We are home now from our two-week vacation at the Jersey shore. All of us, my husband, two children, and I, understand what an amazing privilege it was to have the ways and means to stop, relax, and reset. And yet, the reset for the children has been a bigger challenge than I imagined. Here we are in the second week of August with the beginning of school looming over our heads.

July was like our “favorite friend” who begged us to run, play, and not think about the future. We gladly abided. We skipped into our summer vacation without much of a thought of July ever ending.

And yet here we are ~ because time waits for no one.

I quickly jumped back into my routine knowing that if I dragged my feet getting into all the laundry and unpacking the task would feel unsurmountable. I unpacked and sorted, washed and folded, put away odds and ends, humming through the tasks with the knowledge that vacation was a sweet success. We all enjoyed our time and spent many hours laughing.

We came home on a Saturday morning and I gave the children both Saturday and Sunday to readjust to reality. A reality that looks out onto an above-ground pool and a wooden playhouse instead of the Atlantic Ocean and the Ocean City boardwalk. I gave them a pause, but I never thought the transition back to reality would bring tears.

My husband bounced back from vacation with his usual lightness of spirit. He is a man who always does what needs to be done, without question and without resistance. In fact, he does it with such ease that it sometimes makes me feel like I am doing something wrong for feeling so much about the smallest of things. But, I feel things deeply. I always have which is why writing has always given me an outlet for the heaviness of my feelings. Each story is like a touchstone. As if someone else has felt the same then I don’t feel so alone in these feelings. I don’t feel so wrong in my feelings.

My son cried to me last night before he fell asleep. “What’s the point?” he said. “To what?” I replied, almost certain I knew what he was referring to. “What’s the point of life?” he cried. I held him as he cried and replied, “I am here with you. I have felt the same way, and although I don’t have answers for you, I will stay here with you until you feel better.” We stayed in that moment for nearly ten minutes. He started to share stories of joyful times and then we prayed to God. We thanked God for our vacation and the time we were able to spend together.

He drifted off to sleep and I wonder if that was the vacation “drop off”? Was it the snap back to reality that made him feel so sad, something that I’ve felt and continue to feel as an adult, although I’ve learned to just press through to get to other other side. I’m unsure of where that swell of emotion came from, but the reality of my love for him became so clear. My purpose was crystal clear. It is to walk this deep-feeling, loving boy through these big feelings, because and in his own perfect way, he helps to validate mine. And we can feel them together without getting lost or feeling wrong. We can enjoy and be sad that it is over.