Nothing fully prepares you for the changing of the seasons of your life. Sure, the ever-changing landscape and natural evolution that comes with time, should in theory, ease you into it. But then one day you find yourself in the new season and it feels like someone just dropped you hard and fast and without ceremony, into uncharted territory and you feel like an alien in your own life.
As I was eating dinner alone for what seems like the millionth time lately, I couldn't help but think of the words of the great David Byrne, "How did I get here?". I mean, it's not actually a surprise to me. This is exactly where I knew that I would be at some point. My kids grown, moving out on their own, pursuing their own passions. I launched them on this trajectory after all. I've done my job and am still doing my job. I've provided and am providing them with a safe home base while encouraging them to find their own futures. If I'm honest though, it's not exactly where I thought that I would be. I didn't plan on being a single mom, largely doing the raising on my own. I didn't know that I'd be carrying the armfuls of firewood into the house alone on a freezing February night covered in splinters, or troubleshooting every broken appliance with the help of YouTube and desperation. When I had little ones I had no idea that one day there would be no one to commiserate with when the angry teenager hated my guts just for breathing in the general vicinity of them. Or that there wouldn't be nights on the couch that I could bounce issues off of them and rehash the daily parenting struggles so that we could rise in a united front. I mean, meh, I've come to terms with it and I'm fine, but it's certainly not what I envisioned. I also never foresaw giving up teaching in the middle of a global pandemic to reinvent my career at the age of 44. Yeah we all have had our own version of that delightful and historical wrench in our plans.
I suppose a big reason I feel as if I've been dropped off on a deserted island is because my life has been largely filled to the brim with raising 5 kids on my own up until this point. When you are "it", there's no time for reflections, you just keep treading water or you will surely drown. And though they haven't all fully flown, and we spend more time together still than probably a lot of families, things are just different. And I'm not nostalgic about the past when it comes to this. Well, at least not of most of it. I do miss the gifts of sunny yellow dandelions, and maple syrup scented morning snuggles. I miss being called, "Momma" and having that traded in for, "Bruh." But I don't miss the nights of wrangling a squirming toddler for their nebulizer treatments, running the shower as hot as I could while bundling them up to sit out in the cold night air wondering where in the world my partner was in the middle of the night, as the bathroom became a steam room. I don't miss having to figure out transportation for 5 kids at 3 campuses after school while I worked to barely make ends meet. There is no love lost for the 8am games in November where I froze my ass off and wondered how in the world anyone thought that this was a good idea. Or, keeping a baby entertained in the stroller while their older sibling played or danced or sang or....so..many..things...
I suppose some people would define this as some sort of a midlife crises. However, I remember going through something similar after high school was over. I recall then, that my life was changing so fast and I was feeling out of control and as if I didn't even know who I was. What was my favorite color? What did I even like to do? When you're young you're so hell-bent on fitting in with everyone else that you can lose your own identity and then when that hive-mind is gone, and you suddenly fly away to college, you get to choose a new beginning if you really want to. But, you're still so insecure ( and when I say, "you", clearly I mean, "I/me")and you spend years reading self-help books and books on religion, hell anything that will help you to figure out just who in the world you are. This is not like that. While I definitely don't pretend to be fully self-confident, nor do I exactly know what I want to be when I grow up, I know who I am and I'm comfortable in her skin. Halleluiah for that by the way. It's just that me and this skin of mine are finding themselves in new territory and I'm not really sure how I feel about it yet. There's the ever-looming future that involves words like, "empty nester" and "downsizing". I suppose for some it would also include, "retirement," but I've resigned myself that my circumstances dictate that I will mostly likely die at work..
Funny how a little thing like not knowing how to cook for one person could trigger so many complex feelings. I used to find much joy in cooking. Preparing the menu, shopping for the ingredients, music on, pots simmering. Funny thing is, that now I realized what I actually enjoyed was serving others. Once, one of my favorite hobbies, has become tedious. I'm not one to wallow in such things so sometimes I'll make a giant pot of soup, pretending for a moment that I'll be serving it to a table full of my own people, their banter filling my ears and soul. I'm able to salvage some of that same joy by bringing it to my neighbors and co-workers now. My pantry has become a holding place for empty soup containers waiting for a sharpie to mark them with , "Thai coconut curry Turkey".
I'm not wallowing and I'm not sad exactly. I have always been very content doing things on my own. Much to my friends' chagrin, I'm happiest hiking alone in the woods or floating solo in the middle of a large body of water in my kayak. It's the foreign nature of a life that I have never lived before looming real close. Soon to be gone, but thankfully not yet, are the nights of my young adult kids sitting at the foot of my bed, animatedly dumping their entire day on me at 11pm when all I want to do is go to sleep. I'm still so grateful that this part is still here. After the house has been so quiet all day and I crawl into my bed, I almost look forward to hearing the footsteps stomping up the stairs a little too late but I know that they'll be telling me all the things that are so important to the heart of a 17 year-old, or a 19 year-old or a 22 year-old and I know how they feel and I let them think that it really is so important, even though I want to say, "Child, this too shall pass and just you wait and see what wonderful, magnificent, terrible, horrible, lovely things are next." I guess that's what this is. God-willing, 20 years from now a wiser Sara will read this and say (hopefully without rolling her eyes too much), "Silly girl, this too shall pass and just you wait and see what wonderful...magnificent...terrible..horrible and lovely things are next."
