Tag: blues

Summertime Blues

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.

Keeping it “Real”

Well, here I am at Day 2 of my Second Half of Adulting.  I wish I could say that the watermelon sized lump in my throat has gone away, but it hasn’t.  In fact, I woke up in “Moody Trudy” mode for sure.  Then I did the worst thing you could ever do.  I fed Moody Trudy by going to Facebook, which is not something that I even do very frequently.  So even though I am having a nice summer and we had a truly awesome memorable family vacation before my son left home, the comparison monster, made me feel even more miserable looking at everyone’s happy faces on their delightful summer adventures and travels.  Then I slogged Moody Trudy for not being a better person and feeling happy for all of her dear friends and family, which just spiraled me even more.  This is not a good way to start the day nor my second half of adulting, but it is what it is and the truth must be told.

Now, in the first half of my adulting, I learned that we women need each other.  Yes, we can be each other’s worst enemies or passive aggressive “frenemies” (on an aside, when I started my first job out of college, I asked a female manager what was the hardest thing about being a professional woman and without a blip of hesitation she said, “other women”), but in the end, no one “gets us”, like us.  I have gotten discerning over the years and I have learned to put up better boundaries.  This has helped we whittle it down to primarily two solid groups of women friends with whom I can keep it real.  Really real.  So, this morning, I texted both groups.  Turns out, I’m not the only Moody Trudy today (which is not surprising in a group of chiefly middle aged women, many with a few teenage kids in the mix) which helped me feel supported, eased me into a lighter mood and got me “out of myself”.  I was then able to help other friends with their own problems which helped me to put my issues into perspective.

Bottom line, today emphasized something very important to keep and to treasure in my second half of adulting – the awesome support of true, kind friends.  Maybe I should keep a list of “keepers” for my second half?!?  Number one on the keeper list:  Solid female friendships.