Tag: empty nest

Loosening of A Strand

I’m at my third child’s freshman orientation for college. So obviously, this is not my first rodeo. In fact, he is attending the same large, wonderful university that his two elder brothers attended, so this is really not my first rodeo. In some ways, I feel comforted. I know what to expect in many regards. I know that while our relationship will definitely change, he won’t disappear on me. In some ways, our relationship will mature and ripen in wonderful ways, with a mutual adult respect and a curiosity to get to know each other on a more personal, level playing field. We’ll discover things about each other, that for years was kept under the wraps of more parental guidance and authority, than he will need now.

Still, every child is unique. Anyone who believes that a child is a “blank slate” doesn’t have multiple children or is too blind to see the swirling, beautiful, utterly unique energy and soul, that is encapsulated in the body of each and every child. That soul just needs to be nurtured, loved and coached out – certainly not painted over with forced, blind, uniform expectations. And because every child is unique, every relationship that you have with each of your children, is unique and special and sacred.

I have raised four children. I carry four strands. And today marks the day that I have to let go of my tight grip on one of my unique, beautiful strands. I have to loosen the string and let it wind out to new directions, directions that will no longer be in my control. I have enough experience in this territory now, to not fear the loosening so much. In fact, I’m excited to follow the strand from time to time, to see where it is going, now, almost entirely in the care of my wonderful, capable son’s direction.

One Year Anniversary

Green and Brown Garden

Today is a very special day at Adulting – Second Half. Today is the one year anniversary of this blog. One year ago, I started this blog on a whim (and honestly, probably my way to process some grief). My husband and I had just dropped our eldest son at his first adult apartment, about to embark on his first, real adult job. He was officially off of our payroll, and officially at the beginning of a whole new path for himself, a path in which we would now be mostly bystanders and adoring fans, waving from the sidelines. I realized, particularly in that moment, that I was nearing the end of a major path in my own life. My Adulting – First Half had been on this wide path of child rearing, focused on raising our four children to independence, for a long while now. The path has sometimes been smooth, sometimes rocky, and up and down hills and mountains. The path has been sometimes clear with breath-taking views of gorgeous horizons. The path has sometimes been foggy and the path has even run into some big storms, here and there. Even still, my Adulting – First Half road has been a beautiful, miraculous journey, a path that I have never regretted taking.

My eldest son had reached our united path’s finish line and our three other children, dutifully always following their eldest brother, like “ducks in a row” (as I have always insisted), are nearing that finish line at a clip pace, as well. And therefore, so am I.

I want you to know how grateful I am, to all of you, for your support, your kindness and your validation, as I have dared to take steps into my new path, my Adulting – Second Half path. In some ways, I suspect that this path is a path that will help me to find ways back to parts of myself that I had long forgotten even existed. And that is scary and exciting, all at the same time. The best part of writing this blog, is the realization that as I embark on a new path in life, and probably at lot of little side paths and stop offs along the way, I am not alone. None of us are alone. Thank you for being such a beautiful, comforting reminder of that fact.

With heads held high, and hearts wide open, forward march . . . . . .

Small Corrections

“When you wait until momentum is well underway before you are aware that you are moving in the direction that you don’t want to go, sometimes the momentum is too strong and so that negative momentum just has to play itself out. But . . . .There is always another opportunity to direct your thoughts and accomplish momentum in the direction of things that you do want.” – Esther Hicks

My daughter got her driver’s license permit earlier this spring. She and my husband (driving lessons have always fallen under my husband’s “list of familial duties”; the experience of our kids learning to drive, wreaks such havoc on my nerves that I am more likely to cause an accident, than to teach the kids to prevent one) will soon be “all-in”, with my husband teaching my daughter the driving skills that she will need to get her safely to where she wants to go. These lessons will get her motor-motor skills to a certain precision level, in which my husband and I won’t have to hold our breaths, every time she drives somewhere, until she comes home. I remember when I learned how to drive, my dad had to keep emphasizing to me, that driving is really a series of “small corrections”, instead of big swerves or trying to change lanes instantly. This lesson came to mind recently, as girlfriends and I were discussing the changes and sometimes tumult, summertime can bring to family life.

By middle age, we all have hopefully matured to a level where we have tried to hone our communication skills. We have learned to be better listeners. We have made the effort to become more self-aware and to find healthy ways to understand and express our needs and concerns while empathizing with the fact that others’ needs and concerns must be considered, as well. But sometimes . . . . sometimes all of that learning, and all of that practicing, and all of that patience, goes flying out the window, and momentum kicks in, and like a horrified spectator, we see ourselves moving into the “no turning back zone”, where we act and react emotionally, forcefully, and sometimes even, slightly out of control.

That’s why it is so key in life to have a circle of friends, with similar lives, who can validate your experience, laugh along with your stories in a knowing way which makes you feel less freakish and alone, and to remind you that you can “bring it back to center”. You can get centered because you have the long practiced skills, and these good friends always remind you, that it is all going to be okay.

Summer, in all of its fabulous-ness, requires a fair amount of adjustment. Schedules change. There is a lot more free time. It’s really, really hot outside. Kids away at school are suddenly home again, but in the habit of living their own rhythms, which are not often on the same circadian rhythms as their parents. If you go at this seasonal adjustment, with small corrections – kind, but assertive reminders of expectations and requests, the adjustment may not be seamless, but it is often painless. However, many times in summertime, with everyone going in many different, random-by-the-day directions, and then all of the sudden, coming together into very close, sweaty quarters, like small summer rental cottages, or cars full of people and luggage, all that pent-up emotion, and unspoken frustration comes out like a long-dormant volcano, and the eruption is shocking to everyone, even to the erupt-or(s). But as the above quote reminds us, once the eruption is over, once the lava has cooled, we have the ability to change the momentum. We can change the momentum to a positive outlook, newly cleared air, and a reminder to make small corrections, so that the momentum does not build to create another Vesuvius-like eruption. One major display of fireworks is good enough, for any particular summer.

I Wish All Days

I wish all days felt as happy and cheerful as the days when you bring home a new puppy.

I wish all days felt as cozy as the days that are so snowy or rainy, you have no choice but to wrap yourself up in a blanket and relax and read.

I wish all days felt as safe as the days when all of the people, who you love the most, are right under your roof, happily chattering away and doing their thing.

I wish all days felt as deliciously anticipatory as the days you are expecting the delivery of an interesting package.

I wish all days felt as hilarious, as the days when you read, see or hear something so funny that you laugh so hard, so much that it hurts, or you even pee your pants a little.

I wish all days felt as wondrous as that first day of vacation in a new place that you have never been before, and this place is entirely different than anything you have ever seen or have experienced.

I wish all days felt as satisfactory and full of relief, as the days that a job is completed, and it is completed well, to everyone’s delight.

I wish all days felt as exciting as the days you get a job offer or a college acceptance or you make the team or get a part in the play.

I wish all days felt as miraculous and full of relief as the days you hear that you, or a loved one, are completely healed from a serious illness or medical emergency.

I wish all days felt as comfortable and relaxing and full of acceptance, as the days when you have a long lunch with dear, long-time friends.

I wish all days felt as delicious as the days when you really, really savor eating something especially scrumptious, without any guilt or hesitation.

I wish all days felt as magical as the days when it all seems to come together – you look good, you feel good, you do good and you have all of the right words.

I wish all days felt as luxurious as the days, when all you did was love and cuddle your babies, and smell their precious little heads.

I wish all days felt as satisfying as the days when you achieve a physical goal and you feel pride in that accomplishment, in every fiber of your being, physical, mental and spiritual.

I wish all days felt as easy and whimsical as the unscheduled days on our calendars.

I wish all days felt as mystically reassuring as the days you find a lucky penny.

I wish all days felt as sexy as when you have those “lost in your lover’s eyes” moments that seem to convey everything that words cannot convey.

When I looked at my “I wish all days” list, I experienced the very feelings that I was writing about, all over again. So I guess that I am having one of those fabulous days of feeling cheerful, cozy, safe, anticipatory, amused, wondrous, luxurious, satisfied, excited, grateful to God, accepted, satiated, magical, proud, whimsical, reassured and sexy. In fact, I felt all of those feelings in the hour that it took me to write the list. I experienced all of those wonderful feelings in just one hour! I highly recommend that you write your own “I wish all days” list and give yourself the gift of a lot of positive energy and possibility, all in about 1/24th of your day. And then, when some negativity starts seeping in, read your list to yourself, and you can feel all of those terrific feelings, in just a few minutes. Try it. It works.

Their Roots Entwined

Last night I watched my four kids laughing, and joking, and teasing and talking and even squabbling a little bit, and I felt my heart soaked in gratefulness, awe and love for these most precious people, whom I have been privileged to raise. When they were little, I must have taken it for granted that they would always be this little band of four – the oldest, curly-headed ginger leading the pack, not far behind him, his brother, the adventurer and the instigator, followed by the youngest blue-eyed boy, (yet the biggest pup of the litter) and finally, keeping up and keeping them all in line, their brave and beautiful little sister. And then the growing up and the “growing beyond” happened, and it happened so fast.

Last night I got a glimpse. I got a glimpse of the roots that they all share which keep my children’s feet firmly planted on the Earth, even as their individual blossoms are spreading far and away. Those roots are strong. They have a base of roots entwined with a shared history, camaraderie, memories, and shared DNA. They all have had the shared experience of my husband and I, forging our perspectives and hopes and ideas, of what lives lived well, look like, and they will be able to nourish their own perspectives, hopes and ideas from the nutrients they share, from down deep under the surface of our family soil.

It Truly Is

I’m really happy today. I am so happy that I’m actually kind of giddy. We finally got most of our things put away, that were all over our house due to a renovation, and it feels so cleansing and clearing. My younger sons picked up our eldest son at the airport last night, after midnight. I got up at 2:30 a.m. and I peeked in the doors of all of my babies. I haven’t done that in a long while. They were all four sound asleep in their beds. Then I went back to my bed and had some of the best sleep that I have slept in a long time. There is probably not a more nurturing, comforting feeling in a mama’s heart, than all of her children sleeping peacefully under one roof. We have a big day of activities planned to celebrate my youngest son’s high school graduation. There will be a lot of laughing and joking. I will be a brunt of a lot of those jokes and I will love it. Life is good.

“One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.” – Jane Goodall

It is, Jane. It truly is.

Ehh, It’s Friday

funny friday quotes for work

Happy Friday, friends and readers!!!  This one felt “long in coming” didn’t it?!?  New readers, I love Fridays.  We don’t go into deep subjects on Fridays here at Adulting – Second Half.  On Fridays, I discuss three favorite things/songs/websites/ideas, etc. and I highly encourage you to share your favorites (anything goes!) in the Comments section. Please check out previous Friday posts for more favorites.  Here are today’s favorites and they are all random and in no specific category:

Sconza Chocolates Lemoncello Chocolate Almonds – My family  first had these “euphoria for your mouth” almonds in California last summer.  I was absolutely delighted when Costco started carrying them, although I have the feeling that they were a limited special purchase.  Get these yellow nuggets of gastro gold, however you can.  Find a way.  I would beg, borrow and steal for this candy.  And you know, on a happy note, almonds are a super food . . . .

Next, by now, you regular readers know how much I love Think Smarter on Twitter.  I attribute 60-70 percent of my “smarts” to this feed.  Below is my favorite post yet.  They posted it just a few days ago.  I LOVE when a few words can encapsulate a feeling, or an experience, or a nuance that we all can relate to:

 

(It’s not just “human” that this applies to – our dogs have idiosyncrasies that evoke the same smile in my heart)

Final favorite this Friday –

Frontgate Ultralight Slimline 4-Step Ladder – I may have shared this one already, this is how much I love it.  It bears repeating.  This is not your average step ladder.  Granted, it is not inexpensive but it is worth every penny.  It is as sturdy as they come, and the best part is that it folds up so skinny that we keep ours in between our washer and our dryer.  This ladder is so skinny, that if it were your friend, you’d secretly hate her.  It is light and easy to carry from room to room, too, so you really only need one of them and it comes in all sorts of color choices.

And a final thought for this Friday as you head out to festivities for the night:

“At every party there are two kinds of people – those who want to go home and those who don’t. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other.”– Ann Landers

Horizons

“A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what a ship is built for . . . .”

Tonight, my youngest son graduates from high school. This is the third time that we will experience this event. In some ways, having been through it before, makes it easier. We know what to expect. In some ways, having been through it before, makes it harder. We know what to expect.

When I had my first child, I experienced a depth of feelings that I didn’t know existed. Like many women, when I got pregnant subsequent times after that, I got nervous. I got doubtful. I questioned why we chose to “rock the boat.” When I got pregnant with our second son, I read something that now makes all of the sense in the world to me: “Your first child teaches you about the depth of your love, your subsequent children teach you about the breadth of your love.” Like most children, my four children have always tried to “trip me up” and they have tried to figure out whom I love best. I’ve always reminded them that they are all smart and they are all good at math. You can’t divide or measure “infinite.” It is an impossible task. Infinite love is so overwhelming, vulnerable, awe-inspiring, miraculous, solid and most decidedly, immeasurable.

We’re having another ship leave the shipyard in the next couple of months. His first journey to college won’t be so far away. But journeys beget journeys and tonight signals to me that the anchor is pulled up. He will come back to our little safe harbor from time to time, to fuel up and to share stories of journeys that I won’t be a part of, but I will thrill in, vicariously. He is ready for the journeys. He is a solid ship. The horizon awaits . . . . .

The Disrupted Nest

Once upon a time there was this little bird who loved her nest. She loved being in her nest with her mate and her hatchlings. Of course, her hatchlings quickly grew to be big birds themselves and they started leaving the nest more and more. One hatchling grew up to be his own bird and left the nest and created his own nest, in a tree, far away, of his own liking. The bird family still flew to see each other, though. They were chatty birds, who liked each other’s company.

This story isn’t about hatchlings leaving the nest, though. This is about the time when the little bird’s nest was completely disrupted and the poor little bird thought that she would go cuckoo or even batty. Though a bit flighty, this little bird wasn’t a natural cuckoo, and bats, obviously, are a whole different species, but this little bird found that she was really starting to empathize with cuckoos and those beings sometimes described as batsh*t-crazy. You see, the disruption in her nest felt like it would never end and it was turning her into a whole different animal as much as she tried to stay pleasant and chirpy.

It all started when the little bird and her mate for life, decided that their nest was in serious need of some new straw. They found some birds who were particularly good at nest renovation and they agreed to give lots and lots (and lots) of seed to these birds, in exchange for some fresh straw. When it was time to take out the old straw and bring in the new straw, the expert new straw birds arrived and hung out with the little bird all day long, every day, for months and months. The poor little bird tried to stay positive and she could see that the new straw would soon look very nice, when she looked past all of the old straw, and dust feathers lying all around the nest. She tried not to pluck out the feathers in her chest, in distress, but she found it hard to resist sometimes. She tended to get a little “pecky” with her mate and nestlings who still lived in the nest with her, when they came home to the nest in the evenings.

This little bird was an old bird who had been around the flock for a while. She had even been through previous nest renovations in earlier times in her little birdy life. She knew that the process of the rebuilding of a nest would be annoying and disruptive. The little bird knew some calming yoga poses like standing on one leg that helped her get into balance. (a lot of birds stand on one leg). Still sometimes she felt pushed to the edge of her nest . . . and her sanity.

This story doesn’t have any ending yet, but the nest is progressing a lot and I suspect there is going to be a happy, calming ending for the little bird and her mate. I suspect that they are really going to appreciate the changes and updates to their nest, to the point that they will soon forget about all of the upheaval and disruption that this renovation has caused. And I suspect a few years down the road (maybe give it a decade), they will have conveniently forgotten how stressful it was to have their nest torn apart and displaced (they have little tiny bird brains that aren’t known for good memories – see elephants, for good memorization skills). Then, the little birds again, will get a wild hair (or a wild feather, in their case) and decide to yet again, exchange piles and piles of seed for an updated nest. That’s just how birds work.

Refreshed and Renewed

I’m baaaack! This past weekend is the first weekend that I took off from writing my blog since I started writing it back in July 2018. It felt strange. I automatically sat down to my computer Saturday morning, but then laughed at myself and forced myself to get back up and to do something different. What I learned from this little experiment of mine, was priceless. I missed writing my blog. I missed my readers. A lot.

Sometimes, we fall into patterns and habits and schedules and we wonder how we even ended up in certain “ruts.” I think that I was afraid my writing had become rote to me and to you. But what I learned is, that this writing is necessary for me right now. It is a passion for me. It makes me feel more alive. It is not a habit, but now, almost a necessity for me. It has become part of my breath of life.

This past weekend was a little emotional for me, for many reasons. One of the biggest reasons, was that for the first time, I didn’t celebrate Easter with our six-person nucleus family. My eldest son lives in a different state now and luckily, he was able to spend the holiday with family members and even had other offers for celebrations, that he had to turn down. So he was fine and the rest of us were all together, so we were fine, but it was one of those acute moments of understanding how much our family life is changing and how much it will change, in the years to come.

Building up to Easter, is when my emotions were escalating. I bought so much candy for our kids’ Easter baskets, that the checker asked me if we were having a party. I had to put it on two credit cards. (okay, the credit card part isn’t true, but the first statement IS, pathetically, true) I was obviously in overcompensation mode. The funny thing is though, when Easter rolled around, I felt good. I felt calm. I felt peaceful. I felt hopeful. I felt the promise of the holiday.

Thank you for your understanding my need for a break. Thank you for still coming by to read past posts. (I see the stats.) I hope that whatever your traditions and beliefs are, that you were able to celebrate a beautiful spring weekend with people who you love. I hope that you feel refreshed and renewed. I do. And it feels good.