I am on my porch. It is a sunny muggy Sunday evening. Track Camp should be over. This next week of rain should be permission for me to stay inside and re-do my office. This is not my reality right now. I have another week of camp. I am tired. I am overwhelmed. I am also really excited.

I get to spend 40 hours with 70 children and 40 teenagers!

I get to worry about rain and thunder!

I get to have amazing conversations!

June is always a respite for me after “Molly May”. The relief I feel is not easily explainable but those who know, well they know. June, however, brings its own challenges. The school year ending. All of the scholarship and award ceremonies. Graduation. Track Camp.

Breathe Barbara.

I called myself Barbara. This is significant. It means business. I am Barb. My legal given name is my serious, impersonal, you must be in trouble name. This is how extreme I feel right this minute.

In exactly one week this will all be a memory.

Writing that sentence takes me back to the spring of 1982. It is exam week and I am feeling panicked and unprepared. My teammate and friend Marti Shea shows up at my dorm room door and tells me that we need to go to the movies. On Golden Pond is out and we must go see it. She has some friends with a car who are willing to take us. Alcohol is likely involved. “Marti”, I plead, “we have our biology exam tomorrow”, we need to study.

She gives me a look.

“In twenty-four hours, this will be in our past, the exam will be over.” “Let’s just go to the movie. We only live once.”

So, we went.

I have no regrets about this choice. I did fine on the exam. I graduated college. I succeeded in all of the ways I was supposed to. And I saw an amazing movie that was filmed on a pond located thirty minutes from my house. I am channeling Marti right now. I swam today. I mowed the lawn under a hot sunny sky. I read a few chapters of a book. I am writing this blog.

I cannot lose myself in the tasks of daily life.

In the coming weeks I will be sharing a health journey that will begin July first. I committed to a “shit ton” of tests (blood, urine, saliva, hair, poop) and have been gifted amazing information about my body and its state of health. While I will miss Greek Yogurt and Vodka, I will welcome the experience of feeling healthy and well.

I am ready.

So, this blog is a week late. I will attempt to write another one sometime during this second week of track camp. I do not promise that this will happen. This is a short blog. I am trying to do all of “my” things while also being a summer camp director. I am one cocktail in, working on the second. These too, shall be history at this time next week.

I live an interesting life.

It is wonderful.

I am tired.