Today, at about 1:36 in the afternoon, it hit me.

The stress of this unrelenting summer, the 13 weeks of harried, scrambled childcare due to the teachers’  strike, the news updates on Ebola and the reminder that this whole wide world could get turned upside down any minute, the uncertainty of our direction as a family, the guilt I harbor for not having loved every minute of having my children biting my ankles for the past three months while I work too much, the absent husband who is toiling day and night to get the ripe apples off the trees.

It all hit me today and I kind of felt like falling over, like letting the current take me under and just maybe crying for a little while.

I rode the wave, though. Talked with some new and old friends while our children ran up and down their hillside and felt like it might all be OK.

There is so much to be thankful for, so much to be afraid of, so much to wonder about. Crazy, wild life, this one.