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.