(w)hole

It’s time to get real. It feels like there is a hole growing inside of me. An empty place, where parenting once lived. It’s like being pregnant with an expanding belly of nothingness. A friend wisely said that this time in our lives is like giving birth again, only it’s birthing our children (who are really adults now, Mom) from the womb of our homes, out into the world.

The temptation to fill that hole, to cover it up with a blanket, is really great. Last night I was downing popcorn and soda pop like I had never eaten before, and didn’t know when I would eat again. Turns out I would eat again when I got home from the movie theatre!

It’s a bit of a panicky feeling. A not-knowing who I will be, or what life will be like on the other side of this “transition”. Even though I have a sense that it won’t really be like birthing – where labor is usually over in a day or two, and BOOM, you’re a parent – this birthing could stretch out for a long time (especially if he doesn’t get into student housing). It’s more than likely that he will be in and out of our home for several years. But something will have changed. I will have (hopefully) figured out how to let go (to use a well-worn expression). And he will know that he is capable of living without me. Now, I’m being treated as if I am not needed, except for when money, the car, new underwear, or some unforeseen (yet utterly predictable) situation requires him to ask something of me.

What would it look like to do this chapter well? How could I be engaged in the activities of graduation while attending to the empty sad scared place in me? I would really like this hole to become a whole. A sense of wholeness, of fulfillment beyond this role of Mom. Maybe by attending to the bigness of these days, I can wrestle free from the small whines & frets that keep me distracted (and generally not much fun to be around). I do have some reason to hope – that vine across the porch is lush and beginning to bloom.