The Days Are Long, The Years Are Short
Last week was the last pickup of the school year.
Same parking spot. Same line of cars. Same sticky pretzel crumbs in the back seat that I keep meaning to vacuum out. And then — just like that — the year was over.
I sat in the driver’s seat for a minute longer than I needed to. Watching the kids spill out of the doors. The little ones sprinting like they had been holding their breath since September. The bigger ones a little slower, a little quieter, already half-grown into the next version of themselves.
And I thought — wait. How are we already here?
We are halfway through 2026. Halfway. And I swear I just took down the Christmas tree.
June has always been my favorite kind of bittersweet.
The school programs. The recitals. The graduations — kindergarten ones, eighth grade ones, high school ones, college ones. The yard signs and the cap-and-gown photos filling up my feed. Friends sending kids off to boarding school. Friends sending kids off to college. Friends watching their last baby walk across a stage in a tiny paper cap.
It is so much. Every June is so much.
It is the strange ache of being a mother — you are so proud you might burst, and you are so heartbroken you might cry in the Trader Joe’s parking lot. Sometimes both in the same hour.
I don’t think we talk enough about how much we miss. Not because we aren’t paying attention — we are paying attention. We are running practices, running businesses, running carpools, running on coffee and prayer. We are the most attentive generation of mothers in history.
And still — still — the years sneak up behind us and tap us on the shoulder.
The days are long. The years are short. Whoever said that first knew exactly what they were doing.
In our world — the dental world, the practice-owner world, the boss-mom world — there is always one more thing. One more email. One more team meeting. One more case to review. One more 8 a.m. block to fill. The work never stops. It will literally never stop.
But your kids will stop. They will stop being little. They will stop running into your room before bedtime. They will stop asking you to braid their hair. They will stop, eventually, needing you in the way they need you right now.
So I am making a small commitment to myself this June. And I am inviting you to make it with me.
Stop. Just for a second.
Celebrate the wins — yours, your kids’, your team’s, your friend’s, the patient’s mom who pulled you aside in the lobby to say thank you for being kind to her child. Celebrate the end of the school year. Celebrate making it halfway through 2026 with your sense of humor (mostly) intact. Celebrate the milestone you brushed right past three weeks ago because you were already onto the next thing.
The patients will be there tomorrow.
The practice will be there tomorrow.
The to-do list will be there tomorrow — it is, frankly, immortal.
But your kid’s last day of fourth grade only happens once.
To the mom dropping her oldest off at college this August — I see you.
To the mom sending her baby to boarding school — I see you.
To the mom whose kindergartner just “graduated” with a paper diploma and a song about the alphabet — I see you too.
They all count. Every single one counts.
And to the mom who feels like she barely caught her breath before summer arrived — sit down for a minute. Pour something cold. Look at your people. Take it in.
May this June be a soft landing.
May the celebrations be loud and the in-between moments be quiet.
May you give yourself permission to pause — even just for a single afternoon — and let the year actually catch up to you.
And if you are sending your child off to a new chapter this summer — boarding school, college, a first job, a first apartment, a first goodbye — may this summer be sweeter than honey.
You earned it. They earned it. We all did.
Dr. Grace Yum
Founder, Mommy Dentists in Business
