Sunday, February 17, 2008

What Is Best For the Empty Nest?


When a woman gets pregnant, her body is no longer her own. It is taken over by what some may call "the developing fetus" but which I will call the alien life form. And everything the mother-to-be does or eats or inhales or takes or thinks or does has to be considered with the perspective of what will this do to the baby?
Not to mention the fact that her up-until-now familiar organs will no longer function as they have done for her entire life as the burgeoning life form within her grows and takes over. Her intestinal system will not be the reliable and trouble-free bit of plumbing she has always known. Her bladder will be squeezed and punched and kicked from the inside. Her stomach will be pushed up into her chest and heartburn will become a part of her life experience.
Her entire blood volume will increase by approximately fifty percent, resulting in headaches that cannot be treated because medication can affect the baby.
FIFTY PERCENT, PEOPLE!
Her hormones will go off the charts in ways she's never considered, making her do insane things like scream at her beloved husband, weep with despair over Publix commercials, have dreams that would make a Freudian analyst furrow his brow with worry, go out and buy a washing machine, and eat combinations of strange foods she would never consider eating pre-pregnancy.
Ankles swell as will bellies. Belly buttons pop. Stretch marks appear. Tiny fists and butts will be seen through the skin of the belly, punching, rolling, and generally traveling across the plains of the uterine wild west.
Then the baby is born. This requires a complete and utter giving up of any sort of control on the part of the mother as her body contracts and opens, squeezes and pushes and causes her the most unbearable pain she can imagine.
And then, and THEN, folks, the sight and sound and feel of her new baby completely rearrange the mother's heart, soul, and life.
And thus, it has truly begun.
The mother cannot sleep unless the baby is asleep, no matter how weary and psychotically tired she may be. The mother's breasts become engorged with milk that her tender and darling child will drink with lips and gums and a sucking strength that it is impossible to believe could have developed without Olympian training while in the womb. Her hormones will do another complete flip as she transitions from being a pregnant woman to a nursing mother. She will weep at the thought of babies in orphanages. She will weep at the thought that her baby will grow up. She will weep at the thought that her baby will never grow up. She will be overwhelmed, fatigued beyond belief, and hungrier than forty-five billion locusts. She will fall so in love with her child that she will truly believe that her love is stronger and more real than any mother's love in the history of primates. She will also believe that her child is more precious, more special, more beautiful, charming, intelligent, advanced and just plain HOLY than any child ever born, even counting Jesus.
Thank God she feels this way because her schedule, her wardrobe, her privacy, her thoughts and passions and very life will no longer be dictated by her own needs and desires, but by those of her child which would be completely unacceptable if her child weren't more special even than Jesus. And then, if she has more than one, she thinks the same thing about each and every child.
This belief does not completely fade, either, even when the teenaged years begin. This fierce and abiding love hangs on so strongly that the mothers of our species do not do what would seem to be the sensible thing to do and just kick the children out into the snow, but instead, she continues to love them and fret about them and buy them school supplies and pay for therapy.
This goes on until the very last child moves out of the house. And by the time this happens, the mother has quite possibly lived under the dictates of these children for far longer than she did under her own.
Which brings us to the point of this little essay- what happens when those children move out? What happens when they no longer need her to attend to their every need? What happens when a woman can decide what to do with her time, her life, her diet without having to think about what the children might need?
I'm not sure.
Although my fourth and last baby moved out of the house (sort of) six entire months ago, I have just recently realized that I have no idea how to live my life without being needed by a child.
And I'm sort of freaking out.
Throw in menopause and general life changes that are associated with (Oh God!) aging and let me tell you- it gets weird.
Here I am, on a Sunday night, and my husband is away and I am living the dream of a mother-with-small-children, which is to say I can do anything in the entire world I want to. I could eat pancakes for dinner or stay up and drink vodka all night long if I wanted to, or go to bed right this second or paint a picture or write a book or READ a book or watch an R-Rated or an old Bette Davis movie or play Bruce Springsteen really loud or take a bubble bath or, well, I'm about out of ideas.
The thing is- I can do whatever I want, which is what I've been dreaming about for all those years and frankly, I'm not sure what to do.
And why should I know what I want to do? I haven't had that option for thirty-one years.
Phew.
It's a process. And I'm not getting through it real fast.
But here's what I know- all of life is a process and just as we get used to one situation or circumstance, everything changes. As soon as you gather the knowledge and skills to deal with one thing, that thing changes and you need an entirely new set of skills and knowledge.
Being really good at breastfeeding doesn't help at all when your child brings home a fellow wearing an Insane Clown Posse T-shirt.
Insane Clown Posse?
And learning what to do about that doesn't help when you're all alone on a Sunday night and the world is your oyster and you have no idea where the oyster knife is.
But I'll tell you this- it's exciting. It's not boring. And I never thought I'd live this long.
So I'm not complaining. I'm just saying.
Wow.
And I'm grateful to have my body and my life back as my own, although this is certainly not the same body that I had when I got pregnant for the first time.
Nor is it the same mind, heart, or soul.
For which I am eternally grateful and owe every bit of thanks to those children.
Whom I will learn to live without needing to take care of every moment of my life.
I think.

9 comments:

  1. Whew, What a blog - spoke to me, Mrs. I have five children - all grown now. I was a stay at home mom. Then I was divorced. Most of my kids moved out - were in college or got married but I finally had move out to get on with my life, realizing it was my life and not theirs anymore. Boy that's a hard lesson because I thought that they would always need me. After all, they did or did they? I sold the house to the oldest who had moved back in with her son and then moved in a boyfriend and was about to have another child. "Jen, Want to buy this house?" she agreed and I sold it to her for nothing, leaving another one of my grown daughters there, too.
    So what's best for an empty nest?
    Treat them like your best friends?
    Accept that uncondtional love for a child is one way?
    I dunno, it baffles me.It's a struggle, I just hope that their children make them feel this way, it's my only hope

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  2. So, what did you decide to do? Billy and Shayla and I watched American Gladiators, then I went home and watched cartoons.

    You know we'll always need you, though. Even now we have our own tvs on which to watch said cartoons.

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  3. To the other Ms. Moon- my kids are definitely living their own lives and I am proud of all of them. I am still involved in their lives and am most grateful for that. But- Jeez. What do _I_ do now? Too many choices, not enough decision-making ability.
    YOU obviously have many skills and talents. Your blog has some of the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen.
    http://aboutolive.blogspot.com/

    And DTG- I made my supper, ate it, went to bed and read. Went to sleep, woke up during the storm and went and got a frantic Pearl and let her sleep in my room. Poor baby. That dog just cannot abide a storm.
    But wasn't it nice rain?
    And I will always need all of you, too, and you know it.

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  4. Perhaps a job, some volunteer work or taking a class/going back to school?

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  5. I have thought about all of those things. Wrote about the job thing- I have many skills- none of them really anything the job market is clamoring for.
    Volunteering- yes. I should do that. I did it when the kids were small and spent countless hours in classrooms.
    Taking a class- that, too, is a good idea.
    I don't know. I just feel frozen with choice and indecision.
    Meanwhile, I should probably clean my house.

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  6. Cleaning the house works to help us sort out our minds (sometimes). But Im pretty sure you're not bored because you've got potatoes in the ground....Just when I think I'm the only one struggling with an issue, some other Boomer pops up to remind me that 77,000 million of us will all feel this at the same time. Nice to know we're unique. ;)

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  7. I've struggled with "what to do with my one and only life" for my entire life, I think. And probably most people do. Boomers and X'es and whatever generation it was that came before us (I refuse to call ANY generation the greatest) and all the ones that will come after us.
    Sadly, but also reassuringly, no, we are not unique.

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  8. And Sally- a part of your comment just really struck me (I am slow) which was the part about realizing that it was your life now, and not your children's anymore.
    Wow. That is the heart of what I think I was trying to say.
    And that takes some time to get used to, doesn't it? It does not happen overnight, that knowledge, because we are so strongly moved, when our children are born, to realize that what our lives are about is completely and utterly THEM. Some would debate this but in the evolutionary scheme of things, it is just this very belief that has ensured the survival of the species.
    I doubt we were supposed to live long enough to get it back.
    Oh my. This could engender all sorts of discussion, couldn't it?
    But now I must return to my house cleaning.

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  9. NO, Ms Moon, you're not slow. It's a strange lesson. Yes, to live longer. Think on it- back in the day, women didn't live long enough to get some of that caring/concern back. I miss my children desperately, their physical presence in my life is something I hunger for. Just having one of them hang out while I cook or futz around makes me feel happy. The hardest part was realizing they don't feel that, anymore. I was thrust into finding something to do because I became a single mom. I took shit jobs (oops,sorry) but ones that I was interested in- photo shop, plant nurseries and then found this great job with the extension coordinating volunteers and gardening, took 10 years but was worth it. There are some wonderful intelligent women working with plants- you'd love it, Try it. It's nuturing.

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