Turns out...

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. ~John Lennon

Last August, I began a noble journey of "getting used to the empty nest". It was to be a weekly digest of how I was feeling each week I didn't have a child at home.

I diligently blogged each week and reached the end of my prescribed time frame. I had a tidy outline of 18 weeks to correspond with 18 years. At the end of 2016, I wrapped up my blog series and set about the book process. I interviewed experts and specialists.  I talked to beta-readers, I solicited feedback, I had a publisher lined up, I was ready to market, and then...

I stopped.

I didn't do a thing. Not a single thing.

I took my notes and curled them into a makeshift telescope, peering into the unknown.

You see, I wasn't nearly as "ready" as I told myself I would be.

I had a lot of things I was still working through. That is the beauty of growth. You don't get to anticipate the changes. They just appear to you.

A year later, I am pondering all the changes the universe put in my path. Adjusting my perspective and trying to make peace with the phrase,  "Be Careful What You Wish For". I actually did find a job. I am working with children non-stop and all the minutiae that accompanies it. I am picking up, cleaning up, straightening up, up, up, up up it seems, as I keep a space tidy for their consumption.

I reflect on the things I was truly missing because surely I wasn't missing the continual stage setting and straightening for children to discover. I just finished 20 some years of that. This forces me to dig deeper and figure out what really is happening.

It's about the passing of time. When your children are home, you are so busy with them that everything seems to swoosh by with a barely imperceptible breeze. And yet, in the midst of that immersion, nothing stops.

I think the empty nest syndrome, while part of the mourning of a sense of purpose, is also about the reckoning of time that flew by. Somewhere in the past 20 years, seemingly insurmountable losses have piled up. In my own universe, I lost grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, and parents. The gradual nature that such losses accrue hits like a sledgehammer upon reflection.

I've found myself remembering almost as often as I breathe, with a borderline irrational fear that if I stop remembering, it will no longer exist. I don't want to forget all the beautiful people who went before me, I don't want to forget the people who touched my world. I dread the memory fade of things that impacted me.

It's a delicate balance of remembering the past, staying in the present, and anticipating the future. I'm discovering that during the year-long breathing process.

Area 51-- the Empty Nest series continues

It seems apropos that on the day I end my 51st trip around the sun, I post about the theorized site of aliens visiting Earth. The previous year of my life certainly has had moments of other-worldliness. I've felt like an alien in the story of my own life as I've adjusted to several rapid fire changes that seemed to have crashed into my world like a comet.

Today, I revisit the story I began to write a year ago about surviving the empty nest and finding myself again.  It's been a year of searching and self-reflection, a year of discovery. Something I realized in this past year as I've slowly shed the pounds I picked up in middle age is that I've begun to shed some of the emotional baggage and angst as well.

A year ago today, I was wringing every last ounce of emotion out of feeling so lost and confused. My menopausal, empty-nest, lost-a-parent, just-was-invited-to-the-AARP self was in a tailspin. I blogged each week through the end of the year with the intent of turning those 18 weeks of reflection into a book.

I set out a timetable to deal with everything and set about it with utmost efficiency. But I was rushing myself and the process, and I hit a wall. I decided to set everything aside and just let it age gracefully. 

I wasn't done telling the story or discovering who I am. I wasn't quite ready to look past my empty nest. I thought about who I am and what I need to feel fulfilled. Now I'm ready to explore more about surviving the empty nest, because I indulged myself with the gift of reflection and time.

As I glance out my window at the changing leaves, through the bouquet of flowers, I realize I'm ready for change, too.

Stay tuned as we continue the journey together.