In the Blink of An Eye

Welcoming a new year always brings reflection. 2025 was a tough one—but more about that later.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about being an almost empty nester. There were so many moments when I truly believed this stage would never come. The house would never be quiet. We would never get to do things just for ourselves. We would never have private moments together again.

And yet… here we are. Six months from our youngest graduating.

We had them all home at Christmas. The laughter. The excitement. The banter. The silliness. What I loved most was watching the love between them—the kind that deepens when you don’t see each other every day. There’s more respect now. More awareness. They miss each other too.

What I can’t quite wrap my head around is how, in the day-to-day moments, it felt like time moved so slowly. How often I felt exhausted, frustrated, wishing the days would hurry along. And now, looking back, it all feels like it happened in the blink of an eye. So fast it almost takes your breath away. So fast you wish you could reach back and touch it again.

I don’t remember the challenges as clearly anymore. The annoyances have faded. What remains are the good moments—the ordinary ones that didn’t feel so ordinary at the time.

Why is it so hard, in those sacred seasons, to slow down and truly cherish them? Why do we spend so much of our lives wanting time to pass faster, checking off one endless to-do list after another? And why does it take those moments disappearing—or becoming rare—for us to look back with longing… and something that feels a lot like grief?

Truthfully, at this stage of my life, I don’t have the energy to go back and do it all over again. But there are many days I wish I could. I wish I could be a young mom again—raising an incredibly strong, wild little girl—instead of the mom of an almost 22-year-old adult.

I’m coming to understand that I am getting older. Time is moving forward. My children are grown.

I am so proud of them. And I cherish the last almost ten years we’ve had together as a blended family—learning one another, loving one another, building something real.

I’m just a little sad that I wasn’t always soaking it all in with a smile.

Maybe the gift now is learning to be gentler with myself—holding the memories close, and choosing to savor what’s still unfolding.