My Biggest Challenge

I love being a mother. I love it. I don't mind getting up in the night, so much. I am used to permanent sleep deprivation and loss of brain power. I don't mind perpetually serving people--milk, food, orange juice, water, wine. I don't mind arriving at the table late, and leaving early to set, clean, cook. I don't mind shepherding slow, small people around the world most of the time. I have adapted, mostly. I don't even mind losing almost all that is mine--space, art, colores, rooms. That is all OK.
What is really really hard for me is the absolute lack of quiet time. Of time to myself. Quiet time is my re-calibration time. It is my time to digest my life, and my time to calm myself. It is my time to work through things and figure it all out. It is my ultimate anti-depressant. And, as a mother, it seems you get no quiet time EVER! I can't get up early to have quiet time--the boys hear me and get up, too. I can't get any time during the day. They follow me around like small puppies, yapping at the door even when I go to the bathroom. "I don't want to be alone," Benji says under the door, or through the crack.
And, by the time they go to bed--even if they do stay in bed, which seems never to happen--I am so tired it barely feels like I am alone. If I am alone then I just fall asleep. I don't want to use my costly child care time to wander aimlessly--and yet I need it to regain my equilibrium. I know one day, in the not too distant future, they won't want to be with me every second of the time. They won't want to tell me every detail of their lives, show me every structure they build, every picture they draw, or cuddle me every time they feel sad or off-balance. And then, I will be crushed. I will miss it, this sweet sweet need they have, of me being the absolute center of their universes. And yet, for now, sometimes, it is so hard. I am waiting for the nanny to arrive. So I can have a completed thought.