Day: May 9, 2025

Done.

All the grading, all the nonsense, all the assignments. I finished my semester, my first MFA semester, and I am ready to move on to focusing on the novel as well as upcoming summer madness. I only am taking 1 class this summer (light work in comparison), which starts on the 19th as well as teaching a handful starting on the 27th. I’m really excited about this summer. I have a chance to finish this novel over the next 45 days and from there I will be moving on to bigger and better projects. It has been a long road this semester, and the fall looks.. daunting.

I need this break and everything that comes with it. I expect to have a very good time hanging out and spending time with the Lady Talis as we explore the world. This is our next step. I go into it understanding where I have been and where the others in my life are in terms of a life journey. Not everything in that sense is wonderful, but me and the lady are doing the best we can with all of it. That is all anyone can ever do.

Moving from spring to summer is an especially difficult journey for me. It is one filled with joy, but at the end I always find myself jammed with work and not able to look up from that to pause, breathe, and appreciate what is coming. Just once it would be nice to slide into the summer without having anything I specifically need to be doing. That has not been the case for a decade or even two. More and more the summer is another type of responsibility, which is offset by fantastic travels and having moments of a life in which I can be in a space not dominated by kids and their needs or proclivities.

When people talk about that next chapter it can often be a ballad about lounging on a beach somewhere, starting a new career, etc. I just want my house back. I don’t mind the occasional youth invasion, but to live in a situation where you’re constantly cleaning up after kids, tiptoeing around the habits and actions you want to be taking, clamoring for silence, and having to force them off the TV so you can use it is no way to live.

In my life it is only going to get worse–at least in the short term. I don’t know how to deal with that other than to wall myself off and find spaces I can care about separate from that part of my life. I certainly won’t have the ability to be alone anymore. At least now there are a few hours of peace and solemnity. That is gone come fall.

So, best live it up this summer.