LX.

This week has been… a lot.

A friend wrote to tell me she had a miscarriage. A colleague has been really sick. Another friend left for graduate school. My best friend in the world will likely move to Maine very soon. I never thought she’d be here forever but I still don’t want her to go.

New anxieties replace old ones. I fear that I will write something that will make me look foolish, that the gaps in my knowledge – which are vast – are not filling fast enough. These are easier fears to put to bed than the incessant worries about children that came with teaching. But then there’s this: I wonder if I’m making any difference in the world.

I make resolutions. I will list places to go and things to do and I will not wait for someone else to be with me in order to embark.

I feel restless.

Is this what the end of summer feels like when it is not marked by a return to school?

I feel like something is about to happen – something big – like it must happen for me to keep going. It makes me jumpy.

On the other hand, I am so tired all the time. The gym is gone from my routine. I never cook anymore. I don’t keep up this blog and I’m hardly ever writing except for the all-the-time-writing that is my new job. I can scarcely believe the level of activity I kept up when I was teaching.

So I make more resolutions.

Summer is ending, accelerated, perhaps, by the early arrival of fall air, wind blowing my pen off the picnic table when I work outdoors, nights chilly. It’s already getting dark earlier, my friend said to me on Monday night.

Restless, restless.