THE VIEW FROM HERE

Pushing the PAUSE BUTTON

BY EMILY MORRISON

WHEN I WAS 18, driving around in my parents’ Buick, listening to Mariah Carey with the wind in my hair without a care, I kinda hoped life would pause. That summer, hanging out with my girlfriends by the pool, drinking soda and eating chips all afternoon while we worked on our tans, life was fanflipping-tastic.

If I hadn’t met my lifelong friends in high school, moving six hours away for college wouldn’t have seemed so hard. These people were my people. This town, Dexter, was my town. Sure, the shoe shop closed down and you could catch a splinter pretty easily at the playground, and yes, we only had one stop light (still do), but Dexter was home.

Life moved on, whether I wanted it to or not, and pretty soon I met a handsome redhead in the library during my freshman year of college, and I wanted life to pause again. Listening to Matt serenade me with Eric Clapton songs on his twelve-string while we stayed up all night talking and laughing in the lounges of our dorms, eating fried food and walking around Church Street on date nights, life was fan-flipping-tastic all over again.

We didn’t have much money, but he had a credit card and I had work study, so we had enough to cover pizza and gas, and really, isn’t that all any college kid needs (besides the lukewarm free beer)?

After four years, I knew I was ready to graduate, but I didn’t know if I wanted everything that came after graduation. Adulthood loomed large, and things like a real job, bills and responsibilities formed vague shapes in my mind.

Who in their right mind would want to exchange days spent talking with the coolest professors on the planet about philosophy, religion and education for days spent working, paying bills and being responsible?

Not me, but I graduated, got married and ended up living on an island for a couple of years, and man, that was pretty amazing too. Life wasn’t all work, bills and responsibility after all.

Living in a rented shack amongst millionaires, the sound of the waves lulling us to sleep every night, who had it better? We were young teachers, sharing Friday afternoon drinks with other young teachers at the Irish pub in town, walking around our new lives like kids playing house.

And honestly, that’s what we were, until our kids came along. Having one baby every other year for five years has a way of changing things real quick, and everything we thought we knew about being grown-up turned upside down for a while, what with the collicky kids, sleep deprivation and constant bodily fluids we endured.

But when our babies were sleeping, when we managed to have two out of three of them healthy, or even, dare I say, three out of three of them down for a nap, life was never better. Staring at their little chubby faces, the rosiness of their cheeks, the smell of Johnson & Johnson shampoo after bathtime, I knew in my bones this was the moment I wanted to pause most.

Motherhood settled into my soul and taught me things about life I never knew before. How could I have ever known this all consuming love?

This past June, my oldest daughter graduated from high school and the other two are soon to follow in her footsteps. In two years, my husband and I will have only one child left in the house, and three years after that, he’ll be gone too. Will I want life to pause then? Will I wish that we could hold on to him a little longer?

I’m sure I will. But in the meantime, I’m going to enjoy every Taylor Swift song that comes on the radio that they turn up to full volume and sing along to on our way to camp. I’m going to cuddle on the couch to “Harry Potter” for the hundredth time and ask, “Who wants popcorn? Just me?”

I’m going to live each day knowing that equally amazing moments are up ahead, so play on life. Play on.