by Mary Beth | submitted on September 8, 2008
In a week, I hug my son goodbye at the dorm. I can barely write that. I just don’t want to think about it. Then I thought, well, deal with it.
I love being a parent. I love his school life and his friends, but I also have things I haven’t liked, like his losing things, leaving the kitchen a mess, not doing what he said he would do, talking back, not helping out.
So, if there are things we don’t like about our children at times, I just wish there were ways to not ache for them to still need us and to want to stick around.
Of course I get it that they are suppose to grow up and have their own life, but I hate the sorrow. I am proud of him and wish all his dreams to come true.
Now I have to find my dreams. I have to try something that will zing me besides the life I have known, which by the way, is a great life.
I just notice I am not as ambitious as I was in my younger days. I am in my late fifties and far from over the hill, but , and this is a big one for me….I just need help getting to the starting line and figuring out what I want to stand on that will make me have a big smile.
I have planned, thanks to this web, ways to prepare and things to do when I come back to the silence and emptiness at home.
I will find my new interests and loves but oh how I don’t want to think about that hug goodbye and long flight back home without him. Go son go. Go mom go…
Thanks for letting me write here,
Mary Beth
Natalie Caine, M.A. natalie@lifeintransition.org
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