Learning to Love the Quiet: Finding Joy When My Kids Are Away

Taking life one mile, one laugh, and one lily pad at a time.

Last Monday morning, August 18, I dropped the kids off around 8:15 a.m. instead of the agreed 8:00 a.m. (because Abigail wasn’t about to give up her sleep easily—she loves it). I handed them over, came home, worked, and by 5:30 I found myself thinking: It’s gorgeous out. The air feels like fall. Why not run?

It had been years — years since I’d gone for a real run. I used to love running and biking back in my 20s, before I became “Mom.” But then came Abigail, then Samuel, then marriage, then divorce, then survival. Somewhere in the middle of all that, the part of me who laced up sneakers and just ran disappeared.

But something in me whispered: try again.

So I pulled out my running shoes, dug up socks I hadn’t worn in forever, tied my hair back, and drove to Powers Farm in Randolph, Massachusetts — one of my favorite places. The kids and I usually walk there. We watch the swans, throw pebbles near the dam, wave at the waterfall. But this time it was just me, and I wasn’t walking. I was running.

Four miles. 4.09, to be exact, in 56 minutes. Slow, sure. But my lungs were burning, my body was moving, my mind was clear. The wind pushed me forward, and for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t thinking about anybody but me.

And you know what? It felt amazing. I surprised myself by going back twice more that week — 4 miles each time

Remembering the Early Days

While I ran, I thought about the first time Abigail was dropped off at her dad’s. She was so little. I remember the pit in my stomach, the tears I fought back. I counted down every minute until she came home. I felt guilty — guilty that I had to share her, guilty that she wouldn’t grow up in the two-parent household I had always dreamed of giving her.

When Samuel came along, it was no easier. He was my baby, still nursing, still attached to me. The thought of him going overnight anywhere felt unbearable.

And on top of the natural ache of separation, our divorce was not easy. It was messy, complicated, full of conflict. Co-parenting in those early days felt like navigating a battlefield blindfolded.

So in those first months, I did nothing when the kids were away. I sat at home, staring at my phone, waiting for updates, waiting for pickup time, waiting to exhale. Friends and family had to drag me out of the house. If I did go, I was half-present — one foot in the moment, the other still at home, waiting for the sound of little feet on my stairs.

It was gut-wrenching. Lonely. And it didn’t feel natural.

Slowly, Things Changed

But time has a way of softening sharp edges. Little by little, I saw that the kids were okay. They left happy. They came back happy. They missed me, yes, but they also loved their dad and felt loved by him. And deep down, I knew — that’s what mattered.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped only waiting. I went to brunch with friends I hadn’t seen in years. I took trips — like the time I went to Canada with my sister and cousins in the dead of January, where our car got stuck on a snowy mountain because we didn’t have snow tires. We spent that weekend laughing in a jacuzzi while a snowstorm howled around us. It was ridiculous, but it was also freeing.

I cleaned my house in peace. I got my nails done. I went on drives with the windows down. I even went on a date or two.

And I realized something: this wasn’t wasted time. This wasn’t failure. This was a reset. A pause I didn’t ask for, but maybe the pause I needed.

Three Years Later

Now, three years after my divorce was finalized, the ache isn’t gone. I still miss them when they’re not here. I still wish they could be with me 100% of the time. But I no longer see their absence as a hole. I see it as space.

Space to breathe.

Space to heal.

Space to rediscover who I am outside of “Mom.”

Running reminded me of that. The sweat dripping down my face, the pounding of my feet on the path, the sunlight breaking through the trees — it was a reminder that I am still me. A me who deserves care and joy and wholeness, even when my kids aren’t around.

And it reminded me of something my mom used to say when I cried in those early days: Maybe this is God’s way of giving you a break you didn’t know you needed.

I didn’t want to hear it then. But I see it now.

A Word to Other Moms Like Me

If you’re a mom in the early days of co-parenting, if you’re crying on the couch after drop-off, if your phone feels like your lifeline — I see you. I was you.

And here’s what I’ve learned:

• It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to ache. Missing your kids doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you love them fiercely.

• It’s okay to feel guilty — but you don’t have to stay there. Sharing your kids doesn’t mean you’ve failed them. It means they get to be loved by both of their parents.

• And most importantly, it’s okay to live in the space they leave behind. To run, to rest, to laugh, to write, to date, to dance, to do nothing at all.

Because when they come back — and they always come back — they deserve a mom who is refreshed, grounded, and whole.

And so do you.

💌 The truth is, co-parenting is bittersweet. It is grief and joy, loneliness and freedom, heartbreak and healing — all at once. But if you let it, it will also teach you to love the quiet, to trust the process, and to find joy in the spaces you once feared.

And maybe, just maybe, you’ll lace up your shoes one day, and remember — you’re still you.

💜 — Rochelly