Click, Clack, Clomp

On clutter, perfection, and the fleeting magic of childhood.

Her boots lie haphazardly on the bottom stair, tossed in a hurry but with no lack of heart. The late morning sun spills through the windows, casting a holy spotlight on them. There they’ll remain, for any moment that requires shoes or simply a cowgirl feeling.

I hover there, torn. My hand almost reaches for them out of habit, because boots don’t belong on the stairs, because messes are meant to be tucked away.

But something stops me. A feeling in my chest. A flash-forward I didn’t ask for. And so, I leave them. Just like that.

The usual urgency to tidy dissolves into something bittersweet. Today, there is a pile of toddler-sized shoes, but one day I will blink and those shoes will be twice their size. Or, they will be absent.

One day, my cowgirl’s boots will line the shelves of her own closet. Her voice will fill the rooms and halls of her own home. Her songs will be nothing but an echo in my memory.

And I thank God that she is four, because I am not ready for any of it.

I am not ready to put her shoes away; for the girl to grow into a woman.

So I pass her boots with relief. I say, “Yes, of course,” to every heartfelt request to wear them. I take a detailed mental picture when she chooses them as the final accessory for her gymnastics leotard and Sunday dress. I beg my ears to memorize the click-clack-clomp of her plastic heels on hardwood, the buoyant rhythm of girlhood on parade.

It’s always the smallest things that undo me. A pair of scuffed boots, a crayon mark on the couch; tiny imprints that trigger something ancient. They open a door to a question I still ask too often: Am I doing enough?

If I am not careful, it’s easy to miss the point of the mess. I am too distracted with the idea of perfection to notice the purpose of our family’s clutter. I conflate my own lovability with the just-so appearance of our home, instead of appreciating the warm, eager love that grows bigger and brighter with the piles.

But as I look around, I notice something else, too. Something more subtle than joy, but just as present.

In some seasons, in some moments, my own inner child’s need to earn recognition overshadows my maternal desire to slow down and savor these children leaving trails of sequins and dirty fingerprints. These children miraculously formed from my own body.

A body that, like my home, absorbs my silent criticism, my tight-lipped judgment, my ceaseless regulation. A body that braces beneath impossible standards, only to be met with deeper disappointment and even stricter demands.

I spot a smudge of pink puree on the baseboard the same way I notice a soft new curve on my thigh: like a flaw, not a testament.

I overlook the treasure trove of experiences, the moments of joy and laughter and safety, that our home has provided like I overlook the babies that my body has single handedly sustained.

Until I am staring at the boots.

Until I’m smoothing the crumpled tulle of a princess dress, or bouncing my son through his fourth night waking.

Until God pokes a hole in my amnesia and reminds me:

One day, what matters most will be out of reach. It will all be outgrown.

And I will ache with a mother’s desperate longing for just one more Frozen concert, just one more night with a baby in the crook of my arm.

So the boots are still on the stair.

Soon, she’ll race down from her bedroom to slip them on, ready to gallop through the next adventure. She’ll leave more trails behind her, of glitter and crayon, crumbs and song.

And I will let all of it stay.

Because I am learning, slowly, to see the clutter not as failure, but as evidence of a life fully lived. Of a love big enough to leave a mess. Of a childhood I get to witness, once and never again. Of a mother who is finally learning how to stay.