Hello, awesome readers.
As I write this, I’m sitting in my hairdresser’s chair while she performs her magic on my pesky roots. The background music is some 80’s station. Probably satellite. Madonna’s Like a Virgin comes on and I’m suddenly caught between thoughts from decades past and staring at my now waning face in the mirror. I’m not complaining. The alternative is laying in a box.
I have been gathering and accumulating my entire life. And now I’m at the down-sizing stage. Although my kids, now young adults, still need me as much as I need them, I no longer consider them full time “dependents”. This is a realization that comes with a tangle of emotions.
There’s the anticipation of freedom … a freedom that hasn’t belonged to me since I was young youngER and carefree. Yet this level of freedom is empowering because it also comes with wisdom and experience. I can basically do whatever I want with a deeper understanding of who I am. What does this mean, exactly? Well, for one thing acceptance now plays a role in my freedom. I accept who I am and sometimes even embrace my quirks. (I said SOMETIMES.)
Along with the freedom comes a sense of melancholy … a longing and ennui that’s bittersweet. When it comes to the dawning that your kids have grown up, this is the other side of the coin. The side that fills you with both regret and gratitude. The past, you realize, is something that never comes around twice and so you let the memories linger as you sift through your stuff and grasp the fact that you just can’t keep it all.
And then regret morphs into gratitude as you look at your kids – those young adults – and take a moment to not only feel your love for them, but recognize that you also LIKE the people they’ve become. Then you think that perhaps letting go is a prerequisite for allowing new stuff into your life.
But what do I know? I’m just a girl sitting in a hairdresser’s chair, watching as my roots get dyed into the color of younger me.
What was I saying about acceptance again?
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It’s a amazing how we can be feeling great about ourselves and life and then we hear an old song and like THAT we are thinking about how old we were and what we were doing when the song was popular. I can go from happy to nostalgic in seconds. Aging an emotional roller coaster.
Roller coaster indeed, Lauren!
I am stuck in that nostalgia and ennui loop. I too am proud of my kids. That’s the great part. Good piece! Xx!
Thanks, Renee. And isn’t it yet another phase of parenting?
We’ve been empty nesters . . . 3 times now! they just keep on coming back! Which is fine with me! 😉
Love that you keep an open heart and open door, Diane 🙂
Hello Mona,
I so feel you. Been there, felt that…feeling all that right now. I am so very proud of all of my young adults. I am learning to really enjoy this season of my life.
Good for you, Debbie! It is a nice time of life 🙂