jumping into summer

The temperature is a whopping 4 today. That's right. Four. Just one number, one digit, one shivering walk to the end of the driveway to pull my garbage cart back. I piled the layers on and walked fast, sure to skip the step of wondering what I look like while completing the task because when it's a single digit temperature outside nobody cares what you look like. The only caring is if you are staying warm...at least warm enough that not everything hurts while you meet the blast of cold waiting just outside the door. And what else does one think of while facing the bitter cold to conquer the mountainous task of pulling up the garbage cart? Two words. Summer. Sun.

I ran wildly while my ski mask covered my face and my mittens were thick enough the Eskimos could borrow them. I thought about all I put on to finish a job that was necessary. And dreamed about summer. With summer comes putting on a few less layers and double digit temperatures and plenty of pool days. Ahhh, I can't wait for pool days. Can't wait because I am surely not the only one ready to see warmer days... but can't wait because I made a promise that I can't wait to keep.

I wanted to pull a picture up to share, but it is tucked away some place where I can't fetch it. It didn't make Instagram or my facebook status or get tweeted or added to icloud. So I apologize, but it's a picture for only me. It is a picture planted on my heart and one that will stay. In the middle of a hot season and sunny days with warm breezes I spent my time at the pool like many Mama's do, watching their kids splash away the lazy days of summer.

I watched from the side and my heart smiled with all the joy my boys found from the coolness of the pool water. My boys, small and timeless in that very moment. When they caught my eye and asked me to come in, the time seemed to be moving again and I worried too much of what I would look like if I were to join them...instead of what I would feel like when I didn't. I saw them. Really saw them. Big brown eyes, hair slicked back wet from the under water flips, sun shining off their foreheads and tan backs. The deep giggle of my 5 year old and the twinkle in my 9 year olds squinting goggle covered eyes. And they saw me. Not my post-baby thighs or my left-over stomach rolls from 4 kids. Not my not so toned arms or drooping nursing breasts. Just me. Mom. They invited me. begged me even. Come in, jump in. The simplest of me and the whole of me. Slightly covered to hide my insecurities, yet totally naked to the same ones. Afraid of what somebody might see.

With the bitter cold bite of a breeze on my face, I am thinking about that summer day. Thinking that what my heart caught on tape has left a memory that can't be deleted. I finish the cold task of the day, with no care in the world what I look like while I do it. And I dream of summer knowing that this cold day will soon be it's own memory and I'll be staring in the face again of those big brown eyes, a year older...and me, a year wiser. There are not enough days during our children's years to worry too much about what we look like to the rest of the world. It's what we look like in their eyes. I said no once. I won't do it again. So bring on summer already. Not only is it dang cold outside, but I've got a whole new empty file on my heart to fill with my kids on those hot summer days... this time from more then the side. I'm jumping in. The only eyes that matter are the ones who invited me in with them in the first place.

I'm still thawing out from my garbage cart run. Cheers to summer days. And swim suit weather.

Are we there yet?