Summer is here. This will be my son’s last summer before starting high school. How exciting! (I’m so proud!) Time for me to savor mothering him before it’s too late. In four short years he’ll graduate from high school and leave for college.
No doubt we’ll be hitting the mountain biking trails during the day. He’s an avid downhill mountain biker. There is no way I can keep up with him. Even before divalproex, my balance left something to be desired. (I’ve always been something of a klutz.) So I’ll leisurely pedal the gentle meandering trails enjoying the view and taking in glorious natural beauty (or cacti and dust) while he races down mountains, rocks, sand, cliffs, and all manner of life and limb threatening terrain.
To enjoy this summer, I must somehow learn how to use social media and keep in contact with my friends without gluing myself to a computing device. It’s way too easy to be drawn in all hours of the day and night when I carry my smartphone around as if it is an appendage of my body, of my mind, and of my heart.
There are so, so many gifted bloggers whom I want to read, so many comments to make, so much valuable content to share, so many souls to love. To my dear and valued friends, mental health advocates, writers, poets, artists, and kindred spirits with whom I regularly communicate throughout the day and often into the night, summer has begun, and now I must focus my time and energy on my son and on painting our house. (Oh, did I mention that I’ve successfully avoided finishing painting the interior of our house for coming up on a year now. Hi, my name is Kitt. I live with bipolar disorder, surrounded by unfinished well-intentioned household projects. Typical.)
Instead of spending this summer typing at my keyboard, I plan to be bicycling on a dirt trail struggling to keep up with my son or covered from head to toe with paint (hopefully some ends up on the walls).
Happy Summer. Not checking out entirely, just cutting back, way back.
Wish me luck.
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