Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Tilt.

I’m gritting my teeth and saying goodbye. Box after box of dreams and plans.

The Long-Awaited Honest-to-God Secret to Being Happy

Some are remnants  with lizards or sunflowers.  Some are satin  for pillowcases.  Some  are folds  of upholstery fabric for chairs long gone. Some are yards and yards of sleek cloth intended for long party dresses.

I’ll keep a very few pieces but most of it, probably99% of it, I’m saying goodbye to.

It’s not just fabric, these yards of cloth. It’s what it represented.

My mom  is an excellent  seamstress  and designer.  I could never hope to reach her level of skill in making custom-designed, custom-fitted, custom-made clothes.

But I had plans for this cloth-every piece of it. There are baby clothes I made for Shannon, designed them my- self, before she was born. By the time Aislinn came along, I just couldn’t handle two small children and all the over- time at work.

So tiny bits of fabric planned for cute little shirts and shorts sets were set aside for when I could be a full-time writer and at home with time to sew.

It never happened. It never will.

The leisure to create fun clothes for my little girls and enjoy planting flowers on spring mornings and eating the fruits of our garden labor fresh off the vine in the afternoons…never   came  and  now  will  never  come.  Time moved on and the dreams were lost, leaving behind only fabric, the unused raw material of a life I never had, not even briefly.

The money I receive from selling this fabric will fund a different dream. So I make arrangements  to sell these boxes of hope and dreams and say goodbye to the wish that even for a little while, I might have been a full-time mom to my little girls.


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