When I woke up this morning to a light coat of snow outlining the trees and roads, I was reminded of a simpler time in my life. A happier time, I suppose. I was remembering snow days, and I remember them fondly. Both my childhood and my children’s childhood. They were magical days full of endless possibilities whether the magic took place indoors or outdoors. Yes, it was a day to reflect because time seemed to stand still amid the …
Category: Empty Nesting
Letting go is never easy, and this time around it was going to be rough. I could hear the excitement in my son’s voice. It was the first time in an exceptionally long time – six months at least – that I heard this amount of energy from this stoic young man. It pained me and pleased me simultaneously. Such a mixed bag of emotions, not at all unfamiliar to me, but here I was grappling with them again. The …
The news flash arrived a few weeks ago. My son would be returning to his college campus for his senior year. After five and a half months of unexpected time at home, he will be gone. With the snap of a finger. Poof. Just like that. And unless you have been living under a rock, you realize there is much speculation about the next step for…almost everything. Which includes the status of colleges and the return of their students under …
In the absence of words, there is Silence, the true unspoken language In the absence of words, there is nothing Time stops. Ideas are lost. A bond is broken. Temporary? A mental block, a mental note. A revelation...and so... She sat down today to write a letter she never wrote. She sat down today to be heard but only Silence answered Her mind awhirl, her heart a flutter, the words failed her And of Silence there was more She sat …
If you give a mom a problem, she’s going to do her best to solve it. Although I’ve recently learned, that is not always the best approach. For years I have prided myself on my ability to see clearly and to see through any problem that might arise for my offspring. I jump in, fully clothed, because I can swim through these murky waters to safely get to the other side and solve the problem as I’m paddling. First, I …
As moms, there are many things at which we are good, things we do exceptionally well, such as multi-tasking from dawn to dusk, watching our children with eyes in the back of our heads, and folding laundry with our eyes closed. We have the natural instinct to take care of our flock and all things involved with this flock from packing lunches for more years than I care to count, to waiting in the dark for their soccer-water polo-squash practices …
https://grownandflown.com/move-new-york-city-internship/ Once again, I am thrilled and excited to be published on the parenting site www.grownandflown.com, this time featuring my article on 'launching' my son into NYC for his summer internship. In this repost, the article appears here as it does on the Grown and Flown site. If you haven't had the opportunity to read it yet, please take a moment as we can all relate to the struggle of preparing for the launch.
Launch is my new buzz word. If I whisper the word launch once a day, I’ve announced it at least ten times. As in: I’m getting ready to launch this, or that is about to launch, or have you seen the new launch of such and such? It’s a hot word, and I’m going to overuse it until it’s no longer in vogue. Plus, launch sounds sophisticated, announcing that something exciting is going to happen, the word just rolling off …
We must have done something right. Somewhere between bringing the babies home from the hospital and sending pre-adults off to college, we did at least one thing right. That’s an expansive amount of time – eighteen years to be exact – in which to make mistakes, to try to correct the mistakes, and then to make mistakes all over again. In fact, it is too much time NOT to make mistakes and to hopefully be forgiven for parenting mishaps made …
This was both a difficult and awkward piece to write simply because it is challenging to express just how conflicted, as a mother, it is to experience our children dropping back into our lives briefly only to leave again. I accept this as the natural progression, but the raw feelings still linger. I often reflect on my own mother and how she quietly dealt with this issue for years without ever making us think twice about packing our bags and …
