Magic

I'm riding the train home from work, it's late (to me) and cold (to everyone). It's a week before Christmas, so the trains fill with local tourists and families traveling to and from the city for the tree viewings and store front wandering and fine dining and magic of the big city.

It's a packed train, including a family of four who resort to standing in the galley. A mother, a father, and two children. A son and a daughter. I overhear the children talking about finals and advisers and "friends from home" they  hope to see "over break." And I place them at about 18 and 20 years old. Their youth so evident in the combination of his baby face and broad shoulders, in her stylish clothes and long ponytail.

In a flash, I imagine myself there. I imagine myself that mother. I have college aged children whom my husband and I take into the city for a nice dinner for the holiday. And I have children that stay up past 7pm and talk to each other and know how long the ride is on the semi-express from Grand Central. It feels like the light at the end of this proverbial long tunnel of early parenthood. Of this tunnel, filled with screaming tantrums and whining and testing boundaries and exhaustion and early mornings.

But then I come back to myself, sitting on the train, heading home. To my cozy home with my family of four. To my 3 year old and almost 1 year old. To my son who is just starting to not scream while getting his hair cut and who believes in magical reindeer that fly Santa. To my daughter who is learning to sign for what she wants and is endlessly fascinated by pushing buttons.

And I can appreciate that that mother, with her college aged children and late dinners, might be just slightly jealous of my children, with their dirty hands and plastic toys. Her children may be able to sit and take turns on Christmas morning, while mine tear into the packages with wild abandon. But oh, how mine still believe in the magic! And while I envy her ability to sleep past 6am and pee alone, I wonder if she misses the best parts of this stage I feel like might never end.

So I'm sitting there, on the train, in what feels like a very middle vantage point. I lust after the young adult children who can care for themselves and I yearn after my innocent babies who remind me that giving is so much better than receiving. And I realize this is it. These moments are all I get. And it is hard to fully appreciate in the midst, and it is hard not to romanticize the past. But damn if I'm not doing the very best I can and loving these children each day.

I'm walking to my car and imagining his face on  Christmas morning when he sees the one toy for which he asked Santa. I appreciate that one day he may be riding on the train talking about "friends from home" and "over break," but I will have this memory. Of him, his face, when he finds confirmation that magic happens.