Why can't Mommy write?

To start with, "Mommy" is usually the title that a mother has when her kids are very young, with free moments snatched in between snacks and baths and meals and bedtime, between booboos and tantrums.  Mommy can't write because Mommy has trouble getting more that 24 characters down onto a page over a two week period.

"Mom" is the title I currently carry. My youngest kids are sophomores (yes, twins, which is another reason Mommy can't write) and my oldest is now in college. Mom now has great swathes of free time, spreading like a blanket of fog over San Francisco in the summer, lasting for days and only occasionally being blown away by the inland breeze of motherhood.

I seem to have entered that time of life I expected to occur last year, the year everything was supposed to change. But it didn't. The expected changes didn't arrive. Instead everyone worked through the same year as the previous one, only concentrated. Distilled. Freshman year for the twins was almost a repeat of their older sister's freshman year - a joyful romp with moments of incredible angst. Senior year repeated half the joys and all the trauma of junior year, with more intensity. My role continued in "listen, and make dinner" mode with a dash of personal misery thrown in, yet even the misery repeated the pattern from a few years ago. "Ok, guess I had mistaken expectations," said I to myself. No-one else really pays attention to me if they can help it.

And now, BOOM, after having lulled myself into expectations of doldrums, the weather has changed. College has happened at last and the dominant personality relocated to a different climate zone. The twins have drifted into different social patterns, and teacher-Dad has less pushing him to leave school at the earliest moment. My role is still to listen and make dinner, but the listening is much less frequent, and as soon as they serve themselves dinner they retreat back into their bedrooms, the twins to do homework and teacher-Dad to nap.

So I have more time alone, to myself. Mornings can provide 90 minutes of reflection, if I wake up as they depart. And after work I can have as much as three hours to myself, even more if I make dinner as soon as I get home so they can get their food and separate into their personal spaces immediately.

So, why do I not write?