Shedding the Sweater

I don't really want to shed it. This sweater of raising young children. I say it's like a sweater because it's warm and enveloping..comforting and constant- itchy and foreign and red-faced frustrating at times, but so near and surrounding. I've been needed, life or death needed! I've had a steady job that i will always love...and grown stronger. They've tugged at my sleeve and made me laugh, cuz the Lord knows, there's no time to cry. It's been hands on and wonderfully worrisome. My heart cares cavern -deep for these creatures. I've been less lonely, dancing in this spacious place with the delights of my heart. They've become my home, but i won't always be theirs, and this is hard. and this is good.

These boys keep growing. My mama- job keeps changing. 

 I'm in mourning, I'm feeling excitement...i'm naked and unsure what to put on after sweater season. The boys venture greater lengths away from my side. I am taking deeper breaths, releasing their fingertips reluctantly so they can become the little men they are supposed to be. 

Fumbling towards my own heart again...i can hear it's familiar rhythm rising louder. Beating old desires and rhythms that have hibernated. Winter has passed and i'm waking again. I've changed. Our marriage has changed... Who are we now?  It's as if i took on the heartbeat of this home over the years, it being the loudest, and began to march along with it..and help set it's pulse. As the house grew louder and the kids tugged at my sleeve more frequently. My own beat grew quieter and quieter. I was lulled to sleep in some ways..(  at times not without fight and tears and wrestle.) Alas, I became less and it became more. As it should. and it is good. This painful loosing of myself..this falling deeper in love -easy as a breeze, until here i am: forever in love and forced to wear something new.