Seven

When you don't have kids, 7pm is early. 7 means it's time to eat dinner, go out for drinks, or start pre-funking for your night out. 7 is just getting off work, or just getting home from traffic. 7, especially in the summer, is barbeques, beer, and burgers (and boys). 7 might mean a lap around Green Lake, or hitting UVillage. 7 is that magical dusk-y time of night; not quite day anymore, but not night yet either. Liminal. And there is such beauty in that liminality...that in-between time of not quite this but not quite that.

Sometimes I feel like my life is constantly in that in-between time. In-between parent and child. Working and stay at home. Employee and owner. Student and teacher. Busy and breakdown. But I don't always feel like my life is beautiful. Sometimes, it gets rather messy, rather tiring, and rather frustrating.

7pm now is tubby, jammies and stories. 7 is bedtime, snuggle time, cuddle time. On occasion, 7 is going out with friends time, shopping time. More often, it's email time, work time, wine time. In some senses, it's the beginning of the night, but it's just not the same kind of beginning. Whereas 7 used to hold the promise of an entertaining evening, more often these days, it holds a different promise, a quieter one, of time spent getting things done, which sometimes, can be quite satisfying.