I love the August days that reassure us fall is coming. It hasn’t been that hot of a summer this year, but even so. I spent part of the day trying to focus my mind on the emails and tasks at hand to get the boys ready for school. At the dinner table we were talking about how if there had only been two of them we would be empty nesters. Since the first senior happened the others have come and happened in rapid succession. In addition to one in high school, there will also be a senior in college.

Elianna wants to work and travel and visit her college friends. Everyone seems to think that it’s fine to be 19 and not know what you want to do. I seem to have more of a mindset that time is something that shouldn’t be wasted. It doesn’t mean I’m not supportive but it does mean that I don’t know how to support this or figure out the next direction when it is off the beaten path. My plan is not that different to be honest. To work and travel and visit grandkids and keep being a mom here.

So I have got to do something different. I see this Instagram mom in the middle of raising all her small and medium kids and truly can’t believe the mental energy she puts toward thinking about her children and the ins, outs, wishes, and intentions of raising them. I feel scandalized in some way, close to grossed out, like no person deservers that amount of thought and attention from another human. But when it is me who is doing it, there is no aversion or dislike. It is our pure joy to give.

Well enough of the reveries. Tonight we went for a walk on the bike trail. We’re two miles away and hardly ever go over there. It was a wish of mine to bring the kids with their bikes but at the time it always seemed too cumbersome of a feat to attempt. That was something I thought we could do in the empty nest years. I still see plenty of things to do, between working, visiting kids, exercising, and maybe being more involved with a church group. This is all assuming one is alive and able bodied.

But I felt this renewal, as I tend to feel in the fall, of fresh idea and dedication. To not get to the end of another season or stretch of childhood without all the memories of what we could’ve, would’ve, should’ve done. I’ve confused myself with that sentence but do not even have the wishes or the will to try and fix it. What I mean is to keep going, living, doing, and trying to invest. But to do it now and still from a place of peace and contentment and grateful energy for the chance to even do it at all.