Is this what empty nest syndrome feels like?

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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