Seasonings

“The days are long, but the years are short”

I was REALLY hoping to be announcing my book tour today, but we are still waiting on a few final details. It’s fine. I can be patient. I am the most patient. Actually, I’m losing my mind but it’s fine. Sooo, instead of a post about the tour you are going to have to settle for some of my random musings on this season of life.

Every season comes with its own challenges, especially when parenting is involved, and this one feels particularly messy: A barbie doll is thrown in with baseball cleats and sheet music, we have several different careers pulling us in opposite directions, and there are socks and snack crumbs everywhere. In so many ways this feels more like the life I envisioned when Jackson was a baby than any life I’ve imagined since. Is it possible that after a decade of detours we’re back on that once familiar life path?

Detours makes those years seem accidental and while I didn’t choose them per say, they  did become the most formative and pivotal of my life. But also, how did we end up back in the same New Jersey town, with a son and daughter, and with Miguel once again in the baseball business.

For those that may not know, before Miguel was cast as Hamilton, he was considering leaving Broadway behind and investing more time and energy in a business he had started teaching 4-6 year olds the basics of baseball. He has now started teaching those same classes again, but at the batting cages we co-own.

You might even call it a full circle moment… if the circle was bent to look like a roller coaster track. And if one of the passengers riding the train fell out (Adelaide) and then another came on board (Anessa).

Speaking of which, this fall will mark four years of being Anessa’s mommy and daddy. Only four years, yet it feels like she has been with us forever. I haven’t shared much about our journey with Anessa recently and that is in part because I wish to protect her. Not for her safety, exactly but because it feels unfair to share her truths before she fully understands them.

She is starting to ask more questions though and that comes with its own challenges.

This summer, Miguel took Anessa to a nearby playground and within moments she had made a new friend. Instead of swinging, sliding, and climbing, though Miguel noticed that she and this little girl were spending quite a lot of time chatting. When it came time to leave the playground Miguel asked Anessa what they had been speaking about.

Anessa was quiet for a moment before asking Miguel, “are you and mommy my real mommy and daddy? My new friend said that you aren’t”.

Had I been the parent Anessa asked, I would have said something like “of course we are!” Before asking for more details about their conversation while mentally tearing down the little girl and her guardian with words I would never actually utter in real life.

Miguel took a less emotional approach.

“Well, what makes someone a real mommy or daddy?” He asked.

Together they decided it was someone who takes care of you, feeds you, loves you, and buys you the things you need. Interestingly, at no point in the discussion did Anessa bring up anything biological. We have talked about how babies grow in a mommy’s tummy and that she was in her other mommy’s tummy. Though every now and then she will still try to insist that once upon a time she was in my tummy. As if hoping, maybe this time, I will change the story.

“No, Anessa, you came to live with us after you were in your other mommy’s tummy. When you were two.”

“I know, I know, I just don’t remember any of that.”

As Anessa’s understanding grows, and Jackson physically grows, it is easy to feel like, in this season of life, beginnings and endings are occurring all at once. With every beat of my heart, I can already feel the clock counting down to Jackson’s departure for college. Which is still five years away and already too close for comfort. Meanwhile, Anessa is only a first grader and if Adelaide were alive she would be turning ten in a couple weeks.

Life chugs along, seasons pass, detours are taken, and (apparently) old timelines can be rejoined. This season may be messy, both figuratively and literally, but I know I will look back on it fondly. Minus the crumbs and stray socks. I won’t miss those.

ID: Jackson, Anessa, Miguel, and Kelly all smiling at the camera in front of an apple tree.