🖤 The Boys Who Built Our Little World
My backyard is one of my favorite places to sit and think. Hammocks and sun sails surround a small fire pit. I've spent countless hours curled up in these hammocks, both alone and with a myriad of people. Last night, "the boys" sat out there and laughed for three hours straight. I spent the first two with them. We played the most competitive game of glow-in-the-dark hide and seek I've ever played in my life.
There is rarely a time this crew gets together that they don't choose nicknames for the duration of their stay. Last night's picks were "Hunter," "Kirby," "Goose," and "Fluff." They discussed everything from school gossip to whether or not Putin is real. (They did come to a consensus that he is.) They're dramatic, loud, and absolutely hilarious.
These boys were the first people we invited into our home after moving here. They have spent more time in this house with us than anyone else.
The transition into Indiana was hard — terribly hard. It brought with it the realization that my child would grow up as an only child, that there wouldn't be a home full of roaring kids, and that the future looked vastly different from the life I had always imagined.
"Goose" was the first friend to stay the night. They played Mario Kart on the Switch and debated Pokémon abilities until I finally made them go to sleep. "Goose" has co-piloted adventures of every shape and size over the last seven years. "Kirby" began all-day Saturday playdates shortly after — Nerf wars, climbing the front yard tree, kicking a ball for hours, and Dollar General runs for candy. "Kirby" is the comic book store buddy. "Fluff" was the last to join our little band of merry men, devouring snacks and hollering about video games in the basement. "Fluff" brings a calmer kind of friendship that eases the chaos and lowers my anxiety about what they might get into.
We've done everything I could think of that they might enjoy. Slime-making, Legos, water fights, game tournaments, laser tag, camping, x-mas parties, watergun wars, hiking, water parks, movies, day trips, sleepovers, candy salads, homemade pizzas — if I could make it happen, we did it. Facilitating these hangouts has been my greatest pleasure of the last seven years.
There have been a few times in my life when I had to accept circumstances I desperately wanted to change. I didn't enjoy it. I never do. I roll through life smoothly because there's not much I can't incorporate and pivot with. But those moments — the ones where I want exactly what I want and nothing else will do — have eaten me alive in the past. These days, I've survived enough of them to know that things always have a way of evening out in the end.
Life may not have turned out exactly like I once planned, but I promise you this: I would not want a life that did not include "Hunter," "Kirby," "Goose," and "Fluff." I could never have imagined such a diverse, empathetic, hilarious, stubborn, and intelligent group of boys. Yet, here they are.
The life I thought I was settling for turned out to be even better than the one I thought I wanted.
This week's blog will have to be shorter than usual because they stayed the night, and I was subsequently up five hours past my usual bedtime. If anyone needs me, please wait until tomorrow.
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IYKYK