The dumps

Yesterday was the lad’s last day at work. I won’t miss the daily drives out there (although the entertainment value of people watching was unsurpassed), but it does mean the summer is drawing to a close rather quickly. Today we hustled around getting him ready to go on a vacation with his other family and much laundry and drying took place. It was a sunny day so the clotheslines were in steady use. He left here around 7:00 PM and I wandered around the house for a while not much liking the silence.

The lad will be gone for about a week and then he returns to prepare to leave for the rest of the summer. I’m really not sure where I am with this right now. You’ll have to bear with me, I suppose. On the one hand, I’m really bummed about it. I am most definitely going to miss him. Having him in the house for the summer (even though I haven’t seem him *that* much) has been such a delight. In every way. It was pretty easy to slip back into “the way it’s always been” mode, with him at home. It was a kick in the pants when the arrangements were changed and his leaving was jumped up a month. This really isn’t the way it’s always been and it isn’t going to be this way much longer. He really is growing up and out. Our vacations will become less frequent as the years pass. And that’s the way it should be. But goodness, how easy it was to forget that for a couple of sweet months.

Well, I’m a little betwixt and between at the moment. The heart is an unruly creature and it just doesn’t care that my head is filled with enough common sense on the matter to understand that I’m just having a Mom moment or several. Once the dust settles around here and we are back to our regular schedules, all will be just fine. The thing that kind of befuddles me is finding myself wishing he would leave sooner rather than later. How does that make sense? I don’t think I’m designed for long goodbyes, which is what the ten days after he returns from vacation will feel like. That lead brick sits in my stomach and it won’t leave until the lad does.

I guess the bottom line is that I’m not feeling too glued together at the moment. Not like last year, certainly, but all the same. I feel kind of silly about it, too. Because I KNOW that I’ll be just fine and that he’s going to be ecstatic to get back to school. And I probably will get to see him once or twice before he goes back. And that he’ll be home for a week in October and then at Christmas. And the world is not ending (well, at least not yet) and...well...whatever.

Man, I just do not like feeling like this. But, my blog and I felt the need to suffer loudly. Heh.