Changing Weather Changing Life

I always have a hard time in the fall emotionally and I don't know why because I love fall. I think the leaves changing color are beautiful, I love the cooler weather and the smell of wood smoke in the mornings, I love pumpkins and apples and scarecrows, and I love decorating the house for Halloween and Thanksgiving. All this week I have just been so sad, sitting here feeling all alone in a house full of people, trying to hold back tears that I have no way of explaining, if anyone even noticed they were there. Fall in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia is so heartbreakingly lovely I would not want to be anywhere else at this time of year.
What is it then that makes me feel so alone and lonely? At 48 I am not a young woman anymore. My last few babies are growing up fast and I have grandchildren all around me to remind me that my years of being a mom are quickly coming to an end. I have loved having a house full of children all these years but it isn't the same when it becomes a house full of young adults doing their own thing and living their own lives. I know that it was something of an accomplishment to get all these younguns raised but why do I feel that so much of life just passed me by?
I am writing this blog for myself. No one else is reading it. I guess this is just an outlet for me to try and express some of my feelings. Lord knows I have no one to talk to and even if I tried they wouldn't understand. After all no one has it easy these days, at least not in my world. Can't find decent jobs that pay enough money to live on, hard to keep food on the table, hard times for everyone. I have a place to live and food to eat and we can just barely keep the wolf from the door so who am I to complain.
So this is what I wish for my kids to know about me. I loved them as best I could, provided for them and took care of them all the days of my life and suddenly they didn't need me anymore. I wish I could live inside my memories of the days when they were all little and clamoring around me with so much joyful chaos I could barely think. I look at pictures of those days gone by and I realize that my life is so empty now...all the color is gone all the happiness all the tumultuous ruckus that filled up my heart and my soul. I just honestly do not know what to do with myself.