Made dinner for five friends last night, all of whom I met at the boys’ elementary school. We’ve served on committees together, been in overlapping books groups, supported campaigns, carpooled to music lessons, watched Super Bowls together, celebrated the kids’ and our birthdays, attended Bar Mitzvahs. You get the picture. With children aged 17 to 28, talk invariably ran to how our lives change as our offspring take off. It was good to articulate some of that, and to hear others’ experiences. There is so much commonality with this.
It seems that something shifts about one to one and half years in. We shall see.
Here is what missing my boys looks like this morning. Pix from their rooms.
Off to the ‘Witch City’ (aka ‘Salem’), where it is Halloween all month long. Arg! I hope I will be able to find a place to park. One of my sister’s neighbors has taken to walking everywhere so as not to lose his spot. Wish me luck!
2010 – shopkeepers in Salem, MA
When the little birds have flown we are more free to experience fully what a powerful force they have been in our lives than when we were caught up in the day to day requirements of their presence. What a whirlwind. What a blessing.
Whirlwind and blessing… those words capture the contradictory pulls of it all.