A Simple(r) Summer

The Kerr family has landed (albeit briefly) for the summer at my family's summer home in Ludington, MI. It was a whirlwind of packing, applying and re-applying for our visa paperwork, and tying up the many loose ends we had in Chicago. Now is a time for family, regrouping, and readying ourselves for the vast adventure that sits just a few short months in front of us.

It is a bittersweet time for me as I try to wrap my head around all of this change. My baby is no longer an infant (as I am reminded of daily as this gregarious toddler rambles from room to room before my very eyes.) I am not a maternity leave momma any longer either. While there was no mistaking this past year that my full physical and emotional efforts were directed squarely on one little boy, the quadrant of my identity focused on professional Jessica has been put on indefinite hold. And most difficult for me, we had to say good-bye to Chicago, our home for the last decade. It is here that Gabe and I became the people we are today. The loss of having our closest friends at arms reach all the time will be hard to cope with as we travel further and further from the nest.

But... we have this summer. Unfettered. I cannot say what the next year will bring. There are so many questions, all huge, all unanswered. Yet, it is because of this unknown and my inability to control what happens next that I am able to be present in the moments. So with that, we have a simple summer.