It was 1990-something.

I was newly separated, heading into divorce, and I had three children under the age of 10.

One of them was a baby.

I lived in the Midwest, in an 800 square foot apartment. The crib was in the living room, because there wasn’t room for my bed and a crib in my tiny bedroom. My two young sons shared the other bedroom.

We didn’t have a washer and dryer in our apartment – or in the apartment complex.

Once a week, when I wasn’t at school or work, I would load up the white plastic laundry basket with our dirty clothes and linen, and we would make our way to the laundromat.

This was no easy feat.

The baby had to be carried – and in winter, add snow, ice, and a below zero wind chill.

The boys were able to help a little bit – the oldest would carry what he could while he held his little brothers hand. We would carefully make our way to the beater car I was driving. Once I secured everyone and everything in the car, I bundled the kids under cheap throw blankets for an extra layer of warmth, and we would head toward the laundromat.

Once there, the kids were glad to have room to run around. It was much bigger than the cave-like “garden” apartment that had windows at chest level – the rest of the apartment was underground.

I pulled out my collection of coins, sliding them one by one into the vertical slots, where they clattered to a stop inside the machines. Once the laundry was spinning, I would read my book, with one eye on the kids.

There were no televisions or vending machines, so I gave the kids their snacks. They would sit at the small plastic tables and eat. The laundromat was warm and smelled of soap and bleach, and the storefront of windows let in the sunlight, bright and unfettered by the cold.

The good about the laundromat was we could get all the laundry done at the same time.

The hard part was keeping the kids entertained while the clothes were washed and dried.

Once the clothes were folded and placed neatly back in the basket, we bundled back up for the return journey home.

A decade later, when we moved south to be closer to family, we lived in a home with a washer and dryer.

Each and every time I went to work, I passed a laundromat. I would stare at it as I waited for the traffic light to turn green.

I remembered the hard times in the garden apartment. I remembered lugging that basket in one arm, my baby daughter in the other, the boys tagging along, the cold biting at any exposed skin.

Today I’m sitting in a laundromat, on a travel nurse assignment. The site is different, but the smell and feel of the place is the same.

I miss my own small children.

Coming here to wash my clothes before I work this week reminds me of how far I’ve come. I scan a code to auto pay, and somewhere in the Ethernet, the transaction is made, starting the industrial machines with nary a clink of coins.

I was a nursing student 25 years ago, working full time as a pharmacy tech, living in an apartment that wasn’t much bigger than my current bedroom suite at home.

Now I’m listening to the dryers turn, and the indistinct noise from a huge flatscreen overhead.

Nearby, a mom chides her toddler daughter in Spanish, and the little girl sits down at a plastic table, eating her snack. She smiles shyly at me as I walk by to leave and go back to my Airbnb.

I’m grateful.

There but the grace of God…