I looked at the calendar yesterday and realized that Zach has less than 3 weeks till he's done with his first year of business school.
Holy whoa, you guys.
Beyond that, in just over a month he'll leave for SF for his summer internship, a thought that strikes a wee bit of terror into my heart. Those will be a long 10 weeks (11, actually, because I am the world's most loving and understanding wife and agreed to let him stay an extra week to go backpacking).
And one year from now we'll be getting ready to pack up and leave this place. We will hopefully be headed back to the west coast, back to people and places we know and love and miss and that will be exciting and wonderful...and yet, I feel so much sadness at the thought of leaving here. I guess I've grown a bit attached to these people and places as well. I saw a quote recently, I don't remember it well enough to quote it exactly, but it was something about how we diminish our joy by envisioning the end of it. Which is so true and something I've been guilty of in the past, so I'm trying not to do it here-- I'm trying to push that sadness out of my mind and instead remember that we still have a whole 'nother year ahead. Another year of experiencing all four seasons, of gawking at the incredible natural beauty of the Upper Valley and the way it is constantly changing, of trips to the playground and the woods and riding bikes around the circle, of being able to step onto my front porch and see my kids' best friends' houses. There are things that have been challenging and difficult about our 10 months here so far, but there's a lot that has felt almost magical. I know there are still many amazing things to come, I don't want my envisioning the end of it to get in the way of enjoying that.
And then there's summer. It did kinda stop me cold when I realized Zach's only got about another month left here with us. Every time we have a difficult bedtime with the boys, or in the morning when it takes everything I've got to drag myself out of bed at 5am to go soothe a crying Quinn, I'll think to myself, "How the hell am I going to survive this summer by myself?!?" Thankfully I won't be totally by myself-- my in-laws will be up here for about a month, and other family may be visiting later in the summer. Also, there's a good group of other families who'll also be staying behind for the summer, and a neighbor's nanny I've started using a couple hours a week who'll be able to provide some childcare over the summer months. I've got plans and schemes forming in my mind of how to get our little community together so we can all help each other through what will probably be an equal parts awesome/terrifying summer, and what sorts of help I need to ask for and arrange for myself so I don't lose my mind in the process.
And here, again, I want to enjoy the last weeks of having Zach around vs focusing on dreading his leaving. The next couple weeks will be busy with schoolwork, and then he'll have a couple weeks of downtime before leaving where we can hopefully just hang out and make the most of that time together. I at times oscillate between being a hopelessly hopeful optimist and a pragmatic pessimist, I'm working on ignoring the pessimist voice right now and favoring my optimistic side.
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