I had thought to name this posting 2010 The Endless Summer or some other reference to this particularly opressive season.  Maybe it is the midwestern heat and humidity that is making me cranky or maybe the planets just aren't lined up. For whatever reason the energy isn't good right now.  And as I thought it through, it really isn't just this summer that I am wishing would end soon, (and I love summer so it is unusual for me to look forward to fall )but the whole year as I look back has been out of sync.

 My children, normally a happy crew are dealing with adult issues, as adults, for the first time so their lives are unsettled.  Their dad, from whom I have been divorced for ten years decided to get out of Dodge and move 2000 miles away this past spring.  While parents sometimes do that when their children are in college; unresolved issues arise when the chicks return to the nest and find that the nest is no longer the same, a portion of what they had always counted on being gone-the new nest so far away, and not accomodating with a space for them.

 For one daughter the feeling is of yet another abandonment; her summer has been one of anxiety and uncertainty.  This has generated the necessity of confronting her father with these feelings so she can resolve them within herself one way or another.  Her boyfriend is bewildered and feeling powerless to help, but thankfully supportive.  He will be a beneficiary of the "daddy issues" work. I know she will come out on the other side a stronger and healthier person, but it is painful to watch her struggle.

 She had hoped to use the summer to create music and prepare for the upcoming semester and that has been a bust; though one would expect that since creativity is often an outlet for strong emotion she will be able to use this summer productively in the end.

 My older daughter realized that she had outgrown her high school boyfriend of four years and wants to experience her senior year in college as a free agent, perhaps traveling to Europe and making friends that the confines of the relationship inhibited.  It is hard leaving someone who you love, but know you have outgrown, whose life vision  you don't share.  So she mourns the relationship while at the same time anticipates the future with excitement. I feel sad for the boyfriend as I am very fond of him and know that his world is a small one. He likes it that way and is afraid of change. He's not bad or abusive or even more thoughtless than any average twenty two year old young man.  There is nothing wrong with what he wants; it just doesn't suit my daughter. That makes me sad. His fear of change and growth was responsible for the loss of what he loves.  What he doesn't realize is that she probably would leave him anyway...better now than married with children. That is what these years are about.

 This year has been an economic struggle for me as it has been for so many people.  I work in mortgage lending.  The big banks have taken responsible lending to the other extreme.  They took us all on a ride over a cliff and now the survivors of the cataclysm don't want to lend money to anyone-no matter how well heeled or endowed with high credit scores and assets a person may be.  Where three years ago a lender would look for any reason to say "yes", now they look for any reason to say "no'. 

 These same banks now will not lend on the homes they foreclosed upon if the homes need repair.  They won't repair them, so the homes sit vacant as few have the cash to buy them outright.

 My 86 year old aunt has driven without a license, been sentenced to 90 days in jail, suspended, unless she drives again, and set fire to her kitchen in the old people's home-all which require my father, her closest living relative also in his 80's to have to deal with her from 2200 miles away. She has always been iracible and pig headed; age not mellowing her one whit.  This isn't going to turn out well, I can tell.

 2010 has even taken a toll on my pets. The subject of my avatar died in 2009 actually, to be replaced by a spastic red doberman that we love.  And recently we lost the dog of my children's childhood, a lab/great dane mix- a goofy willful escape artist whose solid presence comforted me through my divorce and reinvention as a single mom, protected us and became my children's playmate.  That was hard even though I knew that giant dogs don't live forever.  Last weekend I sent my daughters to the Humane Society to review the occupants and the result was another red doberman, battered and beaten up, but calm and ready to be loved on.  She fits in perfectly. So that at least, is a postive note.

 My auxillary child still bounces from pillar to post, no closer to his goal of going to acting school, but he seems content at present.  I have offered my assistance to him in attaining his goal, but that is an alien concept, he being so used to finding his own solutions on his own in his own way. And I suspect that even though he can't find artisitic fulfillment here, he also is fearful of abandoning his current life to jump into the unknown. I have to have faith that when he decides that he needs a hand he will find his way to my door. 

Death on the other hand seems to be doing quite well this year.  Several of my friends have lost parents and parents of my children's friends are now being taken by disease. People younger than myself.  I read somewhere once that one third of American children lose a parent by the time they are 19.  Rather a high percentage for a country that is supposed to have the best medical care in the world.

 And then of course there is the evil of BP loose in the world-even more so than I had thought with the news of their connection to the release of the Libyian bomber.  Then of course there is Fox News, The Party of No, The Fools that adhere to the Tea Party line, all flooding the airwaves with their negative drivel.  It is amazing to me that the Obama administration has been able to get anything done over the noise. While the healthcare bill, financial reform etc. aren't perfect by any means, they are accomplishments in a system that seems to be ruled by crackpots on the internet and cable news. I keep wondering when the average American will stop waiting on the instant fix, decide that he/she is too poor to vote Republican and begin being part of the solution instead of enabling the problem.

 To close on a somewhat postive note, this summer will end and in the not too distanct future, as will 2010. I can only hope that 2010 shuts the door when it leaves taking all the bad karma with it.  There are years like this I suppose, but I don't have to like them.