Barbecue at the Simases

I sat this evening in our good friends’ garden and thought about how lucky I am. It’s a very nicely laid out and mature informal garden around a nicely kept lawn. The temperature was perfect and we enjoyed easy conversation.

We raised our children largely together, volunteered for many of the same PTA functions, fretted together over teachers and homework loads and who was free to chaperone the next field trip. We haven’t always agreed on everything except that we all had our kids’ interests at heart.

And now the last of the kids are going off to college and we’re able to just enjoy each others’ company without the need to discuss this or that bit of drama from the school board or whether it’s better to spread out the AP courses or save them for the upperclass years.

And this evening, all I had to do was enjoy their company and their backyard on a beautiful evening. I’m really starting to enjoy the empty nest thing.