Snapping Back Into Place

It just popped into my head, this image–a pictoral metaphor, if you will.  It was of me and my girls, wrapped up together in a knot, limbs akimbo.  Like a ball made of rubber bands, but it was us, in a tangle.  The image bounced into my head as we pulled into the parking lot outside Panera (or Pan-uh-ruh, as we call it in our house, due to a child mispronouncing it once, us never letting her forget it, now us all having to think to pronounce it correctly when outside of our little knot).  My husband is out of town.  I drove home, picked up kid 1 and kid 2 on the way to pick kid 3 up from the after school program.

Everyone was happy. No one fought over who sat where.  The soundtrack to “Hairspray” played on the iPod linked to the speakers on the van.  We sang in bits and pieces and asked each other how our separate days went.  Singing, laughter, conversation, all wrapped up in the bubble that is our minivan.  And as I pulled into that parking spot, there it was, in my head, that tangled ball of rubberbands that is my life.  Here we were, snapping back into formation (missing, of course, the big Kahuna rubber band, but he shall snap into place tomorrow).  Tight together for a bit, but ready to flail apart at any minute, and equally ready, I hope, to snap back into place again.

We found the space in the midst of a crowd to reconnect again—standing in line at Pan-ur-uh, sitting at the tall table, drinking hot drinks against the chilly night. Laughing. Making fun.  Having fun.  Snapping back.

And it was good.  Is good.