It is now August. Here in Colorado if you look closely some of the leaves are changing. My oldest is starting kindergarten in one week. The summer is gone my friends and I didn't even get to blink. An age ago, I would be enjoying the last days of my summer. I spent most of my summers at camp working. I spent more time at camp than at home some summers. My parents would told me, "If you want money during the summer you can get a job and earn it that way. Or go volunteer at camp and we will pay you some money for working." So the end of the summer was often the only time that I spent at home.
It was a melancholy joy those last few weeks. It was inevitable that summer would come to an end. Enjoying the last few slept in mornings, relaxing out the emotional knots in my heart from some imagined summer romance, and hoping vainly for change in the new school year. The emotional decompression for the depths of the summer. The momentary bliss between the end of one stage of life and the beginning of another. This in-between time became shorter with each passing year. Until the summer just rolled into the fall without transition. I always thought that would be the best time of my life. When I never had to look forward to the beginning of a school new year. No more new hopes. No more new challenges or new levels to achieve. Never held captive by grades again. Just one never ending agonizing life of freedom and career.
Seeing my child coming up to the starting line of his academic career. I hope that I can appreciate being in-between childhood and studenthood. Relaxing the knots in my heart as I remember him in infancy, toddlerhood, and as preshcooler. I have to see myself in him as he prepares to leave everything behind and take hold of something new.
