Last week I sent all three of my boys off to their first days of school.

Kaleb's first day

Nathan's first day (It was raining when he went to school...I didn't get many good pictures, and caused a mini traffic jam getting this one by shooting through the car window while in the junior high drop-off loop)

Jake's first day of school...he gets to drive himself this year!

I argued with Nathan's counselor. (The problem with his schedule is still not resolved.)

I listened very solemnly to Kaleb talk about how he is different now he is in fouth grade (he doesn't "play" anymore, he "hangs out," and he needs to read "important, hard books," preferably about monsters).

I shopped a great sale but bought myself nothing.

I ran 14-ish miles, some sluggish, some blissful, a few that felt entirely effortless.

I finished Tell the Wolves I'm Home and it made me cry. I started The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry and it made me laugh.

I got to see Haley.

(She drove Kaleb to school on his first day, per his request.)

I talked to my husband. I laughed with him. I came home to find him painting the trim on the garage. I also argued with him and wished I wasn't. I wished I could make things better somehow.

I spent hours talking with Jake. There—I also wish I could make that better. That hardness he is going through. Some of it is my fault, some of it his, but he is in a hard place he doesn't know how to get out of and all I can help him with is words.

I talked to my mom. I texted with my sister while she drove to California. I talked to my other sister on the phone.

I prayed. I laughed. I cried.

I made chocolate chip cookies with Nathan, and potato salad, and confetti rice salad, and roast beef with balsalmic vinegar.

I ate one of the most delicious watermelons of the summer.

There was rain nearly every day, which was like a sacrament. There was morning snow on my favorite mountain. There was a rainbow tonight that was so beautiful I made my neighbors come outside and admire it with me.

Tonight, I felt like something I've been struggling with was finally righting itself, and for one good, long hour I could breath deeply. I felt, if not exactly free, then lightened of my Atlas stone. When it turned left, the resettling of weight was almost unbearable, but then I told my friends the story of the day I lost my temper with my classful of 4th-period hooligans and shouted the F word at them, and then we all laughed together and the weight readjusted itself to a more bearable spot.

And then, just now, because I couldn't sleep and he wasn't asleep yet, Jake and I went outside (after midnight in the pouring rain) to put out the drain spouts together, and then we rain in the drenching storm, and the cold didn't make us go inside, or being soaked all the way through—but eventually the lightning did.

It was a good week and a hard one. It was usual for my life right now, and I know one day life will change and I will miss these days (as I miss other days) so I am making peace with the hard and savoring the good.

How was your week?