Reclaiming space

If I took everything out of my life, what would I put back in?

It’s Thursday afternoon. It has been forty degrees since morning. The younger boys are still at school for their music lessons, but the other three are on their way home. I’m working in the front room with the shutters closed and the air conditioning on full blast, and I feel bad as I think about the older boys sweating in the stifling heat on the crowded buses.

My twelve year old, Jake, is the first one back. He looks like he’s been melting all day. You okay? I ask, with a sympathetic grin on my face. Yeah…the school let us take our ties off. Pip is the next to return. He wanders down the hallway to see me, and he looks shell-shocked. Hey there, I say. Hi mum… don’t worry, I only untucked my shirt in the garage. I chuckle as he drags himself to the kitchen to unpack his bag. Ten minutes later, I hear Andy’s footsteps coming up the driveway, so I open the garage door before he knocks. He, too, is drenched in sweat. I join the three of them in the kitchen. Jake makes Milo drinks for everyone, and we chat about their sweltering day at school. 

‘The teachers let us take off our ties today,’ Jake reiterates. ‘And they opened up the sports centre at lunchtime since they closed the oval,’ Pip adds.

‘What about you, Andy?’ I ask. ‘What did you do at recess and lunchtime?’

‘I went to the library,‘ he replies, gulping down his Milo. ‘It was very full…’ 

‘How was your day, mum?’ Pip asks as he puts his cup in the sink.

‘It was good. Went to church, had Bible study, helped at playgroup, came home, and worked the rest of the day.’

‘Did you miss us?’ one of them asks with a grin.

‘Always. It’s good to have you guys back. Welcome home!’

Later, as they trundle up the stairs, I hear one of them call out.

‘Welcome to us, mum!’

___

It is Friday morning. The last day of the fifth week of school. 

I’ve just come home from my morning walk, and I’m sitting on the bench in the garage next to my youngest son, Lenny. The older three have already left to catch their various buses. Lenny’s tying his shoe laces, and I’m about to untie mine. Out on the driveway, Ewan is slathering sunscreen on his face and neck and using the car window as a quasi-mirror. 

‘Sorry, mum, but I got sunscreen on the car,’ he calls out.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I say.

‘I guess the car won’t get sunburnt there,’ Lenny quips. All three of us chuckle.

Lenny pauses, then asks, ‘Do birds ever get sunburnt?’

‘Mmmm, I don’t think so,’ I reply. ‘Their feathers must protect them from the sun.’

‘What about dogs? Do dogs ever get skin cancer and die?’

I ponder this for a moment. ‘I don’t know about skin cancer specifically, but according to all the James Herriott books I’ve been reading, it does sound like dogs do get cancer and die from it…’

‘Oh.’ We look at each other for a moment, and then he reaches for the sunscreen.

Where did my baby go?

___

The older boys and I are driving home from youth group. It is the first for the year, and also the first for me as a youth group leader. ‘What do you guys reckon?’ I ask. ‘Was it okay having mum at youth group?’

They all immediately chime in, with the consensus being that it was, indeed, fun to have me there. Phew, I think to myself.

‘You did the prayer teams really well,’ Pip says. ‘You’re actually a really great leader.’

As I turn my head to smile at him, Andy pipes up from the back: ‘You laugh really loudly, mum. We could hear you from the other side of the room during prayer time.’

‘Whoops—sorry!’ 

Jake, sitting behind me, raises a more pragmatic issue. ‘And are we going to leave at quarter to ten every week? We need to leave earlier, mum.’

For the rest of the ten-minute drive, we chat about the games we played, discuss what we learnt, laugh about my loud laugh, muse over the different group dynamics, reflect on who to look out for, settle on an earlier departure time, and basically just ride the high of having just done youth group together.

And the entire time, all I can think of is, I’m the luckiest mum in the world. 

___

Over the summer holidays, I took out my notebook and scribbled at the top of the page, Reclaiming space. And underneath that, a question:

If I took everything out of my life, what would I put back in? What would I leave out?

At the top of the list was: No more Instagram.

And then:

No more posts to create.

No more carousels to compile.

No more reels to edit.

No more captions to write.

No more grids to curate.

No more algorithm to consider.

No more doing things for the sake of sharing.

Basically—no more content creation.

It was like a veil (and a weight) being lifted. 

All of a sudden, I felt freed. Freed from a burden I had placed on myself for more than a decade.

A few weeks later, as the boys went back to school, I wrote my last post on Instagram, explaining how I needed to reclaim headspace and heartspace for myself, my family, my writing, and my art.

Some days, I miss the connections. 

But mostly, leaving that online space has given me the space I sorely needed.

Space to be thankful.

Space to be content.

Space to read art books.

Space to be present.

Space to slow down.

Space to see the magic in the mundane.

Space to savour this season of life with my boys.

And, space to write my heart out.