Zen…It’s quite amazing actually to finally be alone. You go through phases…..the pain of an empty house, the extreme quiet, the heaviness that you feel in your heart. You are left with this sense of: “Where on earth did the time go? Weren’t we just celebrating their second birthday…wasn’t that just…last year? No, wait that was almost two decades ago…”
In one way, I felt like I had been made redundant from my job. That I had been given a pink slip. Even though I knew that the job was ending…well, actually it wasn’t ending it was simply being pared down to only a few hours a week (on the phone mostly), I found myself really wondering what to do. I allowed myself time to grieve a bit, but then I just felt “set free”. It was a heady freedom. I remembered that the only other time I had felt that way was when I had taken her to her first day of kindergarten. I dropped her off and thought, “Oh, my stars! I have six hours to do what I want!” Not that I ever did, I just went home, made some coffee and stared out the window and cried for a few hours because I couldn’t believe that she was in kindergarten. And then, all was okay. She went to school, we adjusted to another big change and there we were, mother/daughter, still two peas in a pod. And so it went, when she went across the world to university and then again when she decided to set sail for parts unknown (many times). We kept adjusting, changing, but always a small piece of my heart went with her, she still has that. That doesn’t ever get given back.
So, for me it is an exciting time. I have a new friend in my once child. We talk for hours on the phone. (She is half a world away and starting her own new life.) I want to go back and get that Phd. I want to travel some more. I want to write. I am blogging (learning more about that.) I have a lot of plans that I postponed that I am finally doing. I am more fearless now.
I think it is great that you want to date again. How is that making you feel? I think it’s probably the most exciting time in a person’s life…..that mid-life cycle….since leaving high school for university and/or young adulthood.
Hope you know….you are not alone. Woo-hoo for Zen spending time on himself!!! Yippee!!!
(Lurve you. lol)