… typing therapy …

I haven’t picked up a pen or logged into a post in over a month.

Which, incidentally, means I have not really processed or worked through a solid feeling in about that long either.

Who could?

Who can?

I have never understood people who say, “I have no regrets.”

I HAVE A MILLION REGRETS. I regret wasted time and wasted worry. I think about YEARS I spent selling myself short and thinking endurance and keeping the peace was more important than healthy relationships and setting important boundaries. I regret not finishing book ideas earlier and I regret being distracted when my babies were toddlers. Shoot, I probably regret what I ate for lunch yesterday. (Actually – yesterday’s was a delicious lunch prepared not by me so no regrets there!)

I’m not saying I’m wallowing in these regrets or even beating myself up over them. I’m just saying – life is VERY fast and it’s VERY complicated and there are a billion ways that I could do most anything better, smarter, faster, wiser, more holy, more thoughtful – you name it.

Bergen graduated on a Saturday night. And on the literal next morning, by 10 am, he was in his Toyota driving across the entire country to Colorado. He’s been gone for two weeks now and guess how many times he has called me.

None.

None times he has called his mother.

It’s alright. The wifi is nearly not existent. His schedule is packed. The time zone is different. And he is LOVING all of it.

I’m only just happy for him. Thrilled. Truly. It’s a delightful summer for him and the gifts of this experience are just barely beginning to unfold and I am completely confident they are treasures that will last him his entire life.

And yet – I miss this kid.

With every change in a family member’s life, the entire family dynamic shifts. That’s how families work. We’re a unit – but we’re also a whole host of individual human beings. It’s right. And it’s messy. And it’s worthwhile and we’re all tied together in these loose and long strings and strands and we get twisted and tangled and we straighten out only to fold over again and we warp and we bend and we don’t know the future and we sometimes don’t understand the present but none of us can ever be truly disconnected, no matter how we sever or shift.

This season I’ve been more thankful than ever for my porch. I sit out here, staring, sipping tea. Mostly thinking everything and nothing at all.

The birds keep chirping and singing, thanks to Otto’s diligent care for them. The hint of a hill that I like to call a mountain behind the house comforts me with its steadiness and solidness.

The changes feel like a lot this summer, even though the stack isn’t all that unusual.

Four of my children have graduated from high school.
Stepping down from leadership at the homeschool collective I was fortunate enough to help direct for five years.
My just-turned-18 year old is out of state for the summer at least – but we all know it’s the beginning of the next thing because that is how time works.
London leaves the teen years this summer.
I turn fifty next month and it’s a number that is humbling and gigantic.
I’ve been divorced for eight years and that number also feels somehow monumental.
This summer my dear Oma and Papa Dale have been married for FIFTY years and that’s incredible.
Next year Piper begins public school and that’s a first here.
I am planning for one single high school student at my kitchen table this fall.
I finished writing (the first draft anyway) of that book I was working on for YEARS and now it’s just living on a Google Doc.
My precious dad turns 79 next week.

That’s just a start and I guarantee every one of you have a list that’s just as long and just as barely scratching the real surface of our feelings.

I feel a little better after writing this.

I think words always help. I think naming our feelings has value. I think speaking our sadness, or our apathy, our fears is one of the many ways to reach the shore, to wade in and through – the only way to make it to the other side.

(Where do you find yourself this summer? This season? What are those words you need to wade into?)