A few years ago I had empty nest syndrome. My teenager had deemed me and idiot and moved in with her father. My two oldest were in California going to college. It was just me, Mark and the dogs. Sounds like heaven doesn't it. You would think so. But I mourned the loss of someone to take care of. I missed holding those little hands. Toy departments and back to school sales were enough to send me into a torrent of tears. Then suddenly I began to focus on myself. To buy things, for myself. To take classes, to travel. I moved on. At last I was done.
Then one day, the teen queen decided I wasn't such a moron. Suddenly she needed a mother again to lean on emotionally and physically. The older kids moved back from CA in unison. All of a sudden my quiet house was filled once again with the voices and bodies of children. I began to worry more about what they were doing. I spent more time with their activities and problems. My work studio began to pile up with kids laundry rather than projects.
I realized at that point, you never stop being a mother. It seems funny but my own mother recently told me that she worries about me. I was actually surprised. Really?
Why? I'm an adult. But for some reason until that moment I didn't seem to realize that I was always going to be her child, small and vulnerable, no matter how old I got. The same with my children.
My husband points out that sometimes I need to step back and let them figure out their own lives. The youngest is now 18. She is so emotional about everything that it's hard to not get swept up in it. My other daughter is dating a man who is so inappropriate that I can hardly stand it. But I need to stand back. I gave my opinion here and there. But it's up to her to ultimately see what others see (and she is). My son is needing to launch his own life. He has a little more trouble because he has Aspergers. He's working on it as we speak. He has appointments and interviews. I'm not hovering over his every more. I let him do this himself.
But worry I do. It will never end. Just like my mom I will always feel a tiny fear in the back of my heart that these precious people that I have turned out into the world could come to some harm without me watching their every more. But we learn that we have to let them go in order for them to grow.
So once again I'm learning to balance my life to be my own person again as well as a mother.
I still feel the greatest gift I ever received was that of being a mother to these incredible people. It's a gift I will always cherish.
