Waving Good-bye

It is 6:00 p.m. and Paul just left for racquetball at a local community center. I stood up from the computer which is on my desk to wave good-bye. Waving good-bye is a tradition at our house and if I am at home I make sure I am at the window or door to wave to whomever is leaving. Over twenty years ago I wrote a few lines about that when Cherlyn left for school one morning.

I centered myself at the window
Watching my seven-year old
Skipping and smiling, then out of sight…

I thought at the time as she skipped down the street with her pigtails bouncing how our home was the center of the universe for her. She would return just as the other five would. The time would come though when friends and outside activities would beckon. Three have left and now their new homes have become the center of the universe. For Clark and Phil our home is still the center and for Paul and me. We spent the past six days in Chicago for fragile X meetings and now we are home and centered. The first day back after being away implants within me mixed emotions. I am grateful to be home safely and with my family again and yet I am easily annoyed by so many interruptions and noise and “Stop calling me names...” and "My sweats have a hole." (Put them in the black hole normally called the laundry room.) and "I'm telling." The silence in the study is wonderful and soothes me while Cherlyn is doing dishes (I fixed dinner, Phil helped set and clear the table and Clark will unload the dishwasher). I know the TV is on because I can hear Philip whooping and hollering and I feel guilty that I’m allowing it right now but I want to be alone until Paul returns. Then it will be time for me to cut hair while we watch something together and that is always good.