Thoughts about empty nests and Hurricane Isaac

A week and a half ago, I moved my daughter into her dorm at LSU.  LSU is in Baton Rouge.  Baton Rouge is about an hour away from New Orleans.   She's the last of my three children to leave the nest.  I've been writing about nothing else except for preparing for the empty next for about eighteen months now.  I'm fully prepared.

I've got this.  

I grieved for a few days but now I'm getting used to it.  My bathroom stays clean for more than two hours.  So does the kitchen.  My grocery bill is like eleven dollars and 32 cents.

And now Hurricane Isaac is moving in.

1.  I've adjusted, rejoiced even, in my new empty nest status.  I think I can get used to this.  The crying was minimum.  As I said, I prepared in advance for this.  Hell, I've been preparing for turning 50 since I turned 31.  I've been preparing for the empty next FOREVER. 

2.  They are coming home.  Classes have been cancelled.  I'm glad. 

3.  I've barely had time to adjust to my clean bathroom and my tiny, grocery bill.

4.  Isaac means "laughter."

5.  I'm glad I only have a handful of readers so I don't get pummeled with comments about how heartless I am about the approaching hurricane and how its name means "laughter."

6.  It's not funny.  I get that.

7.  Life is strange.

My Girl

When my son was younger I prayed that one day he would find the right woman for him.  That she would get him, encourage him, make him a better man, be a good mother to their children.  I prayed that often.  I pray the same thing for my daughters.  Because I know how important that is...I know how getting involved with the wrong person can set you off on the wrong path for years. 

When he met Samantha, we call her Sam, I wasn't so sure. 

It's been rough for the both of them, for sure.  But I continue to be amazed by her.  She is the woman I prayed for.  She is strong.  She is smart.  She is funny.  She is an amazing mother.  She is always herself, never making apologies.  She calls him out when he needs it because she loves him, not because she has to be right.  In short, she sees my son the same way I see him and fights for their marriage and their family.

She has become a daughter to me and I just wanted you to meet her.  I don't feel free to tell her story here and how she's evolved because it's her story, not mine.  But I can tell you she means the world to me.  And I'm so proud of the woman she's become.

Ahhh..beach time

I made it to the beach, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina a couple of weeks ago.  This is the place where I feel most at home, most relaxed, most content.  Not necessarily Myrtle Beach, any beach, anywhere.  It's been five years and so long overdue and all I can say is...ahhh.  

I feel so much better. 

This older gentlemen walked the beach everyday, same time every evening.  I can think of nothing I'd like better when I'm his age.

Watching the seagull, watching the waves.

  The sweetest sister in the entire universe, my sister, Pammy.  

 The boardwalk.  

 This is my, youngest, Sara.  She was so pleasant, so easy-going and so much fun for the entire trip.  Stevey couldn't make it because she's having her own beach time in Los Angeles while she's interning at Current/Elliott.

My Mom, on the left, and her sister. 

 My beautiful nieces.

Did I mention it was a girls only trip?

This visit ought to hold me over for another year.  I'll never let this much time pass between beach trips.

And one day, I will own a little beach cottage. I will.

And this song will constantly be playing in the background.  

Little Birds

Being a mother is no cake walk.  Most of the time, your heart is stuck in your throat and your mind just reels and reels at what you should do, could have done better, pledge to do better in the future.  These little people and the incredible responsibility they bring is almost too much to bear at times.  But we do.  We bear them, carry them, comfort them, encourage them, lecture them, and maybe, sometimes yell at them.  All this in the midst of trying to keep your head together, the bills paid, a roof over their heads, dealing with your boss, keeping food on the table and shoes on their feet.  Those kids are the center of your world, even though, you know that one day they will leave.  That's the goal.  To send them flying.  To give them enough guts and courage to test their wings.  To fly on their own.  And hopefully, to fly to places you never even imagined they would go.  To fly to places you wish you'd had the courage to fly to.

And one day, if you're lucky, they do.

They fly.

And you sit back and observe with a big, fat grin on your face.  And you see that they are more than what you hoped for.  That they are different, apart, from yourself.  And while they grow up and are still full of doubt and questions about life and the future, you know.  You know that somewhere along the way, you did something right.  You know that they will be okay.  You know that you, in some way, had a part in this amazing, complicated, talented, compassionate human being. 

These are two of my three kids.  My girls. The one in the back, Stevey, is working her way through a design internship this summer in LA.  She's only 19 and even though she was my most fearful child, would walk up 10 flights of stairs instead of riding the elevator, she moves forward in spite of those fears.  She's accomplished so much in the one short year since she left for college. 

The one in the front is Sara.  She detests exercise. She just graduated high school and is on her way to college in a couple of months.  As you can see, she's more laid back, she takes a different approach to life.  She's smart as a whip but not in a hurry.  I have no doubt that she will get to where she wants but she'll take a different route than her sister.  Maybe more detours, maybe not.  Night and day, these girls.  And I love that about them.  I love that they contrast and compliment each other.  I love that where one is strong, the other is weak, and vice versa.  And I love that they lean on each other and have learned to accept their differences.  

They are fiercely independent and strong.  So much more so than I was at their ages.  So yeah, I'm kind of proud.  And now I'm sitting here with a big, happy grin on my face while I sit and watch them fly. 


 

Monday

 
On days like these, every noise feels like an assault.  Monday morning and the garbage truck bangs, snorts and crashes down the street like a prehistoric machine.  I search for a little silence.  It isn't happening.  My husband wakes up early for a change and hovers around my chair, asking questions I already answered last night.  The tiny, shrilling ring of the fax machine is constantly in the background, like a mosquito, until I reach over and yank the cord out of the back.  Please be quiet.

I've barely been awake for thirty minutes before my cell phone starts buzzing and humming.  Questions already?  My boss must know everything under the sun, ASAP and FYI and ETA, btw.  Nothing can wait and why should it?  Not when the answers can be had, must be had, right now.  Text me. Email me.  Call me.  I MUST KNOW!

The more I search for silence on days like these, the more the noise finds me.  Get over yourself, it says, and deal with me.  Deal with us.  And answer these questions while you're at it. 

What time is my job?
Where are my keys?
Where is his lunchbox?
Is this the last week of school?
Are the dishes in the dishwasher clean?
Is the coffee fresh?
Did Robert go to work today?
Do you have breakfast bars?
Are you okay?
What's wrong?
Are you mad at me?
What time is dinner?
What's for dinner?
Did you take my dress to have it altered?
Where's that invoice?
Who are you talking to?
Seen my belt?
Do you have any ideas on how to increase business?

And the garbage truck, brakes squealing, is barreling down the road for what seems like the 100th time in an hour, picking up empty pizza boxes, bags of lawn trimmings, and all the other debris from people trying to cram all the fun and work they can into two days.  Before Monday.  Before the world comes crashing in again with all of its demands and noise and days like these. 

Riding Away My Mid-Life Blues

"In what seems like a cruel trick of timing, women often find themselves letting go of their daughters around the same time they must let go of their identities as younger women."

~Sue Monk Kidd
Traveling with Pomegranates

So that's where I've been this last year.  I know, 47 isn't so old, but I prepare for things in advance.   And 47 is a halfway mark.  At least I hope it is.  I've been raising children for 25 years.  A gazillion packed lunches, scraped knees and science projects.  Most of that time I've been a single mother and the pace and work has been relentless.  It's no wonder when things came to a screeching halt I lost my mojo.  I "took to the couch" for most of the winter, and into the early spring.  No crying, really.  No wailing.  Comfortably numb sums it up perfectly.  A re-defining must be taking place, I think. 


But I couldn't wallow on my comfy couch forever.  I had to move.  Force myself to sit up and put one leg over the side and then the other leg.  I needed to plant my feet firmly on the floor and pull myself up.  And then what?  Every possibility I could come up with was met with a half-ass shrug and a "meh".  I didn't feel like stringing three words together.  Or reading a book.  Mostly, I watched mindless, bad reality shows of the "Real Housewives of..." variety.  Really bad.  But somehow, those plastic, loud-mouthed, fake-tanned drama queens made me feel a little better.  They have everything money can buy and still so unhappy.  And they don't even know it, for the most part.  After awhile, I googled "low energy" and decided I must be in need of B complex.  One day my daughter came home from school and found me in my usual spot on the couch, an open bottle of B Complex lying on the floor surrounded by Lindt chocolate truffle wrappers.  She looked worried, asked if I was okay.  Again with the half-ass shrug and "meh".

I had to do something.  I had to move.  I needed to ease myself back into the land of the living.  So I rolled my bike out of the garage, filled my water bottle, strapped my iphone to the handle bars, turned on my tunes and plugged in my earbuds.

Slowly, a little more daily, I began to shake away the numbness.  There is just something about riding my bike that makes me so happy and strong.  I love the crunch of big, fat Magnolia leaves under my tires.  And when it rains, there's nothing like riding through puddles and feeling the water from the back tire spray onto my back.  The world is teeming with life.  People watering their front lawns smile and wave.  Squirrels dart in and out of the street.  Babies being pushed around in strollers give me the biggest grins as I ride by, like I'm a miracle on wheels.   My heart starts pumping and my muscles sing.  I feel the warmth of the sun and my music is always in the background.  Each day I look forward to my bike ride like a new adventure.

What I'm learning as I ease into this next phase of my life is really simple.  Although a trip to Italy, Eat, Pray, Love style, would be nice to shake off my mid-life blues,  or a shiny new convertible or a new career, I really just need to move.  To be present.  To be grateful.  To challenge myself.


To take one day at a time as the gift that it is and make it my adventure.  Even if that adventure is nothing more than a bike ride around my neighborhood.  It's all in the perspective.  And age?  It really is just a number. 

Young Love Stinks

I was asleep on the couch when my daughter, Sara, burst in the front door and said, "Mama?"  Her voice was broken.  She only calls me Mama when something is wrong.  When she feels small and afraid.  She quickly walked to the couch and I enfolded her in my arms because she had already started crying.  She cried on my shoulder for 10 minutes.  She sobbed.   Gut-wrenching, heart-breaking sobs that shook her body and mine.   At first, I kept whispering, "What is it?  What's wrong, baby?" but after a few minutes, I knew.  I knew the only thing that could produce that kind of crying comes from a broken heart.  And I started to cry, too because oh, man, do I remember how that feels.  I remember the physical pain that resulted the first time a boy broke my heart into. 

They never stop being your babies.  Really.  You never stop hurting for them.  Or wanting to hurt others on their behalf.  As I write this, his car is parked on the street in front of our house.  She left with a friend after she stopped crying and he stayed with his friend.  The blinds are open and I'm watching for him.  Waiting for him to slink by and pick it up.  I imagine throwing open the front door and staring him down, Clint Eastwood style, my right hand poised above the six-shooter that rests on my hip.  I walk slowly to the car and remind him of the time I told him that if he ever hurt my daughter, I would look for him.  And I would kill him (yes, I love that movie).  Time to pay up, little man.  You little, little, man.

It still amazes me that my gut turns somersaults, that my brain can think of nothing else, that I still feel the tug of the cord when my children are hurting.  Sometimes, I become immobilized with fear when I imagine the years ahead for my three kids and the pain that will surely come their way.  I'd take it all on for them if I could.  If only. 

But I can't.  I can't.  I knew this boy would be the one to break her heart.  I'd hoped he wouldn't.  But I could tell by the way her eyes lit up when she mentioned his name.  And she mentioned it often, she looked for ways to mention his name.  The way her whole countenance changed when he walked in the front door.  The way she's been softer, kinder, happier since she started dating him.  Suddenly, the whole world looks rosier when you're in love.  I remember.  And everything looks darker, more sinister, when it's taken away.

I want to tell her that it'll get easier with time.  That he doesn't deserve her.  That he must not be the right one.  But yet, something stops me.  It isn't time yet.  I don't want to diminish her pain with trite little pieces of advice that only make the hurt worse right now.  So I'll wait.  I'll hug her.  And love her.

And I'll keep looking through the blinds.