I have a little of that “end of summer” melancholy going on right now. My high schoolers are headed back to school on Monday and my college student son heads back to the university in about a week and a half. His girlfriend came over to the house to say good-bye to us last night as she is heading back to college early for her sorority rush season. We released our eldest son into his own adult world earlier this summer. I wonder when we are complete “empty nesters” if the seasons will seem as acutely distinct as they do right now.
It’s not that I’m entirely sad that summer is over. The heat has slowed everything to a molten glob of inertia. I’m eager for a faster pace. The summer jobs that the kids have had at the beach and eateries have lost their novelty and newness and the “wind down” is obvious. I remember how shockingly disrupted I felt the first summer after all four of my kids had started going to school for full days. I’m a person who likes my “alone time” and I am eager to feel the uninterrupted quiet of my thoughts and my own personal rhythms again.
Still, it’s the little things that make each summer special and a little unique to previous summers. This year when I drove my daughter to tennis every morning, we enjoyed a routine of listening to the same crazy radio show and laughing along with the antics of the DJs who we have both grown to really like. We saw on a country road, the same elderly man, dressed formally, always smiling, walking with his cane and this mop of a dog that my daughter and I have nicknamed “Smoothie.” “Smoothie” gives us the most hilarious “stare down” every morning, annoyed that we have disturbed the peace of she and her beloved. The few times that we haven’t seen them on their daily walk, we have been concerned. We missed them. I will miss them this fall.
Summer is the time of big, new adventures and the anticipation of big, new adventures. It is the time of slowing down and baking, prepping for the feast of the banquet of new learning and growing in the fall. It is a pause in the schedules of life. I have to hit “play” again here soon and I think I’m ready, but I’ll keep the bright memories stored on my life drive forever.