Verklempt.

I’m having a moment.

Summer is over, it is oh so very much over. Sam is back at school, and the others go back next week, and the luxury of having so many days stretch out before us with little planned is utterly gone, and I am feeling like I wasted so much of it caught up in my own stuff. Sam will turn 9 next year–nine!–and time is passing. I should have spent the whole summer holding his hand. We picked so few berries, we went on so few bike rides…
Is it good, to get caught up in the sense of loss as things change, to take a minute to revel in what’s gone, or is it better to let it go by without marking it? Without milestones, you could keep the illusion that nothing changes or ever will change, and sometimes that’s an illusion I treasure. Certainly it makes it easier to slide through on the surface of life. I thrive on some routine, and we have been so incredibly disrupted this summer–in a good way, yes, and we’ve done so much–that as much as I want to get back to the regular fall routine, I am missing some summer routine that never was. Do we ever, does anyone ever, spend a month or a week just getting up in the morning and having the day, and would I really want to?

Ok, I’m over the teary moment–although I am sure my eyes are still red, and sitting here in the library of our small town I run a major risk of being spotted. What happened there? Maybe it’s that change shows so clearly here–the very town looks different, the tone of the green of the leaves changes even before the leaves themselves, the return of the college students, the kids gone from the streets. Maybe it’s the coming arrival of my parents, whose visits I have always loved and looked forward to–but this time I’m worrying. Will my dad take to Rory? Will we find things to do that make anyone happy? Will we come to the visit and feel that we haven’t done or said a thing? That last one seems most likely.
I am feeling ripped out of normalcy and raw, I think, and that makes it hard to move. I’m at a point where I dread every new thing because so much hasn’t gone well–and really, things have started to go well. Doctor’s visits, playdates, parties–we can do them now. Even the occasional trip to the grocery store.

And I do know, right now, exactly what I can do to make the weekend more fun for everyone: I can MAKE PLANS. Having a plan, even a loose one, just settles everyone down. So–plans, yes. I won’t just plan to make one, I will actually make one!


One Response to “Verklempt.”

  1. JK says:

    A plan and a tan. :). Xoxo and more when I am on my ‘puter. This is the iPhone.