Life Will Never Be the Same

You know how you hear these cliches all the time and you're just like, "yes yes, I've heard that," but one day you go, "OOOOHHH now I get it!"? Well, that recently happened to me.

We were attending a new parents' dinner at church. Even though our kids are more than a year old, we still don't really know what we're doing, so we figured we qualified as noobs :) One of the speakers was giving some advice to the group. He said, "Realize that your life will never be the same again." He said that life with kids is different, not better or worse than before. [Aside: that's exactly what I used to tell exchange students, that their experiences in a foreign country weren't going to be better or worse than home, just different. I should listen to myself!]

Well, obviously this is a sentiment I'd heard many times, starting when I was pregnant. I'd nodded and thought, "Duh, obviously I am gestating two little humans here; I recognize that my life is different!" But what I hadn't accepted is that life is not going to go back to the way it used to be.

I'm sure several of you reading that are thinking, "Yes, obviously you have two little humans to take care of now!" Maybe all you other parents realized this sooner in your own lives. For some reason, I hadn't connected those dots yet. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking, "Once the boys are XX years old, or reach XX milestone, we'll be able to start doing YY again. Life will get back to normal." Nope, not gonna happen. This is our new normal!

The speaker also said that once your kids are grown and out of the house, your life still won't be the same because you'll be older and won't have the energy that you used to in your younger days.

Time is, after all, an ever-rolling stream. I know I can't go backwards. Reminiscing about the past is nice (thanks, FB memories!), but I can't live there. For example, sometimes I miss living in DC. It's an action-packed city with tons to do, delicious restaurants, and history around every corner. At times, I've even wished I could move back. But if I did go back, it wouldn't be the same. Many friends I knew there have moved away as well. Several who are still in the area now have kids of their own. Let's just say I wouldn't be standing on a metro platform very often at 1AM, waiting to head home after a night of dining and dancing at a Turkish restaurant.

And you know what? It's ok. I've accepted it. My days of disco hopping are over, but countless new adventures lay before me. Before long, the kids will reach those critical milestones of "one nap a day," and "getting more teeth so they can chew real food better." That's really going to open up lots of new options to us, in terms of going places and doing things. My life will never be the same as it used to be; it'll always be different, and that's what makes it interesting.