Thankful Thursday: What a Summer

School starts for us (okay, for my son!) in a week and a half. I guess this is pretty late, since so many kids around us, geographically and virtually, have already gone back. Considering that we’re still socked in with fog every morning, and I’m taking a sweatshirt outside for exercise in the late afternoons….well, it doesn’t quite feel like the end of summer.

Oh, I’m ready. And I think my son is, too, as much as a teen can be ready for school to start. But here’s the thing–it’s been an incredible summer. The best I can remember for a loooooooong time.

Now, honestly, I have to give some major credit to the thyroid meds I started taking a year or so ago that seem to have finally kicked in to really give me back the energy I lost somewhere along the way. Quick “sell”: Ladies, if you’re thinking your thyroid might be low, check it out. And be aware that the numbers stated as “okay” aren’t always, that–as my wonderful doctor says–“Different people feel right at different numbers,” and really talk to your doctor about what’s going on. I am a total and complete convert.

Okay, off the med-sell. Basically, I just seem to be at a point in my life where things are coming together. My son has had a good summer too–with all the laziness and creativity and random this-and-thats a kid’s summer should have, I think. Sure, there’s been some boredom, but when I’ve checked in with him, he’s said that that’s a part of how he wants his summer to be. So, okay, then. He’s been doing the teen sleep-in which, combined with my new ability (see above) to wake up happily at six-ish, has meant incredibly productive mornings for me. And then there was the non-heat, which means I’m actually happily functional for walks or board games or necessary errands in the afternoon.

The thing is, I’ve hit some kind of balance between work and, well…life. Even, it seems, between fiction writing and other writing, critiquing, and marketing. So I’m able to enjoy all of them and see the progress that’s happening in most of them.

Will this last? Well, I certainly hope so. I know, though, that life is ups and downs, twists and turns. My son is starting high school in 12 days–which puts us all into a new world. I’ll be doing more speaking and traveling next year. I’ve got to take on a few new things to do with running the business of this writing thing. And there’s a second draft coming sometime in the nearish future. So change is coming, and any one part of it could tip the scales.

But I’m learning, I think, to choose what to add and to be able to merge the new into the old. Somewhere in the last couple of years, I hit the middle-aged mark (calculated, of course, with the base of my grandmother’s ages, who both lived into their nineties, and adding a few more years for generational increase!), and I have to tell you, it’s a pretty good place to be. I’ll write about teens and love it, but I’m not looking for that time-travel machine to take me back there and do it again. (Picture Bill Murray in Groundhog day, but with 15-year-old angst and knowing he’d never get Andie McDowell.)

Summer, for me, used to be the hardest challenge of the year, a time when I felt hard-pressed to find anytime for myself and guilty about feeling that way. It’s gotten easier, of course, the older my son got, but this year, I swear I heard the CLICK of everything coming together. It was a lovely sound.

So, today, I am thankful for a summer that gave me back the ease of vacation, the pleasure of enjoying time off, and a vision of possibilities for the future. And a path into autumn, my favorite season, that isn’t built simply on relief.

Happy Thursday to you all.