Prufrock measured out his life with coffee spoons; I am measuring mine with sippy cups. A beach vacation looks different from this side of childbirth, with chunks of time spent standing at a sink cleaning those cups; the clockwork-like handoff of highchair tray between The Husband and me; the mass application of sunscreen to toddler skin; the endless placement and removal of his sun hat; the bags of gear loaded up for an hour on the sand. Mornings that used to be spent lingering over coffee on the deck are now spent checking for poopy and making sure the makeshift-chair-as-stair-gate is in place.

It’s harder, but it’s so much more.

The moment his tiny feet hit the sand, I held my breath. Would he react the same way The Sis did at his age, wrinkling her nose and crying out, “It’s STINKY!”? Would he follow The Niece’s lead and commence to frolic on this new playground? The answer was somewhere in between. In true TK fashion, he gazed down warily at the white substance encasing his toes. He picked up one leg, then the other. He let out a whimper. Then he manned up, sat down, and got to work investigating his new terrain.

Our trip was punctuated with less-than-stellar moments. There was the rain that met us upon arrival, drenching our clothes and our deck and defeating our plan of dinner outside. There was the news of my grandmother’s death and the fact that it prevented The Mom from joining us. There was The Kid’s puking half an hour into our departure, when TH had to pull over on the side of a road that was also a grim-looking house’s front yard. The Sis wrinkled her nose and said, “It smells like pot,” and I stripped TK down while glancing backward to make sure no one was coming toward us with a gun.

Then there were the other moments.

The Sis and I made a day trip to Montgomery and, as the family gathered in prayer, a cell phone went off with a bluesy theme song. We shook with laughter and felt our grandmother would understand. Then we drove up to the graveside ceremony and beheld the crowd that had gathered to pay their respects, a humbling sight. We made it back to the beach, where the clouds had lifted. We watched our children sift sand through their fingers and ride waves and taste salt water. We took TK into the water commando after he shat his last swim diaper and watched him slap the calm surface. We argued over politics and plenty else and finished dinner and laughed. I saw my buttoned-up BIL relax over a beer and his favorite song (don’t tell him I said so). We got sand in our beds and bags and butts and we lived with a Gulf view for seven days.

Our week in the sun was late in the season, so we drove straight north into fall. Now we’re back in the land of speech therapy and neurosurgery consults and early-morning wake-up calls and work routines and errands and grief not soothed by salt water. Now we’re back to real life, where we don’t get a bike ride after lunch or a Gulf breeze. And I feel the clammy hand of fear rise to greet me upon arrival, feel my shoulders and various other body parts clench in their quest to control the details.

The Sis and I had one more stop to make the day we returned: our cousin’s wedding on the lake an hour north of home. We walked into a backyard filled with family and champagne and clinked glasses while the sun set over the water. We drove back and kissed sleeping kids and climbed into sandless beds. This morning I took TK to daycare and he grinned widely. No post-vacation depression for him. I want his take on life. I wish I liked anything as much as my kid loves bubbles. I wish I could always celebrate.

Because I’m the one who, when TH and I visit our wedding site with TK in tow, is plotting our walk back and fretting over fixing lunch and delaying naptime. I approach life with sunscreen in hand, looking for spots to spray while just over my shoulder is the most amazing sunset ever; just to my left is the spot where we said our vows; just in front of me is the family I always hoped for. And I know that post-vacation and post-Christmas and post-birthday depressions are always a risk for people like me who over-think and over-analyze and overdo. And so, at the end of a week that encompassed the full range of human emotion, I wonder if getting back to real life might just need to start looking different for me.

I consider the possibility that, because of grace, a gravesite doesn’t mean the end. That a kitchen covered in Cheerios can be just as beautiful as one with a Gulf view. That the incessant rumblings of my mind and the fear that laps at my ankles can make me like and lead to a closer encounter–a call to belief being not a rebuke, but an invitation, with both scars and a new view included.