She said that time is unfair
To a woman her age
Now that wisdom has come
Everything else fades…
It’s true. The words on the anchorman’s lips are telling us all what we’re afraid to hear- summer is quietly passing.
The days in which I watch my daughter’s triumphant smile beam over dripping ice cream or sprinklers will be a blur and we’ll soon wrap up in blankets and plan for colder nights.
The summer of weddings and first dates that never led to second dates, but friendship abounding has taught me about abundance and spirit.
I took Ava on vacation and blissfully lost touch with the world for a few days. I watched her navigate preschooler waterfalls and jet-streams with ease. I watched her grow up and I suppose, I grew up, too.
People left this summer- on the sides of the road, or in well-thought-out, emails. They left and we never looked back. It’s hard to believe that Breon became just a memory. Harder still that Josh came back, and the world never stopped for even a moment. We sat under the stars and I called him on it all- and soon, he was helping me move furniture. I don’t answer his texts often, but when I do- there’s no feeling missing- nothing to begin, or feign over. On the other hand, I think of Bre often, and I wonder- why there had to be so much pain for so little to show.
D. reminds me that in each painful experience lies something deeper- a teaching. When we don’t learn the first time, life is less than understanding. We cheer each other on. Someday for me… love. Someday for him… peace.
Until then? There’s a red couch downstairs I call my own, with a beautiful entertainment center that boasts the prettiest oak you’d find in these ratty apartments. Instead of building my life around others, I started working on the perfect house for myself and my Ava. It’s almost like being 11 again and cutting out from the JCPenney catalog- mismatched furniture and gluing it to paper. My time to be selective, and focused.
What will winter bring? Summer has always been magic for me. This year has been absolutely no different. I think the time away, and the rejection of serious romance has blessed me with a daughter that doesn’t push her mother out the door when a sitter is here. For once, she’s asking for me, and relying completely on this face. She asks if Bre will come back and I always smile. No one can stay in Guam forever, but he’s so much farther away than the rest. Josh walked in the door to help unload the new furniture and instead of running to the man she talked non-stop about for 10 months, she stood behind me- clung onto my pleated skirt and demanded to know why he ‘moved home.’ Luckily for me- I had someone to help carry a 300lb pile of organized wood into my house and had enough sense to realize what a beautiful situation had happened. She doesn’t really ask about him anymore.
That’s my girl.
She says shes still searching
For salvations light
Yeah, she wishes all day
And then, she prays all night…
*Utterly exhausted. 
