Summer Without Kids

Ahhhh, summer... Anyways a nice slower time for me, but especially slow this year. I have been enjoying time for reading, time for puzzling, time for healing. There's no alarm, and everything in my calendar is there because I scheduled it (and once I could do stuff outside the house, it's been things like PT, Pilates private lessons, the occasional massage, and outings or visits with friends). 

I realize that this is a bit of a luxury, as all my friends with kids have very little respite. It's nice to spend more time with your kids, but I bet if I were to talk about all my restorative time to myself it would definitely cause some wistful envy. Or a snarky "must be nice..." 

Yes, yes it is, and the cost was just 8 years of pain and heartache and loss, time and money and energy that yielded ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. So hell yeah, I'm going to revel in my free time.  

Part of this summer is cleaning out the garage. We are doing some rearranging and purging, and one thing in the garage that I had to go through was a cardboard box of stuff from my childhood. That box has been in the garage, between our cars, for at least a year. Oh good gracious, if it's the same time as the Breyer Horses that I gave away, TWO years. oh, the shame! 

Anyway, I promised I wouldn't let it fester any longer and so I went through it. Apparently, a mouse had made a nest in there, of some of the cards and letters dating back to high school and college. But there were also tins of seashells. 

I used to collect seashells, from trips to the beach, or gift shops at the Jersey shore, or gifts I guess. I used to know all the names: scallops and limpets and cowries and whelks and moon snails and a million other names I can't remember. Cockles. That one still makes me giggle.

So here I was, with my box o'childhood that I probably subconsciously let languish because I didn't want to deal with it, and a substantial number of very pretty seashells. 

I texted pictures to my friend with the three girls who received several of my (plastic) horses. "Do you think your girls would want these?" 

I crossed my by fingers and waited. I really didn't want to have to throw them out. 

I was thrilled when she said yes! I drove them to her house, and the three little girls were in the pool. They were thrilled -- we went through some and picked out some particularly pretty ones. It made me happy to see them get a new life. 

My friend sent me a picture later:

That's her two older daughters, setting up a "treasure hunt" for their Barbies. 

Bryce asked me if it made me sad. It didn't, not at all. If I don't find people who have kids who might enjoy my childhood treasures, they are just going... Nowhere. THAT would make me sad. But seeing littles playing with my seashells? Awesome.