It's hard to believe less than two months ago I was celebrating the summer solstice with such good cheer and optimism. August isn't half over and I feel so melancholy, which I always do as summer draws to a close. It just seems to be happening earlier this year.
Two of my girls leave for college in less than two weeks -- I cannot imagine life around here with both of them gone. Cassie's absence left a gaping hole last fall, but with Nickie in her senior year, she and her friends filled the house with their laughter and activity, and her and Maddie's busy school and social lives were a constant distraction and joy (when they weren't keeping me up at all hours, trashing the house and making me nuts). With her and all her great pals leaving soon (including Hannah and Brian, who showed up for breakfast and a chat an hour ago and are watching TV in the other room as I write this), it will be so very quiet for us and Maddie, our now-only child. I honestly cannot think about it for more than a few seconds without deep sadness washing over me and my eyes filling with tears.
It's also much cooler and crisp today, almost fall-ish, or like summer in New England, which is how summer is supposed to feel. That too makes it seem like the season is coming to a close -- that and the fact that camp is finished, fall sports are about to begin, and I've already started buying books and uniforms, getting physicals (and their endless forms) completed, and helping organize and pack two kids to move away.
I remember even as a child, the last couple weeks of summer always felt sad and bittersweet, the melancholy end of one season and the beginning of a new year. Fall seemed much more like the true time for resolutions, the chance to start fresh -- that's why you got a new outfit, new shoes and new supplies for that all-important first day.
Still now in the workaday world of adults, in politics, on Wall Street, on farms and in factories, people come back from their August vacations ready to start anew -- we all still seem to follow the school calendar, long after grades have been posted and degrees handed out. People move, thousands of young people return home after working at the beach or in another state or country for the summer. Folks begin new jobs, or shift to accomodate the next season's different priorities and demands.
I've signed up for another writing seminar with Hannah, trying to get re-motivated and finish the novel by the end of the year. I've joined a writer's group downtown also, and will have to share 50 pages with them at some terrifying point in the near future. I'm also exploring -- with Evelyn, my graphic artist colleague and friend -- creating a training workshop to help nonprofits with their communications programs. We'd present it at conferences around the country and get to travel a bit, as well as hopefully attract new business. These are my fresh starts for Fall.
But as I listen to the sounds of my neighbor working in his yard, of water trickling into the pond outside my window, and feel the first cool, unmuggy breeze in weeks, I realize again that life is about to change around here in very big ways. Two daughters gone, one still here. Only one schedule to keep track of, one child's sporting events to attend. Only one child to wait up for at night, and even that rarely since Maddie is not quite 15. My parenting responsiblilties cut by two-thirds.
As much as I've looked forward to this day since they were born, prepared for it and pushed them toward it, knowing my job was to teach them how to be independent, it feels like one of my major reasons for existing is being taken away, like an arm or leg, an eye or ear, or some other vital body part that I don't feel I can live happily without. I'm sure I'll get used to it, like you get used to disappointment, bad news and other challenges. It will have its upsides as well, I know.
But right now all it feels like is sad. The end of an era, the end of a lifestyle -- no longer the busy mother of three girls. That version of me -- that exhilarating, intense, all-consuming, exhausting, source of unending worry and happiness and identity and pride, is passing away. Like these final quiet, slow, lazy weeks of summer, its days are numbered. I want to hang on, to cling like a leech to every one.
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