How Many Moons in Your Family?

For the last six years, my life has looked like this.

Graduate from law school one day, get married the next.  Gestate, lactate.  (Jonah)  Gestate, lose baby, mourn slightly.  Gestate, lactate.  (Samuel)  Gestate, lose baby, mourn slightly.  Twice.  Gestate, lactate.  (Catherine).  That brings us up to about six months ago, when Catherine fired me and took up with soy formula.  She now eats like a lumberjack, but I digress.

In those six years, my opportunities to get away by myself have been rare, and often occurred while pregnant, so weren't a truly 'free' experience.  Nevertheless, I grasped at those chances eagerly.  I could not get away fast enough, and did not look back.  I know.  I am a horrible person. 

Well, last weekend, I did it again.  I left Friday, came back Sunday.  No husband, no children, and this time, no gestating.  I could not get away fast enough.  I left and did not look back.  And then, Friday evening, as I sat alone in silence, enjoying the warm sun on my face as it set behind a lovely cops of redwood trees, it hit me.  I missed my children. 

Up until six months ago, my relationships with my children had been (serially) parasitic.  But, now that none of them need me for there physical survival from one hour to the next, I have been able to develop more personal, emotional relationships with them.  And, since not exhausted from the gestation/lactation cycle, I have had the opportunity to deepen my relationship with my husband.  For the first time, I missed them all.

Don't get me wrong.  I was not ready to turn around and go home or anything.  I needed the break, and I didn't feel guilty about taking it.  But, I did feel a little unbalanced.  Like a planet without my sun or my moons.  My gravity was amiss and my tides unpredictable. 

I came home to four smiling faces that were happy to see me.  I am settling into the idea that Hubband and I have built, and are a part of, something bigger than ourselves.  I think it is called a family.