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Queen Elizabeth’s funeral is quickly approaching. We are waking up at 5 am to watch tomorrow. I’m counting myself as watching, too, though prior to this point, I would have phrased it as “the ChickieNob is watching, and I am abiding with the ChickieNob.” But… no. I am watching, too. This means something to me.

I will tell you the headline that turned me into a sobbing mess. Actually, I was already a sobbing mess because I had shown Josh the trailer for the movie The Duke, which gives me goosebumps. And then I was crying because we were working on college applications, and that shoves the whole leaving-for-college thing in my face. But then I started crying because of this headline: “Princess Anne curtsies to her late mother one final time.”

Get past any knee-jerk reaction to the idea of one human being curtsying to another. There was something about that headline that drove home the point that this was a woman who lost her mother. Sons who lost their mother. Grandchildren who lost their grandmother. Just a family mourning their loss on a public stage. How impossibly difficult. If it were me, I would be in pyjamas, sobbing hysterically. I would be staring at the wall, motionless. I would not be standing upright, outside, in front of everyone, my face in neutral.

My heart went out to Princess Anne.

So we will wake up tomorrow super early and say goodbye.

The twins are deep in college applications, which means we’ve also been touring colleges on and off since last spring. College is both everything like and nothing like it was when I attended.

I wish you could do college twice. Once when you’re young, both to prepare you for the work world and to give you a soft landing for independence. And again in middle age to appreciate the experience.

We saw this incredible math department. It was a brand new building — only a few years old — and they had long hallways with chalkboard walls where professors had put up problems and students walking by were solving them. And an old stone library with stained glass windows casting colourful dots of light over the books. We’ve listened to campus tour guides talk about school traditions, and watched students reading books on picnic blankets floating on a sea of grass.

Many years ago, I went maternity clothes shopping with a friend who was pregnant. It was hard to support her and project happiness when we weren’t able to get pregnant. But I convinced myself that I would have this experience one day, too. It was in my future.

It’s a very different feeling to covet when the experience is in your past.

Josh and I are planning to be those elderly people who audit college classes in the summer — educational tourism. But that’s different from belonging.

No, this is like looking at all the roads not taken with people who have all of the roads ahead of them. I hope they enjoy this time.

It feels impossible for the day to arrive and to not think about it, talk about, reflect on it.

Maybe because it still feels like it just happened even though 21 years have passed.

Sending love into the universe today for people who are remembering.

This wins for best dek of August (and maybe all time): “If you knew the birth date, time, and place of your soul mate, how far would you go to find them?”

Followed by this line: “Floaty-scarved wingnut astrology lady or not, Stephanie Jourdan suddenly had my full attention.”

It is a fantastic set up for a story, but the punchline at the end is what makes it really perfect. Please don’t skip ahead to it. Let the story unfold from beginning to end. (Or, beginning to end of excerpt.)

I need to read this book.

So how far would you go to meet your soul mate if you knew the birthday and birthplace of your soul mate?

A made a thought-provoking comment on this post about photos:

“I look at my mom’s scrapbooks with photos and stories, and I love them, but they’re not comprehensive. It was a special occasion only thing, because film and development wasn’t free. I have a lot of great pictures of everyday things that are, to me, more valuable than my vacation pictures.”

It’s true — the candid, non-posed, I’m-so-glad-I-captured-that-moment mean more to me than the posed pictures taken at events. They may be blurry or off-center; people may be looking somewhere else or have their eyes closed in silent laughter. Some of those have happened on trips, and I can think of one that came at an event. (I snapped a picture of the twins dancing with each other at the end of their B’nai Mitzvah.) But for the most part, it’s the photos from everyday life I would miss more than the thousands I take so I don’t forget a trip or event that mean more to me.

What about you?