Well, today was back to school around these parts. Facebook posts were aplenty of kids dressed and ready for their first day of school with their brand new shoes, lunchboxes, and backpacks. All the children were looking just a little more put together than they will, say, a week from now when they have Pop-tart goo on their faces and a nasty case of bed head hair. I remember that first day excitement the parents have, too. Happy to get those kids back in school and in a routine. A few weeks of kids declaring their boredom and half-empty drink bottles sitting all over the house and the sheen of summer break starts to dull. The same excitement parents felt about school getting out in May is replaced with an equal enthusiasm about school being back in session in August. 

I remember back in the winter, I’d hear the constant groaning of my heat-loving friends who proclaimed they couldn’t wait for the long, steamy days of summer. In the chill of the winter winds, the human lizards among us were wishing for the blazing humidity of the southern summer to warm their frigid bones. As we enter month three of a record breaking season, which has not been fit for human habitation, I haven’t heard one peep from them on how much they’re enjoying this, their long-anticipated weather. Nobody is making any moving tributes to this heat. Nobody is celebrating the arrival of its life-threatening warm grasp. No, now that it’s here, they’re looking forward to pumpkin spice and a major cool down. On the flip side, even I, the staunchest winter supporter, admit to wishing for a sunny, warm day when the gloominess of February seems to stretch out forever. 

Remember when we were young teenagers and we couldn’t wait until we would grow up and have all the freedoms to do more things independently. We were ready to forge ahead to the next phase and embrace all the amenities that adulthood had to offer. As girls, we’d draw and color pictures of the houses we wanted to live in and we’d come up with the names for the children we wanted to have. We see how that turned out. We grow up and spend the rest of our days daydreaming at work about the carefree days of our childhood and wishing we could go back to that simpler, responsibility-free stage of life- before we had the mortgage on that house we’d drawn and and car insurance on all those children we named.  

We’re always so excited to get the Christmas decorations up- sometimes, not even waiting until Thanksgiving. Before Christmas is even over, we start thinking about how fast we can get them all back into the attic and get things back to normal. We want to just get our kids out of diapers or grown enough to get in and out of the car on their own power or just get old enough to drive themselves to school. Then, we mourn the days when they were little and cute and mispronounced words and really needed us. We look forward to when we’re having guests and anticipate their arrival with lots of planning and grocery shopping. We’re so excited to see them drive into the driveway but, in a few days’ time, we’re ready to see some taillights and get back to our normal routine. The long-awaited retirement can surprise us with the emptiness of missing our work and camaraderie. And even the most anticipated trips and vacations usually draw to their close with a growing desire to be back in the familiar comforts of home. 

What is it that keeps us looking to the next thing? There’s a constant temptation to look ahead and see how another day down the road might be better than this one we’re living now. Almost always, when we get to that day or season or stage that we’d been romanticizing, we end up grieving for the time we let pass by while our mind was wandering. Life happens in this day. Our love and attention are needed in this moment. Memories and growth happen in this season. “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” 

“Happiness, not in another place, but this place….not for another hour, but this hour.”  Walt Whitman

Happy Weekend to you all! 

JONI