Haunted

My sixteen year old self went to the cabin one year. The world was wide open, and the answer to every question she ever asked was "Yes!" She was fearless, bold, and believed in her beauty. She knew that undiscovered miracles lay around every corner. She went on a walk after it rained with the son of her parent's friends. He was good looking enough, played basketball, and liked her. Romance reigned supreme at sixteen, though, and she knew that a kiss was waiting just around the next tree. Hands were held as the mist wandered through the mountains, but no kiss was ever given. I bump into the ghost of my sixteen year old self every year at the cabin. She's still looking for that kiss.

I'm also haunted by the fact that I know I need to be treasuring every moment I have with my young children. You know that article by Erma Bombeck about how the footed pajama feet had been replaced with high fashioned boots at Christmastime and she longs for those precious times? (If you don't just Google it). I cry EVERY SINGLE TIME I think about that article, and about how I will miss my small ones. It's like I'm haunted by my future empty-nester self. She'll tell me that I didn't enjoy them enough. That I should have read more stories, played more games. She's chiding me to stop and smell the roses. There's an army of these older women out there, marching like the soldiers they are to the beat of "They grow UP so fast, they grow UP so fast, they grow UP so fast...
Yet. At the end of every day I have an unbelievable headache and an urge to seek out alcoholic beverages. A day can be a thousand years long to a mother of young ones. How to reconcile the desire to fully enjoy the littles, when at times it's insanely difficult...?

My trip to the cabin seems to come at just the right time every year, when I'm in the middle of my summer funk. You've heard of winter time depression? Well, I always seem to go into a summer time tizzy of sorts. Wondering what it's all about, trying to muster the energy to do what I'm supposed to do, and basically just putting one foot in front of the other. Once I come back from the cabin, fall is just around the corner and everything is fine again. Strange.

The picture above is of the Bitterroot Mountains in northern Idaho. Aren't they beautiful? I can't wait to get back there, pick huckleberries, read about how to be a better mother, become amazed at how beautiful and loving my kids are, and, oh yes, bump into that sixteen year old girl that haunts the place. We leave in a week!