Preparing for the Empty Nest

It's time for me to write.  The last year has flown by and it's been a strange, new place for me.  So I've hunkered down.  Laid low.  After my oldest daughter left for college, it was time for me to focus on my youngest daughter.  It's her senior year.  I could go on and on about how different she and her sister are but long story short, there is no focusing on Sara.  She's a closed book for the most part.  She has been since about 9th grade.  "I've got this, Mom" is her favorite thing to say to me.  And she usually does.  Eventually. 

My grandson, who's been with me nearly everyday since birth, started Pre-K this year so I have been left to my own devices.  I've been waiting to have some time alone for a long time.  Twenty-five years to be exact.  And it floored me.  Or maybe, couched me is a more accurate term since that's where I've spent the majority of my time.  Depressed?  Not exactly.  Mid-life crisis?  Maybe.  Grieving the loss of my older daughter  and preparing for the loss of my youngest?  Probably.  Bored?  Most definitely.  And that last one, that's the one that gets me.  I'm embarrassed to say it.  Most of my friends are close to my age and still have young children at home and not a moment for themselves and I'm bored?  How silly.  But there it is.  It's been a sort of numb, limbo, transitional, odd land that I've been inhabiting lately.  I'm coming back though.  Slowly but surely. 

Sara graduates in three weeks.  She leaves for college in August.  I've got seven more lunches to prepare and then that phase of my life is over.  I've been the Queen of Lunches, you can ask my kids.  I may have failed in a lot of areas of parenting, but not lunches.  Hell no.  I rule. 

Stevey completes her first year of college in May and then she's off to Los Angeles for two months for an internship.  I'm so proud of her.  It's been a difficult adjustment for her but she's handled every bump so well.  So maturely.  And our relationship has changed.  She doesn't seem to dislike me as much as she did when she lived at home.  Imagine that. 

I have much to say about teenagers, daughters, mid-life crisis and how to pull yourself out of a deep, dark well and what comes after but for now, I'm alive, I'm moving.  I'm off the couch. 

And so glad summer is almost here.