It's Nice To Know

That I'm on the same page with those I love
that I'm not alone in uncertainty
that I'm needed.

I worked all day on Monsieur Syllabus. and Dented him. Tomorrow is my last (!) babysitting job of the summer (PRAISES) and tomorrow night I get to see one whom I love dearly, and whom I must lose ere long. Ere long being Saturday, when she goes off to law school. Life is just transitioning it up all over the place. Like a house afire!

I like to say that whenever I can. It doesn't often work. In fact it works far less often than I manage to use it. But that's not slowing me down.

Well, the summer's over. And to show for it I have the best tan I've probably ever had, ever; up-to-date rent payments, and a much better working knowledge of Tulsa's upper-middle-class suburban cookie-cutter neighborhoods. Also, a concrete experiential knowledge of the old axiom that one's own children are always less dreadful than a stranger's.
But I have loved these kids. These spoiled, weepy, neurotic, rude, lovable, corrupt, manipulative, capable, intelligent, challenging, wonderful children. And it's fitting that I end my time as a summer nanny with the kids I've seen most often this summer. The kids with whom I have spent many a tuesday relaxing at the country club pool while they have their swim lessons (my life is an ABC Family Channel original series waiting to happen. how depressing is that thought? [answer: quite]). The kids I've gotten to know best. They will forget about me: soon I will be a faceless, vague memory of that one summer babysitter before time eradicates me entirely. It's been intensely interesting being the fly on the wall of so many homes this summer, observing people who most often could not remember my name and wouldn't recognize me again. getting to play a part, however small, in all sorts of lives. I wonder who they will become; if the dreams they shared with me will come to pass as they see them now, what kind of grownups they'll morph into.
But I'm SO glad tomorrow's my last day.

It's nice to know.