Edit 40: Just An Ordinary Day
Until it wasn’t
Jackson had his second AP exam today. It didn't start until noon, which meant the morning was soft around the edges—no one awake quite yet and there was no rush to get ready. It’s a rarity, so I wanted to document it: the specific quality of a Tuesday morning when nothing needed to be done.
So I idled over the silence and took a different route to get caffeinated. It was tea this morning, not coffee—a small pivot to honor the extra time I had on hand. While it steeped I did what I sometimes do in the early quiet and moved between the kitchen and the sunroom, neither fully settled nor fully purposeful. A pillow got fluffed. The to-do list got a look. A light meal took shape in the kitchen—something easy, something good—for a boy who would walk out the door in a few hours without a second thought about the fact that his mother had been thinking about him before he was even awake.
Then I sat. The light was soft and low, falling through the windows the way May light does—warm with its early morning sleepy glow. And as it changed, I watched the world walk by outside. It was lovely. Pure silence and the unhurried pleasure of a morning that wasn’t demanding a single thing…yet.
This season of slow Tuesday mornings is almost over, and I knew that, sitting there with my tea. Jackson's exams will end. The school year will close. The house will shift into whatever it becomes next—a question I am only beginning to answer with any seriousness. But in that sunroom, in that light, with that cup of tea: it was enough. More than enough. I filed it carefully.
At some point the morning gave way. Jackson left—unhurried, fed, ready—and the house settled into a different register. Now there was movement and sound: the dialogue from Jessica Fletcher carrying from the first floor as I began tidying up before our housekeepers arrived (why is that even a THING?), the running of the washing machine. Doors opened and closed as I came and went from running errands. And once Jackson was back from his exam, I headed upstairs to pull out a the prettiest buttery yellow floral dress and stunning hot pink heels because as it would turn out, the day would evolve into other plans.
Jackson arrived home, we ordered a zesty Cinco de Mayo dinner, and somewhere between the tamales and the getting ready, the Tuesday I began with shifted into something else entirely.
Tonight was the close of our Junior League year; a celebration of the women and the work and everything we had accomplished together. Naturally, there was a theme, and as anyone who knows me knows: I take a theme seriously.
To send off a marvelous year, we were invited to wear our best florals and I will tell you now: no one disappointed. The Ruth in Wesley Heights was exactly what you want from a Tuesday evening that has decided to become something: warm and chandelier-lit, soaring ceilings, the kind of airy, light-filled space that manages to feel intimate despite its size. The centennial video played in the background, something I was deeply grateful to have been a part of. And our League members arrived in every shade of spring. Muted floral motifs on silk. Bold, vibrant color that felt genuinely celebratory rather than performative. The full, glorious spectrum of women who understood the assignment and then some. It was the night after the Met Gala—and I would argue, without a shred of irony, that we held our own.
I got in line with a glass of wine, helped myself to a little charcuterie, and then found my people—the Membership Development Committee, or MDC, the women I had worked alongside all year. Together we made sure certificates and name tags reached our transfers and provisionals who had completed their year, a small but meaningful act of acknowledgment for everything they had given. And then we picked a table.
The evening unfolded beautifully from there: milestones celebrated, accomplishments honored, the particular joy of being in a room full of dynamic women who had shown up, again and again, for something that mattered. One personal highlight? Sharing that 170 applicants are ready to join us as provisionals next year. One hundred and seventy. I sat with that number for a moment and felt something that I can only describe as hope. This organization is so alive! I was so happy for this year's Provisional of the Year—a recognition I was honored to receive myself last year—and found myself already excited for what next year holds. The evening closed as it should have: photos with my committee and friends, and a petite flower arrangement I made myself. It was a perfect parting gift from a theme called A Year in Bloom, and a quiet little thing to carry home from a night that had given me quite a lot to carry.
That is the thing about the Junior League that I will carry with me longest: That these women—compassionate and creative and industrious, every one of them—show up year after year because they chose to. Because it matters to them. Lest anyone forget, we’re all volunteers. Not a paycheck among us—just heart, and love, and an abiding care for something larger than ourselves. And I have been, I realized standing in that room, extraordinarily fortunate to spend a year surrounded by that.
It gets into you. It raises something, and I'll be honest: I had been, for some time, at a pivot point. I laugh about it now—preparing to end my tenure as a stay-at-home mother, and here we are, standing at the edge of whatever comes next. And here I am, trying to understand who I am outside of the roles I have inhabited so fully and so gladly. The Junior League answered that question over the course of two years. I didn't fully understand while I was living it, of course, but that’s what has made the realization that much more satisfying.
What I learned—what I am still learning—is this: I am so much more than I give myself credit for. Other people saw it before I did. They believed in what I was capable of and gave me the space to discover it myself. And somewhere in the middle of committees and meetings and the unglamorous, joyful work of simply showing up—I began to believe it too. You are only as strong as the people beside you, and I have been, it turns out, very, very fortunate in that regard.
Now here I sit, typing. The evening is still settling in me . I don't have a tidy epiphany to offer—I've learned to be suspicious of those anyway. Some chapters don't close with a crystallizing moment so much as they close with warmth, celebration, and a certainty that something has shifted—even if you can't quite name it yet. That's where I am. Still in it. Still processing. And that feels exactly right.
It is worth noting, at the end of a day like this one, where it began: with tea, soft light through the windows, a sleeping boy upstairs, and a quiet morning that asked nothing of me. It opened with the small, unremarkable act of making food for someone who wouldn't think to wonder about it, which is, I have come to understand, one of the purest expressions of love available to us. It began, in other words, entirely ordinarily.
I said I was going to document an unremarkable Tuesday, but I think I documented something better: a day that showed both sides of the coin. The day dawned simply, but by evening it had become something else: florals and friendly faces, laughter and hugs, a room full of women I deeply admire, and the particular joy of a chapter closing with grace. A version of myself I am only just beginning to introduce to the world—a little tentatively, a whole lot triumphantly, in buttery yellow floral chiffon. And I think that’s all…extraordinary.
