It’s not that I haven’t been inspired to write. Thoughts blossom in my mind, begging to be pressed onto a page. But sometimes I’m driving and sometimes I’m sleeping and sometimes I’m just lazy and sometimes I just Facebook instead.

There’s also another problem: I can’t write about parenting because my children are too old for me to write about them. Or at least for me to do so without potentially embarrassing them. Two of the three are adults, technically, and the other is close enough. Who wants the angst and struggles of their teenage years, their early twenties, blown up for the world to see? If I were the sort of person to drop to my knees and pray nightly, I’d thank God for staving off Internet popularity until I was well into my 20s. Regular film was bad enough.

So I won’t write about how I worry, about how telling the difference between “normal” teenage drama and “put your kid into psychiatric counseling” teenage drama is about as easy for me as – as what? My mind seeks a metaphor, but all suggestions fail. Who did I talk to today? One of my friends who assured me everything will be okay because, after all, look at what we did and we turned out all right? One of our family friends who appreciates coming home to happy animals and a clean house? “They’re great kids,” people say. And they are. Helpful and funny and morally outraged in the right direction. But sometimes I can’t tell the difference between raising teenagers and walking over red hot ploughshares.

(I see why people turn to religion in these times. When logic no longer applies, faith and prayer manifest as logical options.)

What else am I not writing about? Surfing. I’m pleased to find myself in the water again and lighter for being unburdened from chronicling said misadventures. Kaylee and I traveled to Santa Cruz so she could check out Cabrillo College. We braved the rocks and locals of Steamer Lane and fought through the kelp at Pleasure Point. The Lane’s offerings hit us at the knees, but at Pleasure Point I turned around after catching a wave to see K dropping down a face at least two feet over her head. I hollered and thumbsed up as if she were eight again and paddling into waves by herself.

Memories tied to moments and I hold fast to the rope.