Sidewalk Chalk Sadness

We live in my husband’s bachelor pad and it never really bothered me until today.

Matt and I have known each other over 10 years. He is my cousin’s best friend from high school, and when we were younger I had the biggest crush on him. It wasn’t until my cousin’s weeding that he became interested in me, but the timing wasn’t right. Over the next 10 years we lived our separate lives but still remained “interested” in (and thanks to my cousin and his wife updated on) each other.

Then on New Year’s 2008/2009 we both happened to be online at the same time and ended up chatting for seven hours! Our relationship quickly evolved and by March I was contemplating resigning my teacher position and relocating to Chicagoland. I like to joke and say we moved in on our 5^th date; which is kind of true, the 5^th visit we had was when Matt came to Ohio to attend a wedding with my in July, the next we packed the cars with about half my stuff and headed “home.” Our original plan was that I would stay with him until the end of August at which point I would get me own place. Of course this never happened. We were engaged March 2010, married September 2010, and found out we pregnant the next month. The whirlwind life had swept us along so quickly that we never really had chance to make move out of the one bedroom condo we were living. We made the decision to start “fixing” the place up and hoped to move before the baby was due in June 2011. Yeah…that didn’t happen. Life got in the way. The timing never seemed right. There wa

s always another big life change (new job, lost job, new baby) on the horizon and we just couldn’t handle the hassle of selling a home.

Finally in February 2012 we put our home on the market. Luckily is has sold and we are in the process of closing and looking for our new home.

Like I said, all this time, living in our one-bedroom (three rooms total) condo never bothered me. Yes it was cramped. Yes we got on each other’s nerves at times. But it was cozy and it was OUR home. Actually, it was nice to spend my first year of motherhood in a home that didn’t require hours to clean, and I could see the baby as he lay in the swing, crib, activity gym easily from almost every corner of the house. We didn’t need to buy a monitor or a bassinet. It has made bonding with the baby easy, he is always close by. Our condo

is in a great, established neighborhood; we go on long walks and even have several parks/playgrounds within blocks of our house. Plus we have pool that Jacob and I have taken advantage this summer already. Today, though, I just wanted to take him outside to play. Not go on a walk. Not go to the playground. Not go swimming. Not get in the car and drive anywhere. Just go outside, in grass, and sit or kick a ball, or blow bubbles, or chase each other. But we couldn’t. We have no yard (the small amounts of grass in our community tend to be filled if dog poo.) All we have is a concrete walkway.

So after holding back tears at this realization, I got out the sidewalk chalk and we heading out our front door. I sat on the hard ground, trying to stay out of the way of others and watched as Jacob laughed and smacked the chalk against the ground, tree, wall, door, and neighbors welcome mat. He had fun pushing the buttons on the realtors key lock box, and watching the ants scurry by. He had fun playing on his concrete play mat, drawing a picture for daddy with his yellow chalk. Mommy let one tear roll down her face feeling like this the first time she had truly failed as a mother to provide the best for her child.