Just over a month ago, our kids left. The empty nest is exciting. So much to do. So much I want to do. So much we want to do. So many places to go. It’s exhilarating. A chance for travel, new ways to contribute, reimagine and reinvent. I am loving it.
We were lonely, bored and bickered for about a week. Then we went camping at a music festival where he got to play drums. We went to sound healing concert in Grace Cathedral. I highly recommend it.
Then we hunkered a little. Not wanting to go anywhere. Because it’s exciting, but it’s also a tender time, a time of readjustment and recalibration. As I predicted, I’ve been able to sort more quickly through old stories and scraps of journals and notes. But it feels like I’m sorting through the heavy parts of my past. And I’ve been letting go. And so has our fluffy orange cat. And that process has been hit or miss for him. He peed on a chair in the middle of the night, then took a crap right while we were Facetiming our son in Norway.
And our daughter hadn’t settled into a proper place to live (without pet snakes roaming and breakfast bong hits) until just last week. So that was unsettling for us! She just put together her bed just this week for god sakes. So we weren’t sleeping easy.
And this month of October I’ve had such a strong desire to build my strength, like a new woman warrior, un-flummoxed by anything that comes her way, any emotion or personality. And so I’ve been working out, not enough, but more. Something about doing a hardcore workout with a group of super fit women at a ballet barre in front of a mirror! And I’ve been owning my limitations, forgiving myself for my anxiety. I have almost debilitating social anxiety in certain situations. It’s a high cortisone type of fight or flight type of feeling. Much of that anxiety has to do with looking at our young people straight in the eyes, giving them all I’ve got and also taking responsibility for how my generation can do better to get engaged in a positive future.
I have also been listening to my own advice. Lift your heart up. Lighten up. Figure out how to change the cruel world without getting all tangled up in blue. And slowly, but surely, I’m coming through that tangled blue towards blue skies.
Wendy Lea Writing 