Your Empty Nest

            Alright. Finals are over for your Junior in high school and you’re facing a much anticipated and needed summer vacation.  This may be the last summer with your Junior that will be predictable and normal.  Make each summer day count because summer as you’ve known it may never be the same after this one. 

            I’m telling you this because I have walked in your shoes- I know what the “summer before Senior year” is like.  I’ve lived it twice.            

            The first time when our Billy began his summer before Senior Year I was so wrapped up with my husband working out of town and a sixth grade younger brother.  I was so anxious for a calm mundane summer.  Well, believe me, there was no comparison between the priorities of my sixth grader and my incoming senior.   Baseball All Stars, skateboarding, invites for swimming, bike riding, collecting sports cards, overnights, and the incoming Senior pondering college locations, summer reading for AP classes, a summer job and daily swim workouts. 

            I treated the summer like every other one and boy was I ever sorry.  If I could go back and relive that summer I would have taken myself farther out of the “me” equation and focused much more of my energy on what my junior, my Billy, was thinking about, wondering about and worrying about. 

            Sure, each fleeting summer day was full and busy but I’d wished I’d dug deeper into the realization that this truly would be the last summer that was like so many in the past….

            My humble advice to you is enjoy each and every day together: walk the dog together, make lunch together, wash his or her car together, go to the Farmer’s Market, go sit at the beach or the park of somewhere to enjoy each other’s company.  Embrace the laughter, enjoy the conversations….Think, does the laundry really need to be folded right this minute when you’re sitting on the couch talking to your Junior?  Does the kitchen floor really need to be swept while your Junior is sitting on the bar stool and you’re leaning on the counter laughing about something that happened the last week of school?  Linger….enjoy….be an active part of that summer before Senior year.  You’ll be so glad you were. 

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