The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

After almost a month of empty-nesting, I've decided that there are a few positives. Like:

•  No empty toilet paper rolls at the most inopportune time
•  Doing laundry that does not contain seventeen bath towels
•  Chocolate that sticks around longer than twenty-four hours
•  There are no "I meant to wash them but I forgot" dishes in the sink
•  No Gatorade or Power Bars mysteriously showing up in the Costco shopping cart
•  Not having to harass offspring for payment of above
•  My Cheetos are right where I left them
•  Not having to get the attention of someone perpetually wearing headphones
•  Having an extra bed to offer to a Margarita-imbibing friend
•  Knowing whether or not my remaining one and only roommate will be there for dinner
•  Not fighting over the rapid disappearance of water bottles and Keurig cups
•  Finding more than a spoonful of vanilla ice cream in the carton
•  Not finding empty containers of anything

I'm sure I've forgotten a few others and as time goes on, it's a safe bet we'll discover a few more. (Sex on the living room floor? Who am I kidding? I can't even sit down on the living room floor.) We just have to get through this period of adjustment. And, while I appreciate all of the above, right this minute nothing seems to make up for one thing:

•  Skype hasn't figured out how to let its users give each other a hug

 

Am I Now the Guy?

Being in a long-term marriage affords one the opportunity to witness the ever-changing stages of human behavior. I'm not into defining anyone with typical gender-based roles but from my own experience, if you give a man and woman enough time and exposure to one another, they're going to slip in and out of one another's shoes every now and then.

When we started out almost 29 years ago, our roles were fairly traditional. My husband and I both held full-time jobs until the kids came. After that, he made the bulk of the money and I stayed home with our children, taking a few part-time jobs along the way. Our emotional behavior was pretty traditional, too. He said as few words as possible, rarely broke down in tears and approached most of our problems from a rational, logical point of view. I, on the other hand, always wanted to discuss our issues (usually right as he was falling asleep), could be brought to tears by any top 40 country song and dismissed his rational approach as cold and unfeeling. As you can imagine, these differences impeded our communication more than once.

Twenty years ago, my aunt warned me it would all change. She and her husband were just getting used to retirement when she said to me, "Hang in there. He's going to be a lot different after 55. When his job isn't the be all and end all that it once was, it'll be easier. You'll see, you're going to get yourself a whole different husband."

What she didn't tell me was that he was going to get a whole different wife.

I never would have expected that I would NOT want to talk, that I would enjoy spending time by myself or that I wouldn't need as much romantic affirmation as I used to. I never saw this change coming. The person whose body I now inhabit seems like a stranger. The behavior that I often exhibit seems a lot less loving, a lot less sensitive.

Now I need to have someone tell my husband to hang in there.

Answered Prayers

Watching your child struggle is the hardest thing a parent has to do. Having the strength and conviction not to step in and make it all better is the second hardest thing. Being there with support and encouragement as she figures it out for herself, well, as Master Card so aptly put it, that's priceless.

Patience is not my thing. Ask anyone who knows me. I'm definitely not one of those 'measure twice, cut once' kind of gals. One of the worst side effects of that character flaw is that I can be prone to dropping boatloads of subtle hints and reminders (otherwise known as nagging) if the people I live with aren't doing something fast enough for my taste. Finding out that no amount of pleading, cajoling, bribing, etc. could help my child turn her car out of a dead end street any faster has been a tough lesson to learn. When I finally accepted that, I had to do what I thought was impossible.

I had to turn everything over to a higher power.

The past seven days have been nothing short of a miracle. In all honesty, I can't say that I prayed and the next day everything was better but I am convinced that months of prayer from multiple sources have brought the people, resources and strength needed to bring my child to the place she's standing today.

Call it whatever you want but, seeing what's happened to my family over the last week, I'm calling it a divine intervention.

Change of Heart

I've always had trouble with change. True to my astrological sign (if I believed in all of that nonsense) I often find myself mired in the past, forever looking over my shoulder at the good old days. Lest you think that my entry into AARPland has precipitated this sense of nostalgia, I can assure you that this is nothing new. From moving to breaking up, getting a new job to working with a new computer, I've never been all that crazy about shaking up my life.

I know there are people who thrive on this sort of thing, who welcome each challenge to their daily routine with open arms and a sense of adventure. To them I say, oh wait, I can't say that. Maybe I should just say, 'Congratulations' or, better yet, 'How the hell do you do it?'

I'd like to say that this rumination on dealing with life's changes was brought about by my current situation - letting go of my kids and moving on with part two of my adult life - but it was really provoked by something much more trivial. I just found out that my favorite pizza place is closing.

I know, I know. People are losing jobs, families are being forced out of their houses. The loss of a neighborhood pizza joint should be way down on the totem pole of life's problems. And it is. But you've got to understand. This was my go-to place whenever life got the better of me. This was the comfort food that could make it all better for the time it took to eat four or five slices. This was the place that my entire family had gathered for thirty years. Through the decades, we hoisted a variety of glasses while enjoying the tastiest pizza this side of Italy. We solved a lot of problems seated at those dark, laminated tables. We celebrated a lot of birthdays and victorious baseball games sitting on those rock-hard wooden benches.

Maybe that's why this change is going to be so tough. We not only need to find another place that makes phenomenal thin crust pizza, a difficult task in itself. We need to find another place to make some more great family memories.

Married Without Children

From the moment you bring your baby home from the hospital, you realize that your life has changed. You can no longer have a spur of the moment date (unless your parents are feeling particularly benevolent), you can no longer sleep whenever or however long you might want to, and you can't take a vacation from September through May. In short, you can no longer be the center of your own universe. Then, one day, far off in the future, you have a chance to reclaim your life. You realize that no one is going to pull you out of bed to make pancakes (my husband learned long ago not to try that one again), there are no back to school supplies to purchase, and you can eat a cupcake at four in the afternoon without having to share. I've discovered that these are all very good things.

This weekend, my husband and I spontaneously headed to a ten a.m. showing of a romantic comedy at our local movie theater, followed by an alfresco lunch (okay, it was Culvers but still), and an afternoon of returning hastily purchased items to their original owners. We also took advantage of last minute (free) tickets to Wrigley Field and still managed to put in an appearance at a college graduation party on our way home. When our kids were little, there were months I didn't spend as much time with my husband as I did in these past two days.

There are still times, when I see an adorable toddler in the mall or when I walk past my credenza filled with framed images of my own two sweet babies, I miss the past. Then, there are days like the last two when I see the possibilities still ahead of me. The end of full-time motherhood has given me a chance to discover new interests (buon giorno italiano), embrace new challenges (still working on that novel), and rediscover relationships that all too often took a back seat to the demands of parenthood.

I'm not naive. I know I'll be mourning the loss of my full-time job for awhile. But, even though a pretty big door has closed, I have to say, I'm starting to enjoy the view out the window.