For My Friends Without Children

Thank you.

Thank you for allowing me some time away from talking about children — yours, mine, anyones.

Thank you for reminding me of what’s important to me besides my two daughters and enabling me to enjoy those activities I’d enjoyed before children. Because the truth is, I’m not always good at remembering all that.

I forget about me.

I forget what I was like before my children were born.

I forget who I was before I was a mother.

I forget that I exist independently of my children.

Thank you for bringing me back to me.

Thank you for letting me momentarily stop the incessant worrying and just enjoy life.

I don’t always want to worry about my daughters and the dangers that await them at every turn. Every sharp corner, every stranger, every heavy object. Sometimes I just don’t want to think about that and with you, I don’t have to.

You let me let go for a while.

Thank you for making me cherish my children even more when I get home from a night out.

Thank you for prompting me to recognize just how blessed and fortunate I really am when I get too busy with the mundane to do so.

Sometimes parents forget how fast it all really passes.

Thank you for noticing that tiny special detail about my child that I’ve overlooked in my haste to raise her.

Sometimes I get too busy just trying to get through the day to stop and see the miracles that are right in front of me.

Sometimes I forget how little time I really have with my children. Especially when the day seems so long and the night stretches even longer.

Thank you for understanding when those long nights mean I have to miss out on our plans. I’m sorry that I sometimes bail at the last minute.

Thank you for not making me feel guilty when I have to say no.

Even if it means no to the New Kids On The Block Reunion Tour. Thank you for getting me the t-shirt, though.

Thank you for accepting that my children will always come first.

Thank you for knowing me well enough to understand why it has to be that way.

Thank you for keeping me rooted in who I was while also letting me be who I am now.

But most of all, thank you for being my friend.

Thank you for simply being you.