There’s a laundry list of things I need to write about, but it’s like when a kid has a giant cake they don’t quite know what to do with or where to attack it. And it’s not necessarily a delicious cake. It’s a cake made of parenting wins and fails, testing boundaries all over the place, travel chaos, the uncomfortable lack of control that becomes more and more apparent as life goes on, life-changing decisions, standing on the precipice of a new act, and maybe even some actual laundry. Sound like a cake you want? Like so much in life, what I want isn’t necessarily relevant. Open wide.

To quote Jeffrey from last night, as Jon and I were on the last leg of a nineteen-hour travel nightmare trying to get home, “I don’t want to be Mom anymore. It’s hard.”

So here are the things I am ruminating on, and which deserve more than a small blip, but I’m starting out with a blip so I can bookmark these thoughts while they coalesce into something more substantive (maybe?).

• Jeffrey had his senior portraits taken and graduates in less than a month. He’s been accepted into Utah State University. He’s seventeen now, and I am perplexed by the somehow constant and still fluid passage of time. It’s trite, but yesterday he was holding my hands and testing his little chubby feet in his first steps, and today he is 6’2″ and can easily pick me up with a giant laugh when I am annoying him while he gets his portrait taken. I haven’t quite figured out what to do with these things, and time doesn’t care about my fluidity, the constancy marches on.
• For the very first time, Jon and I decided to leave the kids overnight while I accompanied him on a short (<48 hours) business trip to Florida. That’s it’s own post, and I think I understand the “Florida man…” memes now. But…
• Within two hours of our departure, while we were still on the airplane, there was a shooting at my kids’ high school. Maybe you can imagine the full-body panic as I turned on my phone on the tarmac in Orlando and watched the horrifying notifications roll up my phone—but I hope you never, ever have to feel it. The next 48 hours are something I need to catalog, especially since I was suddenly stuck hundreds of miles from home and completely powerless. We’re all mostly powerless in so many ways, but nothing brings that home quite like not being able to get to your children. I have thoughts.
• Then, in a desperate attempt to actually GET home, what should have been a less-than two-hour flight turned into a nineteen (yes, 19!) hour ordeal that included mechanical failures on the runway, over-sold flights, a plane leaking water in my lap from the ceiling (I have video!), failed standby attempts, requisite lost baggage, and even lightning strikes. It became a nightmare-ish comedy in which I had an epiphany about the absurd tragedy of life and the lengths to which we go to make ourselves feel like we have some control (over anything) but really…we just don’t. Laughter and human connection is all we have. That’s it. But it also happens to be everything.
• I’ve accepted a spot in law school, and classes begin at the end of August. This is really happening. And, surprise surprise, I have thoughts.
• Add Sane Gun Laws and Gun Control to my list of things on my law-school agenda. I can tackle IDEA, disability law, SpEd, and the NRA, right??

So I plan on unpacking my overnight bag, taking a long, hot shower, picking up Jeff’s graduation announcements, and mailing the last batch of peanut butter (I know some of you are waiting still and I’m sorry I’m a week behind–The stores are sold out!)

I know some folks still read here, and I’m planing on moving back to more long-form writing. I’ve withdrawn some from some forms of media, and I realize I really need the catharsis and practice of writing in more than 200 characters, though I also appreciate the brevity and humor those constraints have helped cultivate.

Basically, I’m back babies.

(It said ‘bitches” but then I decided to be more well-behaved. But then I decided, “nah, f*ck it.” That might be my new motto.)