It's been a very topsy-turvy summer. My "baby" turns eighteen today, and I am feeling the throes of "letting go" once again and letting the last of my children fly from the safety and confinement of the nest into the world. You know what that means, don't you?...
Empty Nest Syndrome
Well, not sure it's appropriate to be called a syndrome yet, but I am certainly feeling the emptiness of the house with just my husband and I rattling around in it. We moved our youngest into seminary residences only a few days ago, and even though she only lives minutes from our home, every time I walk by her room, I feel a pang of loss.
We bought this acreage and house, just north of Cochrane, Alberta, when my son was only a toddler, and my oldest daughter was just a child. Our baby was born a year after and this house has, for close to twenty years, been filled with birthday party celebrations, pool parties, and youth activities. It seems so silent all of a sudden.
Someone said to me that once the kids move out I'll have plenty of time to write. Wow. I wish I could feel some comfort from that statement, but I haven't been able to write all summer. Oh, I blog a bit but my heart hasn't been into sitting down and completing that manuscript that beckons to me every once in a while, taunting me with its incompleteness.
And amazingly to say...I'm okay with it.
A Christian writer knows that there is a "season for everything". I have to adapt to this next season of life for me now without kids in the house everyday. I plan on taking a couple of months to establish a new routine, a new normality if you will, for my days. Certainly that manuscript may be added onto in the months ahead but right now the focus is connecting with my husband like I did BC (Before Children), and settling into my new Empty Nest role gracefully.
Thankfully my kids know that they are just a text message away from their Mama, and my baby even has my permission to bring over her laundry weekly and I'll even wash it all for her; I won't even grumble about it.
Wow, things really HAVE changed!
Lynn Dove calls herself a Christ-follower, a wife, a mom, a grandmother, a teacher and a writer (in that order). She is the author of award winning books: The Wounded Trilogy. Her blog, Journey Thoughts won a Canadian Christian Writing Award - 2011. She has also had essays published in "Mother of Pearl: Luminous Lessons and Iridescent Faith" and "Chicken Soup for the Soul - Parenthood" (March 2013), (Sept. 2013) and O Canada The Wonders of Winter: 101 Stories about Bad Weather, Good Times, and Great Sports (Nov. 2013). Readers may connect with Lynn on Facebook, Twitter and on her blog: Journey Thoughts
