Our air conditioner isn’t working. The cooling factor decreased a little at a time over a couple of weeks, and now we’re waiting to either change something or fix something before caving in and replacing the whole darn thing. Some days the house feels stifling and other days I need to wrap a sweater around me to feel warm enough, though it’s always a little damper than I’d prefer. I should care more than I do, but on days like today, when rain falls and dark clouds fill the sky, I feel like summer is almost over anyway.
The kids go back to school in eleven days. We are in the twilight of the season, when most of the fun is finished and all that remains is spending money and rushing around to one-off commitments, like health training and eighth grade registration. We’re all a little on edge, torn between midnight bedtimes and the promise of a solid schedule.
Every year I lament the things I didn’t accomplish: the outings we didn’t do, the book I didn’t write, the times I flipped my pillow to the cool side and fell back asleep instead of getting up early to run. Soon my days will be filled with treadmill miles and spreadsheets, meals on the go and trying to remember to empty lunch boxes before filling them the next day.
I don’t mind the scheduled days, the flipping of my attitude back into school mode. I do wish I could go back to the beginning of summer, with the months stretched in front of me, and make more progress than I have. Some summer nights I wonder if I made any progress at all; things seems stagnant and loud in my head, and I wonder if I’ve missed something crucial between June and now.
Tomorrow could bring blinding sunshine, a promise that we have summer days still left to unpack. Today, though, the rain brings cool dampness to the air, a whisper of fall pressing its lips to my ear, whether or not I’m ready to listen.
Leave a Reply