Tigers Big and Small

The rooms that carry children through high school are obsolete after college whether it's been one semester or four years.  No matter the time away, the lessons learned change our children.  What was important, previously essential, has been rearranged.  There is a new independence, a certain seriousness about life.  Perhaps the realization that the real world awaits truly settles in.

As Emily gets older, I see the excitement in her eyes, coupled with a nervous wariness.  She wants to travel, wants to save every lost animal, wants to make a difference somewhere, somehow.  She is only 18 but has travelled across the US and Canada and has been to the jungles of Thailand.  She has seen more than most do in a lifetime.  But right now, she wants to be home.

 With Emily's decision to return home and pursue school locally, it was time to update her room in preparation.  Gone are the bright pink walls, the high school mementoes, and homecoming mums. Old furniture has been moved out and a spa blue pallet now serves as a backdrop to house her one true love: tigers, big and small. 

I was going to make the bed before taking this picture but Emily's neurotic cat wouldn't let me near the bed.  It's as if he knows she is away at school and he guards her bed until she returns. He thinks he's a tiger, as if the painting on the wall is his self-portrait.  He believes if he acts fierce no one will know how much he misses Emily.  He doesn't understand we've all been doing that for months.

LOVE  &  SMALL TIGERS

Beach Walking

The coast has always been ours.  She's a Florida girl by birth, raised between the warm tranquility of Gulf Coast beaches and the raucous waves of the mighty Atlantic. Some of her very first steps were in the white sands of Sanibel.  Now living across the Gulf in Texas, the murky waters of Galveston call us home like the proverbial moth to flame.   Like me, being raised on the Connecticut coast, the beach is our soul soother.  No matter the weather, our feet hit the sand in search of inspiration and rejuvenation. 

 

As much as Kev and I struggle with our empty nest, Emily is having a difficult adjustment to life outside the nest.  College classes, autonomy, and living 300 miles away is taxing and Emily's mind hit overload in recent days.  So this weekend she made the trek home and we immediately hit the shore.

Walking in the waves, picking at half torn shells washing ashore, the worldly woes fall away.  There is no need for words, no need to hash out life's problems.  Only the need to be remains.

On the beach words are useless.  We both see the dolphins playing in the wake, the gulls wading patiently. We both understand the beauty of this landscape. 

To interpret it verbally removes its magic. So we stand together absorbing the world, healing in its simple complexity.

These are the days I treasure.  Watching Emily grow into her own reasoning.  I see so much of Kev in her, and so much of myself.  And though there are essays of logical advice I want to give her I know this is my time to be still.  To just be there as she figures it out for herself.  Hoping she will take flight.  Knowing she will soar.

LOVE  &  SOUL WALKING

Empty Nest Newbie

I entered into the empty nest with the highest of hopes and guilty anticipation of new found freedom.  My daily Mom duties would subside.  The days would be full of creative bliss and cupcakes, and all that other happy crap. Yeah.... That was how it was going to be!  All sweet icing and sunshine.

Somehow I have ended up head first tangled in the briars and thorns of emotions, financial strife, heated arguments, and a stress level that hums at non-stop high frequencies.  Go ahead and try to be creative in that!  My studio still remains clogged with the clutter of moving out.  And with Kev in Bangladesh we get to spend the one hour we are both awake in different time zones arguing about who is more off center in the change.  Awesome. (By the by- Dads feel the emptiness far worse than the Moms!)

Most parents say they are sad in the empty nest- a longing for youthful cheer to be all cherub-like at the dinner table again.  Whatever.  Our house was full of free spirits with very big ideas and a tendency for wanderlust.  So when college move-in day came around I thought there might be a chance to stand still for awhile.  A chance to settle.  A chance to live in the moments that previously were filled with the chaos of parenthood and putting out fires.  I am still waiting. 

Funny thing is, we raised a child to be a free spirit, to embrace the world, to travel, and never settle for ordinary.  So why are we so distraught with the result?  Is it the old adage that we find annoying in others what we don't recognize in ourselves?  Looking at everything that has turned my empty nest upside down in the first trial run, I see me at a younger age.  I was never content to be still, I needed more, craved more of this world: to be where life hummed and buzzed.  I married a man who shared this view and together we have been roaming the world seeking new experiences.  Our daughter came with us and learned by example.  Now she is ready to fly.  Sort of.  Maybe not so much- more like she has her training wings on.  And I am in my nest, hiding my head, trying not to micro-manage her life.

So for now I will be still.  I will shed my preconceived ideas of what my empty nest SHOULD be like.  Nothing has ever been normal, routine, or "as expected" with the family I have created and that is what has brought me the most joy over all the full nest years.

 

LOVE  &  EMPTY NEST NEWBIE