The Summer of My Years..

June was a hectic month. With not one but two graduations in my family, I didn't have a chance to relax for one minute. Between parties, and ceremonies, and tears and smiles, I have officially sent my two babies out into the world to be adults. My life has just changed cycles, from the spring of my youth, to the summer of my adulthood as I see my girls, the older one, a nurse, courteous and caring, and the other, the youngest,a cosmetologist (and soon to be in college along with working full time)who's love of beautiful things, go off on their own, no need to have mommy holding their hands..no looking back to see if I'm still there..no fear of what the unknown brings.
The house seems extraordinarily quiet now, even though the dogs are playing, and the lawn mower is in use by my husband who holds his emptyness in his heart like an echo in the wind. I only hear the sounds of spring. Of little girls playing on swings, and giggles from under the covers with flashlights. I can still smell the aroma of toast and bacon from that first day of school for miss hair designer, when she wouldn't let go of her sisters' hand all the way there. And I can still hear the cries of the cat when the nurse put bandaids all over his tail.
The living room is no longer the holder of notebooks, and graded papers, or dried corsages from prom dates. There is no mud to clean up from little sneakers dancing in puddles during the early evening rains. I have traveled half circle now, from Spring into Summer...I wonder what the second half of my life will be like.