Our monthly blog circle is here again and some of my blog circle friends have decided to dedicate this post as a farewell to summer.   As it is the 1st September this seems quite relevant.  Meteorologically speaking summer has ended in the UK and we are officially now in Autumn.  I have mixed feelings as it isn’t just the environment around me that is changing.  We have a definite shift in our household this month as my first child is set to move to secondary school this week. I seem to have blinked and we are here, it is time for him to grow up, begin to venture into the world alone, stand on his own two feet. Despite internally dreading this transition, in moments of objectivity I can see how natural this is, how the the years before have been a natural precursor to this, readying him.  However time is insidious, it creeps up on us and it is sometimes hard to be objective. The child who was able to cling to my little finger with his whole hand is still there with me.  The child who loved dinosaurs, who would spend car journeys counting trucks and tractors,  the sweet gentle boy who still isn’t embarrassed to give me a hug and a kiss before walking into school.

In selfish moments I wish I could pause life, keep him with me, make him stay like this forever, protect him … but I can also sometimes see glimpses of the person he will be and I feel such pride, such happiness that he is in my life.  I know he needs to move on, that to grow as a person he needs to experience failure, make his own mistakes, detach…. but it is hard, so very hard.

I hope the new world he is entering is kind to him, I hope he meets new friends who bring the best out of him, I hope he copes with all the changes he is about to encounter with good grace, I hope he will be happy but ultimately I hope that these inevitable winds of change don’t catch up with us too quickly…

Please visit my friend Rebecca’s blog to see her take on happiness this month.