My middle son is graduating from high school. I say that with all the pregnant emotion of one who’s child is preparing to fly from the next and who is completely overwhelmed by personal and professional obligations. I call them obligations, but it’d be more accurate to say that all the things I love are happening all at once and things I don’t love are trying to vy for my attention.

You may or may not realize this but, for a public librarian in a small library, summer is a big deal. It’s not a big deal because that’s when we take vacations. No. It’s a big deal because that’s when we kick it into high gear for summer library programs. Add that to the second year having a son graduate from high school, and you can imagine the enormity of any added stressors.

Then the washing machine finally died. Well, actually, it was dying. I was going to call a repairman. My loving husband, however, (and that’s not sarcastic) wanted to see if he could fix it. He couldn’t. So, we now have a brand new laundry set.

Add that to our eldest son being home from college and bringing all his dorm behavior with him. We’ve had discussions about what it means to live in a house with other people. We’ve talked about entitlement and contribution. We’ve talked about gradually acting more and more like an adult instead of less and less like one.

Sometimes, we’ve talked loudly.

And then the band director resigned/got fired/went out in a blaze of glory/something equally traumatizing. I was so angry about the whole situation. Now I’m numb and mildly angry.

And…

And…

There have been a LOT of successes. Seriously. A lot.

But, right now, I’m tired.