Empty-Nest Report: Holidays

Last weekend was my birthday and Mother's Day, and for the first time, the girls were gone on both days, away at college. 

I did what I think any mom would do in similar conditions; I spent the weekend:  

a) Trying not to cry

b) Trying not to think about "life changes" 

c) Crying

Here's the deal: celebrating a mom-focused holiday without your kids really sucks. It's a bit like being allergic to dairy and in an ice cream store where all you get to do is stare. You want to be happy for all the ice-cream eaters but deep inside, you just want some ice cream. For yourself. Selfishly.

Disclaimer: It really was a wonderful weekend! John took me to one of our favorite restaurants. He asked wonderfully creative questions, bought flowers and a card.  The girls sent emails. My parents hosted a potluck dinner and I saw siblings, nieces and nephews. Friends indulged in lovely lunches and gifts, and two of them even planted my veggie garden (!), proving creative gift-giving is alive and well.

I have nothing to complain about and felt warmed by the love and depth of my community.  It is just that I was having a distractingly painful experience of missing the girls all weekend.

Here they are, on my birthday to be exact, having a blast on a Puget Sound dance cruise.  This is exactly what I would want them to be doing on a Friday night in Seattle.  Live life! Enjoy college! Carpe diem!

Which is why I ... cried? All weekend?! 

Bwwwahhhahah! Snif. Snif. Snif. 

I juggled Happy, Sad and Confused all weekend. I moped around, did the forbidden empty-nesting things that generate angst: looked through old photos, peeked in their bedrooms, counted down the days until summer break, texted. "Restless" would be a word that comes to mind. And rattled. Especially rattled as I didn't see this coming. Goodness, we hardly even celebrate Mother's Day and I acted if some giant tradition had been abandoned. 

So I just cried. And then, I would feel better for a while. And then I would cry some more, and be fine again for a while.

This seemed a better approach than pretending I was stoically cruising through the weekend, fine that for the first time in twenty years, my children were not present for the two holidays of the year where I can count on some part the day being about me. (That sounds horribly selfish but it's true. And we all secretly think it.)  

Even when our finances were tight or the business was unstable or someone was sick, birthdays and Mother's Day were always a pause of at least a few hours, to push back the tide of life a bit and say, Not now! Today, we get out the Special Plate and we will have tiny shrimp for dinner! Or hamburgers, applesauce and anchovies! Or whatever that person wants!

There was a tangible sense that I needed to sit in this space, to not fight what was happening and what I was feeling. As I explored this strange cocktail of joy mixed with sadness, I heard my mother's voice in a new light for the first time:  Honey, I just want us all to be together for my birthday.  Really, you don't need to get me anything for Mother's Day. Whatever works for your schedule, I'll be there. 

Oh. 

Ooooh.

You really do get to that point, where all that matters is being together, where you're not mad that you don't get a present or the right present. It takes work to get together, especially when people are spread hundreds of miles apart. And if you have to choose between one or the other, you take the gift of presence.

So, my universally shared quest for control and predictability appears to be edging toward extinction. In its place, random grief, random happiness, random life. 

In other words, more of the same. 

Oddly comforting and a wonderful gift.