Of bath towels & burritos

We have these dreamy towels from Bed, Bath and Beyond. They’re the nicest ones we’ve ever owned. Big, fluffy bath sheets. I believe their official color is “linen.”

We used them for exactly one year before they went into storage for the next nearly five.

One year in our cute condo in downtown Chicago. One year of corporate law firm practice. One year of horrendously early mornings and late nights. One year of marriage strained tight from too little time spent together. One year when one friend told me, “If you don’t quit your job and go with Pete on his fellowship to Ukraine, I don’t think I’ll be able to respect you guys again.”

So, I did.

I quit my job, my condo and my towels.

Pete and I spent the next two and a half years in Kyiv, Ukraine. They were some of the most confusing and rewarding experiences we have ever shared. Bath towels were the least of our concerns. The two weeks each summer that the hot water was turned off altogether was a much more pressing issue. Speed showers in freezing cold water for fourteen days give or take, makes the kind of towel one dries off with all but irrelevant.

After Ukraine we hop-scotched to South Africa, Michigan and landed in the DC metro area. Our arrival back stateside was also the cue for our towels to emerge with the rest of our lives that had been in storage.

They were as delicious as I remembered. But for completely different reasons.

Have you ever tried to wrap a bath sheet around a toddler who stands only a few feet tall? Because we’d added two since we’d last seen our towels. And now every night I wrap those delicious boys of mine into bath sheets and turn them into human burritos.

And while I’m nibbling their toes I chuckle at the memory of the woman who bought those towels. And smile satisfied at the mama who’s emerged from them. It’s so much more than I expected to unwrap.