The Small Life

I love the small life, the invisible one, where no one glances in my direction, gossips at my expense, "What makes her so special?" or "I wonder what she did to get that job?".

I love that I can wear the same outfit two days straight and no one notices, that a magazine won't ever call me out as a fashion don't (or do).
I love this small life.

I might be a practicing extrovert, but at my core, I remain a devout introvert.

I would rather be known--truly known--by few, than to be known of by many.

I could lose a whole day in nothing but slicing peaches and playing doll house and rinsing dishes and reviewing math facts and brewing coffee and shimmying socks over shin guards. And no one would see except my littles and maybe the overtired husband. And by nearly every definition society offers me, it's a day lost, nothing lasting accomplished, no shining success.

But it feels to me exactly as I'd hoped a day might feel, like I am part of something that matters. 

In this small life, the world around me asks very little. They do not look to me to solve the famine crisis or to broker peace in the middle east. They no longer look to me to meet a deadline or make recommendations to the board or to finish performance reviews. They have never looked at me to direct traffic or prosecute a case or fly a plane or run a code or build a bridge or save a life. As it stands today, the world around me doesn't look to me for anything.


But my son and my daughter, they look to me for everything. And I get to be here to return their gaze and to be their world.

And there isn't anything small about that.