Fading Away

Summer is fading fast. It seems that it just arrived and it's already slipping away. Maybe I'm feeling this way even more this week because my girls started school, and maybe it's even a bigger kick in the gut that my little man will soon be headed off with them. As this summer quickly comes to an end I feel like it's literally slipping through my fingers. In a way it's a good feeling. I can sift through the really good parts and hold on to them. This is a summer that I will remember. Although we didn't get to follow through on all of the big plans that we had devised when spring was still upon us, we did make some great memories.

This will forever be the summer that I remember riding bikes with my family. JM in the front, hooligans in the middle, and me bringing up the rear. It's a first, and it definitely won't be a last. This is the summer I will forever remember my little boy hearing his flip flops clicking on his thick feet for the very first time. I will remember his hand in mine and the excitement on his sweet little face as he looked up at me in astonishment. This will be the summer that I remember horseback riding and really loving it for the first time in a really long time, and doing it with my whole family all in tow. This is the summer I will remember my girl Seej pitching as if she had pitched her whole life on her very first time at the mound. Just thinking about that evening gets my eyes a little cloudy. This is the summer I will remember my little girl Lou turning into a fish in the pool. I can't believe the intensity with which her love for the water has grown. It makes me excited to see what her next summer will be like. This is the summer I will remember taking my mom and dad to the movies not once, but twice. In all my years on this earth this is the very first time I have seen a movie in the theatre with them, and it was beyond awesome. The images of my kids sharing popcorn with my dad and of my mom holding his hand are forever burned in my heart and my mind. This is the summer I will remember JM holding me up again and again and again, and I will remember how close we have become because of it. This will be the summer that I remember enduring and coming out ahead in the end because although it was hard and intense, it was amazing at the same time. This is the summer I will remember growing in so many ways I almost can't conceive it. This is the summer I am grateful to have experienced, and as this season closes I look forward to what the next one has in store. I'm grateful that it's fading. It has caused me to really sit down and reflect upon it one more time, and I realize what a wonderful summer it really has been. This is the summer that will soon fade completely, and this is the summer that I will walk away from being a better person. The season will fade, but the memories I made and the lessons I learned definitely will not.