A bit of a melancholy Saturday morning

I'm feeling a bit melancholy this morning.  I suspect a great part of it is the weather.  It's been a cold and wet week, and this morning we've had snow showers.  I appreciate the togetherness it has brought us as sports activities have been postponed, but it hasn't been a fun weather week.

I suspect it also has something to do with the fact that six weeks from now, I'll be staring down at the week my youngest child graduates.  I'm far more emotional about this than I expected to be.  I've been looking forward to many things about empty nesting, but given so many family situations, I find myself wondering what's next in life.  Do I get to grow old surrounded by a loving family, or will it all fracture and be mostly alone?  That sounds so dramatic, I know, but Catherine and Thomas aren't getting along (and haven't been for months) due to significant others, and it breaks my heart.  And of course, I can't help but look back and wonder if we did everything we could to teach them the right things in life and make them strong, content, independent people who make good choices.  

As I said to Andrew a couple of weeks ago, life feels "heavy".  It's not that life is awful, but it feels heavy.  We are (hopefully) coming out of the pandemic, and I know life will never be the same.  Certainly some changes are good, but I also know there have been relationships that will not recover from all the time apart.  It's a fact of life.  There is a war happening in our world, and the ramifications are immeasurable.  Again, I'm not miserable nor is life awful, but it's truly hard to ignore these things.  And for this morning, it adds up to just a big of a melancholy feeling while I clean the house.