background. I didn’t have any friends. My family was far away. I struggled with depression and PTSD from my own childhood traumas, which was triggered by having my daughter. Life was just … a lot.
You would think that, if I had a time machine, those years would be the last ones I would want to revisit. And yet, when I think about all of those hours and days and months and years of “little kid” time, I don’t think about my own sadness, loneliness, or struggles. Instead, I hear my little girl laughing in my memory. I hear her excitedly calling me to look at some new thing she found: “Mama! Mama! Come see! I find this!” I feel those little, chubby arms around my neck, hugging me so, so, so tight. I see her running from room to room, squealing in delight as we play “hide and seek”. I feel her little butterfly kisses against my cheek. And I think to myself: “Yep. Life was pretty perfect right then.”
The reality is that the years I lived then and the years I have lived since then make me the person I am today. And they make my daughter the person she is today. Am I a good person at all? Or a great person? Or do I have any chance of achieving goodness or greatness in my life? I have no idea. But my daughter is an amazing person. She is such a beautiful soul. She is wise about herself and about life. And I think she will do good things in life. Will they be good things to the entire world at large? I have no idea. But she will do good things for those around her. She already makes a difference in her corner of the universe, and, often, shining that light into the corners you can reach makes all the difference.
So the truth is that I wouldn’t travel in my time machine to change anything. The choices I made back then were hard, and I am still paying for them, to a certain extent. And I would not want to change the person I am or the person my daughter is. But I would like to take that time machine back to hear the little kid laughter, to feel those tight, tight hugs and those sweet, butterfly kisses just one more time. And, maybe, if I went back in time, I would tell myself to slow down a little bit and to savor all the sweetness around me.
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