Our son is asleep in his room, and our daughter asleep in hers. My husband went out for a hike before the day becomes too hot to enjoy it. I didn’t join him because I procrastinated the groceries yesterday and needed to go today. I ran at sunrise to also beat the heat, then went to the grocery store, and now I have a little bit of time to sit before the kids wake, and our daughter gets ready for work, and our son starts packing.

The school year is about to begin. Our daughter starts her senior year of high school on Wednesday. She’s spent the past two weeks working on college applications. This time next year, we’ll be moving her out of our house and into a new life. Meanwhile, our son starts his second year at UVA in the coming days. He is finished with the dorm, and we move him into an apartment on Tuesday.

In three days, our son will be gone again, and it will just be my husband, our daughter, myself, and the cats. In one year, it will just be my husband, me, and the cats.

I feel… weird. Mixed up. I’m excited for our kids: they’re ready to expand beyond their childhood years, and they’ve got the whole world to look forward to. I love that they get to bust out of this place and see so much more than the little bubble of our town. I’m also excited for my husband and me: we have time and means we haven’t had in our entire 25 years of marriage. We’re eager to explore the world, to visit our children wherever they are, to eat and cook whatever we want, to go away for the weekend on a whim.

But also. I love being around our kids. I like them as people. They make me laugh, and I love having them in my space and in my daily life. It’s hard to give them up. We’ve had a fun summer with them both here. We went to the Outer Banks for a week, and they took their own cars so they could come and go as they wanted. We swam and played in the waves, made multiple trips to the candy store for chocolates and salt water taffy, bought our son some shoes, escaped the heat by retreating indoors to watch cycling races and Studio Gibli movies. We’ve eaten lots of meals together. We’ve talked books and music and jobs and travel, played Euchre and cribbage, lazed around with the cats, gotten Boba and takeout, and spent a lot of time in comfortable quiet.

August is the hottest month of summer, but it also feels like a turning in the year, even though I know it will still be weeks before temperatures start to come down. The sun blazes down on the drooping sunflowers. They’ve turned their energy from making flowers to making seeds. I love watching goldfinches land on the edges of the flowers’ dipped heads, then bend their heads underneath to pull seeds out. The big butterflies are finally here — the swallowtails, the monarchs — and so are the hummingbirds. The garden is a profusion of late summer blooms. Spring is soft pinks, but late summer is hot yellows and oranges, fiery magentas, and firecracker reds. I mostly watch everything from inside because it’s too hot to go out, or if it’s not too hot, then I get eaten by gnats.

As I sit here in the quiet with my coffee, knowing everything is about to change again, I look forward to autumn. I’m ready for the natural world to lower the energy level a little. I’m ready to open windows and clean up the garden, even as it’s full of flowers. I’m ready to see that golden September and October light, eat root vegetables, and hike through crackling leaves. I’m ready to reacclimate to life without our son here, and to go visit him when fall is at its peak on his campus. He says its beautiful. I’m ready for the cats to stop shedding so much, and to drive through autumn mountains with the top down on our car. I’m ready for the time of year that feels quiet and reflective.