“Parenting: the days are long but the years are short.” – Anonymous
The school year is wrapping up for our youngest two children, the two who are still at home. My youngest son graduates from high school next week. We are all ready for summer. We are weary. The crescendo, that ends every school year, is in full force, with awards ceremonies, and with AP and final exams. Our renovation project is finally near close. I can hear my body, making louder what it has been whispering to me the last week or so, “Time to rest. We need rest. Rest.”
I have been living the natural rhythm of parenting and the constant cycles that go with raising children for the last 23 years. I wonder if my body will naturally stay with this cycle for a while to come, even when our last little birdie spreads her wings and flies away, in just a few short years. I wonder what part of you figures it out first, that you now have an empty nest and a new cycle of life; that your cadence will shift? Is it your mind or your body or is it your spirit?
“The success of love is in the loving – it is not the result of loving. Of course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done. ” – Mother Teresa