So here we are at last. It’s the twilight of summer and the sky is purple and hazy and the gentle breeze hints at a new beginning to soon come. Smells of fresh cut grass and chlorine and mornings that start well past 9 am have tucked themselves away for another long pregnancy of learning and growing and stretching and creating. And we’ll wake tomorrow to smells of wood pencils and plastic folders and school uniforms and 7 am once again.

I hate saying goodbye to this — to this summer of new adventures and lazy mornings and times where we laugh and play and dance and sing. I hate saying goodbye to this — this summer where I’ve kept my babies under my wing and held them close and nuzzled them and stroked their sun-kissed hair and smooched their freshly freckled faces. I hate saying goodbye to this — this summer of me learning to sit Here, in this place and in this season of embracing Mommyhood completely.

This was the first summer I felt free to embrace Here. It was the first time I wasn’t married to my phone or chained to my computer or had an office I had to make an appearance in once or twice a week. It was the first time I didn’t have to drag my kids to meetings and expect them to sit still while I feverishly tried to brainstorm, cross off details and get input and direction. It was the summer I always dreamed of since the very beginning of motherhood.

And now it’s ending.

While I am the first to embrace change and seek it out well before its time, I sit here reluctantly letting go this time. I don’t feel ready and I’m afraid I haven’t given enough and there’s a long list of intentionality I haven’t crossed off yet. Was this enough for them? Was it enough for me?

But because I trust God and I trust the cycle of seasons and processes, my grip is loosening. And because I know with every ending God brings a beginning and something completely new, I muster up anticipation for tomorrow. Because the caterpillar learns to fly and the dandelion’s parachutes lift off and go into all the world and God never calls you out without also calling you in.

So I choose to sit in green pastures and be still and be free and welcome this goodbye. And as I bid farewell, I peek around the edge of the summer sunset and wait for the next hello.