Feeling 22

 My daughter is 22 and about to go on a European backpacking adventure, attempting to go to 14 cities and 10 countries in 33 days. I'm thrilled to see her explore this adventurous side of herself, grateful that she has the confidence to go to another continent and stay in youth hostels and travel economy class on planes, trains, and buses, eating cheap food and putting in miles in her Converse with a backpack and a dream. She's newly graduated - the diploma hasn't even arrived in the mail yet! - and still figuring things out for the next phase of her life, but I can see how she is determined to have a life of meaning and hope, to avoid a life of "quiet desperation" even if I'm not sure if she knows the passage by Thoreau. I'm bursting with pride and enthusiasm for her, sharing her excitement and eager to support this grand adventure.

But this isn't about her, it's about me.

She is the exact age I was when I did a similar trip: 31 nights, 9 countries, 17 cities in the summer of 1992. It was a trip that changed my life, my entire sense of self shifting as I explored the world and my own capacities and limitations. My parents actually forbid me from going, telling me that I would get murdered, that it was a foolish idea, that it was a huge waste of money and time.

The "murdered" threats actually made me laugh. I was going to Europe, visiting cities like Paris and Brussels, hardly the dark underbelly of some war torn region or crime-ridden drug cartel run location. But I heard the message loud and clear: the world was a scary place, I wasn't equipped for it, and this was NOT how our family did things. It's true, this is not how my family did things. My family instead got pregnant as a teenager, had a shotgun wedding, and never traveled beyond Canada and the US. My parents never got to try on a bunch of careers, go out late at night dancing, or live in tiny apartments by themselves. My parents went straight to marriage and a baby, and they wanted me to do the same.

But I never wanted that. I saw how it was for them, and frankly it didn't look fun. My mother talked about her unfulfilled dreams with me, and my father's life looked bigger than hers because he was part of big projects and got to go to work with interesting people and sometimes do interesting things, but I didn't want either of their lives. I wanted to have a BIG life, one with music and dancing and interesting food and art and literature and so much travel. I wanted to meet people, to push my boundaries, to see the world and learn my place in it, not because I was born in a place and needed to live within those limitations, but because I had explored my options and chosen one.

I didn't entirely understand what I was signing up for, and while I pretended that my parents' threats didn't impact me, they did. I knew that I was on my own, that if something went wrong it would be reason for deep shame, that my hopes and dreams were foolish, that I was a disappointment to them.

Most of all, I understood how I was a disappointment, that they saw I wanted something different than what they had, and that this made them angry. They were ashamed of my desires for me, and labeled me foolish and selfish.

I went anyway. I had no idea what I was really signing up for - I had done so little in my life, and the small amounts I knew were all from books! I had never been to the movies by myself, didn't eat out by myself, certainly never spent the day in a city exploring museums by myself, and now I was getting on a plane to go overseas, where I knew nobody, where I didn't know much about anything... only that I wanted to go.

I bought a copy of Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door and read it over and over, committing it to memory. I bought a money belt, and got myself a passport. I looked at a map and made myself a plan, choosing Paris because I wanted to see the Eiffel Tower; choosing cities in Germany where my grandparents had lived; choosing Edinburgh because it seemed full of dark castles like in romance novels. I wanted to see Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam, and the Mona Lisa in the Louvre... but mostly, I had no idea what to expect. I just wanted to go.

And I did. Filled with fear, half sure that my parents were right and I was an absolute idiot, I boarded the plane. A middle aged French man moved to the empty seat next to me and flirted, and I didn't know yet that it was okay to say "no thank you" and then, if that didn't work, to say "fuck off!" so I put up with him until he got up to use the lavatory and the flight attendant said, "Do you WANT to talk to him?" and I whispered "no but I don't know how to make him go away" and she made him move seats. I'm still grateful to her: she let me know that I didn't have to put up with bad behavior, that I could have what I wanted even though a man wanted something else. An important lesson, and I hadn't even landed yet.

As I recall it, 33 years later, the rest was magic.

I wept as I visited my childhood friend Anne Frank's house (because the children of literature were my friends - weren't they yours, too?). I accidentally wandered into the red light district in Amsterdam, and my eyes opened to a whole new world. I slept in horrible bunk beds using my pre-purchased hostel sheets, and I met people from all over the world; in Marseilles I went out to dinner with two girls from Mexico, a girl from Spain, an Australian man, and a German boy in addition to a college kid from Florida. We shared travel stories and tips - have you been here? Oh, don't eat that it's so gross... try this instead! - and laughed and connected, sure in our commonalities because here we were, young and alive and living life to the fullest on our tiny budgets.

I learned that I really don't like Picasso, but the Impressionists were just as wonderful as I'd hoped. I felt something sacred in a cathedral in London. I got sexually harrassed at Hoffbrau House (when I shouted at the man who grabbed my ass as I walked by, he just shrugged and said it was a beer house, what did I expect?) and I'm indignant about it to this day. I slept on a three masted schooner in Stockholm, and I took a Rhein River cruise (I can still hear "On your left, the Lorelei!" in the accented English of the guide). I saw Hamlet's castle, and Buckingham Palace, and the Mona Lisa and the Copenhagen mermaid statue.

But most of all, I saw myself. I saw that I was brave and adventurous, and that I had capabilities beyond my own understanding. I could show up on a night train in the early morning, find a place to spend the night, convert my money, get breakfast, make friends, and then stand in front of a wonder (architecture, or a vista, or a town square, or a painting) all before 10am, filled with freedom and energy.

I learned that I was likeable, that I could make friends with ease, and that there were lots of people out in the world like me, and that I wasn't crazy or alone to want the things that I wanted. I learned that some people didn't see these trips as a really big deal, because everyone they knew did them. My family didn't care much about music, art, literature, or architecture... but the world was filled with people like me who took absolute delight in them. I learned about workers rights through striking, and the different politics of different countries. I learned what people thought about Canada, and about America, as I met people from all over the world who opened up to me, and as I traveled from country to country.

I learned that a baguette with brie, cucumber, and tomatoes, purchased from a street vendor and eaten in a train station, could be the best food in the world. I learned that I would go without sleep gladly, taking regular seats on night trains so that I didn't have to pay for a hostel, was totally worth it if it meant I got to see something new and wonderful in exchange.

I learnt that I was strong, capable, and worthy of these adventures.

Life took so many twists and turns after that: I married the wrong person, and instead of the life of travel I thought I had claimed, I didn't leave North America for more than two decades. Cancer and divorce made my life small again, as I did the things that needed to be done to just keep the wheels turning... but I've never forgotten the lessons. I'm brave. I'm strong. I'm filled with adventures. Art, music, and literature matter. I can make friends anywhere. I am a born adventurer. I can put up with some discomfort if it means that I get to really live.

I tried to teach my daughter these things, too, even if I couldn't gift her with travel from an early age. I took her to local museums (more and more against her wishes, but I tried!) and we went to concerts. We dreamed of travel together, talking about "one day..." even though we didn't know if that day would ever come.

A few years ago, a family wedding from a beloved member, and I scrimped and saved and we went to Italy. It was just as good as I'd hoped - maybe better! We went to places I'd been before, and places I'd only dreamed of. We ate focaccia and pesto pasta and pizza, and we strolled through piazzas. We marveled at Botticelli and the statue of David, and we delighted in the duomos in Firenze and Siena. I saw it in Tessa's eyes - she felt it too, the wonder and awe and excitement of it.

And now she is 22, the age I was on my backpacking trip, and she's going to do the same things I did, but in her own way, on her own schedule, and her own sets of experiences. Eurorail isn't as much of a thing as it used to be - the short plane flights are so cheap, and I guess night trains are a thing of the past. (Reminder to self: re-watch Before Sunrise to relive all of this!) But she will travel light, alone, and stay in youth hostels. She will find adventures, and find out who she really is, and she will dream big dreams. I'm doing everything I can to show my support: buying her airfare, and helping her choose her routes, taking her to the Rick Steves' store to buy travel items and to chart her course. We're reading guidebooks together sometimes, saying "did you know?" and "isn't this cool?" and she asks me a million questions and I give her advice that is 33 years out of date and then we laugh about it and try to find something a bit more current.

(No night trains. Huh. Who'dathunk?!)

And the thing is... this just brings it all back for me, at exactly the right time.

Tessa's graduation from college has done something to me that I wasn't expecting. This feels like the first time since my twenties that I get to be an adventurer, too, taking care of myself and nobody else. Tessa is raised, for better or for worse. It is the great joy of my life to be her mother, but now is a transition to something new in my life where my primary role is to be myself, not to be her mother.

What a strange sensation!

I believe that it is a parent's job to carry their children (metaphorically) on their backs to adulthood, showing them the path and taking them as far along as they can go. But with graduation, Tessa is unfolding her wings and launching into the world, ready to fledge the nest and explore on her own, to create her own nest, to come up with her own plans. I've done everything I can to raise her well, but for better or worse, now it's her time to fly.

She's flying: getting on a plane(s) to forge her own path, to have her own adventures. She's sure that this is what she wants, determined to see everything she can see.

And as she launches, I feel my own lightness of being. She's not on my back, she's out exploring the world, and though I do NOT consider her a burden (she was my choice, through and through), I notice the new lightness. Carrying someone is hard work, and I am so much lighter - it is so much easier to move! Financially, physically, spiritually... it is time for me to look inward and say, "what do I want?" and not "what does she need?" and I can proceed accordingly.

Well, it was very clear to me as her trip started to take shape that I have incredible FOMO, and that my jealousy that she would be having these huge adventures was because I want adventures too. But this time....

I can. I will. I AM!

I booked myself a week long trip during mid-winter break. I'm going to London - a place I only went for twelve hours on my trip! - and I'm spending 8 days. I have tickets to Stonehenge, and the musical Six, and the Florence + the Machine concert. I'm going to visit the Jane Austen Center, the Bodliean Library, the British Library. I'm going to have afternoon tea and cream tea and just tea. I'm going to sit in pubs, and I'm going to go to museums (though my great debate is whether I go to the British Museum, full of stolen antiquities).

I'm going! It's booked, an investment in myself. It's the off season and everything is cheaper, and I'm staying in a decent hotel in the heart of things, still very inexpensive but a far cry from youth hostels. I'm going to wear my wool coat and carry an umbrella; I want to be a little bit sophisticated, not a train hopping twenty-something. No more night trains, I've decided to stay in the one hotel and use it as a launching pad for other adventures (Oxford, Bath, Paris?), enjoying the comfort of not having to haul a bag and of getting to know an area.

Because I'm going back. I'm not going to travel once a decade, I'm going to do it at least once a year. Eight days isn't nearly long enough for London, so I'll return soon enough. If I don't take the chunnel to Paris for the day, I'll just do a trip to Paris another time.

Suddenly, I've reconnected with all those feelings of being 22, of remembering that the world is vast, and that I'm just beginning, and that adventures await because I am a born adventurer.

I found my old travel journals (not hard, filed by year in a bookcase in my study), and I read a couple entries today, and I thought, "Oh! That's me!"

I've changed (oh, the drama about silly men that I allowed; I gave them my power too easily, not realizing that I was powerful beyond my imagination), but I'm still the same. Suddenly, I'm 22 again, willing to scrimp and save to go on trips, sure that the adventure is what I'm born to do.

And I am.

Tessa's graduation is a graduation for both of us. She has completed her education, and I have completed this phase of parenting, and we are both ready to launch. I find it poetic that she will meet me in London for the concert (and for a free place to stay for a couple of days), that we will celebrate her birthday together in the West End with dinner and a play. I find it poetic that we will travel independently of one another, in different ways with different objectives, but that we will meet up in love and joy and adventure, and share our stories with one another.

I don't need FOMO, and she doesn't need my FOMO. She needs me to keep showing her how it's done: she needs me to go on my own adventures too.

I am saying "Go! Dream! Have adventures!" and this is a far cry from my parents threats about what a terrible choice travel was. I do not think she will get murdered, and I hope she finds her own equivalent of a hot Australian to kiss in the moonlight on a beach by the Mediterranean (because THAT is a good memory). I hope that if a rude middle age Frenchman unwantedly hits on her, she'll say no until he leaves, but if that doesn't work she'll say "fuck off" and call the flight attendant over. I hope she discovers a painting that touches her soul, that she finds a street market with the perfect vintage souvenir, that she makes friends, that she is exhausted by her adventures but she doesn't care. I hope she connects with some new part of her own soul, uncovering strengths and stories that shape her for the rest of her life.

I hope I do, too.

She's 22 for another week, and I'm feeling 22 again, reconnecting with the girl I once was, resurrecting her, removing the dust shrouds and shaking her shoulder. "Wake up!" I whisper in her ear. "It's time. Let's reconnect!"

What a time to be alive. How glad I am to be alive to experience this new phase - cancer and divorce didn't kill me yet, after all, and my legs are strong and my heart is thudding and I'm filled with the longing and possibilities of all of it.

Nobody told me anything interesting about middle age, about what happened after launching a child into adulthood. But if someone asks me, this is what I will say to them:

It's your time to be alive. Take delight in what you've done, and then dig deep to reconnect with yourself. They are launching, but so are you, and it's GLORIOUS.

Take the trip. Write the book. Dance at the concert. Be weird in the way that suits you best: join the coven, pull a tarot card, swim in the wild ocean in Seattle in January. Call your friends and share what you're thinking, find out if they're experiencing it, too. Hear your heartbeat, solo after these years of parenting, thudding in your chest, telling you what you love, what you crave, what you desire. Listen to it.

And go. Go, go, go. You won't be murdered, and not you're not wrong for being filled with the desire to drink deeply of all that life offers, to push the boundaries, to try something new. If you're lucky, you can make some of your dreams come true. 

Skip the take-out, cancel the streaming subscription, put yourself on hold from any purchases except the most necessary. Use up the wilted vegetables in the refrigerator to make a boring soup, so that you don't waste them. Use your library card instead of your debit card.

And buy a ticket to Paris or Prague, Tokyo or Terabithia, Nigeria or Narnia. Remember what it feels like to be filled with wonder, to feel a song in your bones, to be made to feel small on the precipice of a canyon or feet of a wondrous building or in the face of an artifact that is filled with so much history. Bite into food that surprises you. 

Just go. Go, go, go.

It's your time.

One month and two days

 If things go according to plan, Tessa will graduate college in just over a month.

I stand here in wonder and awe at her luminance, the magic of this moment in her life and in mine.

For her, this is something that nobody can ever take away form her. It belongs to her and her alone, and she gets to hold it forever. It is proof of what she can do, of her tenacity and resilience, her intelligence, her fortitude. She never liked school - I think she enjoys some of her classes, but homework was never anything but painful - but she saw it through, and I'm so proud of her that I'm bursting.

"Sit in salt water, light a candle for my daughter..." sings Florence + The Machine as I typed that last bit. Florence is singing of the pain of her miscarriage, and the "You Can Have it All" title is bitter.

But I wonder if  - miracle of miracles - in the end, I get to have it all. Of course, not ALL-all, but somehow, still, all.

I lost things along the way, "like salt in a weakened broth" says the poet Naomi Shihab Nye in "Kindness":

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

Oh, yes, I lost things. I lost my breasts, then my womb and ovaries, my femininity stripped from me and placed under a microscope, quivering in stainless steel dishes, cold and exposed. Then I lost my marriage - or did I ever really have it? - in what, at the end, felt like a purifying fire, the heat filling me where the surgeries had left me iced.

And then I lost those years of career, never to be regained. I lost financial footing, clawing at the shale slope and longing to find something solid like basalt or soft like a forest floor, looking down and fearing that I'd fall off the cliff face.

Sure that I was done - don't bad things come in threes? - I lost again, this time my family of origin, ugly words revealing what had been the truth for too long, shame flooding my body. Thank goodness for years of lifeguarding, so that I could swim with all my might to rescue myself, finding shore and gasping at the sea of shame that threatened to take away everything I knew about myself, shaking in the grief that I do not get a family the way I thought I would.

But every time I lost, I found again.

22 (nearly 23) years since I held my baby and knew for sure that this is what pure love looked like.

20 years since cancer, and I'm alive to see Tessa step into her womanhood in this new way.

12 years since divorce, which I feared would kill me in a new way, but was actually proof that I was a  phoenix, that I could rise and fly in ways I'd forgotten possible; years of showing Tessa how to live.

9 years since losing my family of origin, father first, then everyone else: mother, brother, aunts, uncles, cousins. One cousin did let me know that my grandmother had died but then had to call back, embarrassed to report that I was not welcome at the funeral. Years of teaching Tessa boundaries, and learning to parent myself as well as her as I sorted through the detritus of my upbringing and vowed not to gift her with its waste.

8 years since I returned to teaching, finding my way again in my career, using my education. Years of modeling passion and purpose to my daughter.

4 years since Tessa decided to go to college, and found her way in. Difficult years for her, but such a time of proving to herself something that she needed to know in her bones. And four years of remaking myself, with her living in an apartment on her own time a couple of hours away.

And now? Now, she launches. I have given her the best of myself, even when that wasn't enough, I think it's fair to say that I gave it my all, and that my commitment to giving it all to my beloved daughter until I draw my last breath is a thousandfold what it was that first time I saw her face, cradled her body, and vowed that there is nothing I would not do to protect her and give her a good life.

So she must launch, and I will too.

I am filled with a new energy lately, finding my footing more than ever, and I'm so hopeful that this next phase will be a time of kindness, of stepping into light and love.

When I first got divorced, I stood on the edge of Lowman Beach, and had the sudden clear vision that when I saw orcas swim by that beach, it would be a sign that I was ready for the next phase of my life, ready for love, and that love would find me. Since then I have run to the beach every time the orcas were nearby, and I have seen them many times since (it's one of my gifts!), but never from Lowman. I could spot them at Alki, or Constellation, or from a boat in the Sound, or from Emma Schmitz, or from a ferry or an island... but never from Lowman. Disappointed, I decided that maybe it would never happen, determined not to want it, but searching the horizon of the sea despite myself.

Last week I saw them from the shore, a crowd of us gasping in delight - "Did you see it? In line with the point, by the research boat! Oh, look, another one!" The man next to me loaned me his binoculars and I saw a fin so large I was sure it was taller than I am. And my heart beat faster - was it really a sign?

And then today I went to the beach again, wrapped in a blanket against the cold, looking for wishing stones and painting a little seascape in my portable art set (I remind myself that it was the process, not the outcome, that I was seeking, because I have no idea what I'm doing but it's fun anyway!). And then... was that a splash? Oh! And another! And running to the water line, talking to another woman, delighting in, yes! A third! Oh look at them, by Colman pool, how are we so lucky to live her, and now the sun is setting (so early in the afternoon!) and I can't believe it and oh I love orcas.

Twice in a week. Grateful to the tips of my toes, sure now that it's a sign (sometimes I'm slow, and I appreciated the confirmation!).

In one month and two days, my daughter's life changes forever, and she grasps what was hers to claim, her birthright. On her mother's side, she is the second woman to receive a college degree. I am the first, and it was hard for me (how DID I work 70 hours a week sometimes?!) and it has been my joy to make it easier on her.

And now we both launch into new things. She is all dewy skin and flat stomach and breasts that belong to her body and independence and dreams and determination and integrity and pure stubbornness and the deepest kindness. She has hopes, but she has fears too, and she will have to reinvent herself in this phase. She is ready, of that I have no doubt. She has wings; she will fly.

And I am launching too. Did the orcas bring love? Time will tell! But my writing is back on track, and that feels good. I'm exercising in the mornings. I gave up sugar for the month (exceptions for Thanksgiving!) and I'm on day 10 without it. Work is going well. I go to the beach on my day off, and I make Christmas presents for friends, and I go to live concerts, and I read stories and light candles and read tarot. I have friends who are good and true, and I have friends who are actually sisters. I have big dreams for myself, and peace about watching Tessa fly.

I never seem to do things on just the right schedule - I couldn't write this in two days to have a clean "just one month from now" because I'm not that tidy. I'm messy and on my own schedule, not right or wrong but mine, just the same as my daughter.

We have made it, she and I. We are well. It's messy, and sometimes it's scary, but it is also so jaw-droppingly beautiful. As she creates herself anew, I create myself anew, and I am inspired by her, and hope that I can return the favor.

I saw orcas, and I must mark the occasion. My daughter and I are well.

All will be well.

(And just to be clear, I think "mystic" is witch. Yes. And I loved her ever since learning the UU song by Meg Barnhouse, and I love her even more because of Florence's references.)

And speaking of Florence's lyrics....

I got to hold my daughter in my arms, and she did not die. And then I did not die, and I get to see her become a woman, to sprout wings bigger than mine, to surpass me in so many ways. And I get to playfully say, "you can't pass me yet - watch this!" and flap my own broken wings harder, to fly higher, because I have mended them over and over and I can still fly.

The crows don't get out of the way when I walk by anymore; I tell them how beautiful they are, and they strut near my feet, our eyes meeting. Their black glossy wings remind me that I can fly - and that I still have some magic tricks up my sleeves, because I am not done reinventing myself either.

One month and two days from now, she grabs the ring. It's my ring too, and how glad I am to share a copy of my own. Let her come into her power, and let me explore mine.

All shall be well.

Writers Gotta Write

 Oh dear Reader. How I have missed you.

At this point, I'd be surprised if I had a single reader, because what would they read?! I have been amiss, a bit lost, a bit in transition. But over, and over, and over, the same truth rises us: for better or for worse, I am supposed to write.

Hopefully for better, of course.

So my new plan? To write. Anything. No matter how crappy - or how wonderful, it's time to show up for myself. And - if I'm very lucky - for you.

I am in a wonderful, strange new part of my life. The empty nest is filled with surprises, actually, and nobody told me it would feel like this. I read Grown and Flown online, and I can't tell you how many articles say how hard it is to let go, how senior year is a countdown horror to loneliness, how letting go is a tearful process.

Anybody who knows me knows that I love my daughter as much as I love my own life, and that there is nothing I wouldn't do for her. We made it through my cancer and divorce together, and my love for her is matched by my respect for her. Tessa means the world to me, and my love for her is infinite. So please don't judge me for saying this:

But Grown and Flown didn't tell my story.

I love my empty nest.

First of all, it's not really that empty. She went to school in September, visited in October, and is coming home for Thanksgiving in November. Then, she'll be back for almost a month in December/January. But even when she's gone, we're connected. I send her little packages (note: I don't think my home made cookies were worth the $23 UPS shipping fee - I need a better method!), postcards, letters, and endless texts. She's part of my life on a daily basis, and I carry her with me where ever I go. I don't think she carries me in the same way - that's not her job - but I am secure in her love. So, between frequent communication and visits, I don't feel too empty.

Secondly, it's not only Tessa who is learning to fly.

For her whole life, my life was organized around hers, as it should be. I signed up for motherhood, and I don't resent it at all. I put her needs first because I wanted to, and because it was the right thing to do. I wouldn't trade those sleepless nights, or infinite attempts to get her to eat her broccoli, or sleepovers, or story time, or hiking at her pace, or driving her to endless playdates and after school activities. I wouldn't miss a minute if I could do it again. But now? Oh - there is liberation!

For her, liberation looks like a sink full of dishes and a roommate who doesn't care (and adds her own dishes), with no mom around to scold and demand and passive-aggressively clean the sink (hey, I never said I was perfect). It looks like sleeping in late and staying up even later. It looks like finding her own way, her own people, her own way of moving through the world. It's study groups, finding a favorite coffee shop, having her own language with her boyfriend. It's learning how to write A+ papers, and managing procrastination. It looks like managing the rent on time, and grocery shopping, and eating only the food she likes best.

And for me, liberation looks like remembering who I was when I was in my 20s.

I had a small period of my time after I graduated and got a "real" job and before Ryan and I were dating and eventually married where my life was truly my own, restricted only by my budget or my imagination. In that time, I went to concerts with friends, library talks by myself, and I hiked almost every weekend whether I could find a friend to join me or not. I took my first yoga class, and a writing class. I hosted dinner parties, went to plays and movies. I took great joy in buying grocery store flowers for myself. I did volunteer work. I wrote pages and pages in my journal.

And here I am again.

A month ago I signed up for a yoga class, and while I've only been four times so far, it feels a bit like coming home. I have the time, the money, the health, and the inclination. My Warrior 3 is really quite bad - wobbly and oh-so-crooked - but I can tell it's a bit better. My Dancer is broken, but that's okay. My Tree is steadier, my Warrior 1 and 2 are powerful, and my Standing Fold is deeper every time. Bridge feels incredible, and my Dancing Warrior (flowing from one to another) lets me know I am alive, and well.

I bought tickets to go to plays with a dear friend. We went to the first one: filled with feminist ideas, laughter, social commentary. Next up is a Jane Austen play, and I'm giddy with nerdy delight at the prospect.

I went to Mount Rainier for the first time in years, and climbed a path that had me gasping for breath before I slowed down (and realized that I was still passing everyone, just not at the speed of my 20-something self). A watched a hungry marmot filling his belly, and as I climbed above the treeline I felt strong and steady.

A recent repeat of COVID (I am so utterly sick of this!) had me at home for a week. Horrors! But a half dozen friends repeatedly volunteered to bring me supplies, and little gifts showed up at my door. I was finally able to sit down to write letters, and I sat on the sofa staring out the window, comfortable with my cup of tea even when I didn't feel well.

The dinner party I had scheduled will still happen, just on a different day.

I know I haven't found my way yet. I'm still working on dating (what DO I want?!), getting my finances and savings where I want them. (This was the year of a new mattress - it was 22 years old, good grief - and a new fridge and a new washing machine because they broke, and then new car tires and a $6000 repair, all on the heels of my beautiful trip to Italy. My savings has taken a hit!) I'm never caught up on grading (I have a plan!) and I'm really not a very good gardener and my yard is a silly wreck. I keep saying I'm going to run but I don't run. I spend too much time on my screens.

But.

I'm finding my way.

So, here is my promise to myself: I will end this year better than I started it. And for me, writing is a part of that, so I will show up, and write drivel or gold, but I will write. I will stop waiting for the right time, for the right motivation, for the right idea. I will write the book, or I will write here, but I will write.

I owe it to myself. It's time to fly!

Empty Nest

 My daughter is winding down her first year at college, and it feels like a huge milestone in my life, not just in hers.

The past year has been full of surprises.

First, let's be clear: it's nothing like I imagined... except when it is.

I thought she'd be social and spend too much time with new friends instead of studying. I thought I'd be worried all the time. I thought the house would feel empty and strange. I thought it would be the end of something. I thought she wouldn't commit to her studies and she might come home to find a different path. I thought she'd never come home on weekends.

I was wrong.

She's found her academic groove and she remains connected to her beloved childhood and high school friends (including her high school boyfriend), but she hasn't found community at school. I did worry a lot - a LOT - at first, but now I feel relatively peaceful. The house started by feeling empty, but now it just feels like home. She has found academic success and motivation, and she's committed to earning her degree. And she comes home frequently.

So: I was wrong about that.

But some of it is just as I hoped.

Moving her into the dorm was a magical experience that I found healing. As a non-traditional student without a lot of family support, I never got to live on campus (I barely spent any time on campus except classes, because mostly I worked). Going shopping for Tessa's supplies - the perfect chambray blue duvet cover; towels that were soft and fluffy; a mattress topper because it was on the list of "must haves"; throw pillows that I'm pretty sure never get used but made her eyes light up when we bought them - was so much fun. When I had my first apartment nothing was new, or pretty, or special. My first Christmas after leaving my parents' house I asked for a blanket as a gift because I was perpetually cold and I didn't have enough bedding. That memory - and the fact that my mother gave me a hand me down blanket that was in the color scheme and size of her king sized bed, despite the fact that I had a double bed, means that I got her cast-offs, despite my parents' ability to afford more - made me patient as we shopped the aisles of Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, and IKEA, debating each item extensively before finding just the right ones or sighing and searching again on Amazon.

Loading up the back of the Subaru with blue zippered IKEA bags, driving over the mountains, and having the usual comedy of building an IKEA side table and unpacking everything together was just as I'd dreamed. I made up her bed with the topper, the blush sheets, the pretty duvet, the piles of throw pillows (which she arranged and rearranged until they looked just right). We probably looked like caricatures of a college day mom and daughter: she in her Central crop top, me in my baggy CWU Mom sweatshirt, smiling and sweaty and sometimes on the edge of tears, with lots of hugs. When I left that night she gave me a carved jade heart and some heartfelt words, and our hug was extra long. When I got in the car to drive home alone, I played Taylor Swift and sang loudly, waiting for my tears to come... but they didn't. I was happy. My girl was where she needed to be, and she knew how deeply I love her, and the future awaited both of us.

I know I sent too much. Her first aid supplies alone could probably cover the entire floor of her dorm for a year. She could have holed up and lived on the snacks she got started with without ever leaving to get food. I'm pretty sure she never read any of the novels she brought with her, but as a fellow book nerd I knew how important it was to have them tucked onto her bedside table shelves.

No regrets. 

We send each other cards and letters at least weekly. I display mine on top of our piano (displaying cards is its only use since Tessa decided, a decade ago, that piano wasn't her thing).

When she's gone I collect little things for her and place them in her room: a new pack of masks, snacks, a sundress for our summer trip, new bottles of shampoo and conditioner. I send her texts every day without expectation that I'll get a response because I know she needs her independence, but I also know she needs my love notes, and I often get a response anyway.

This is better than I expected.

The house isn't empty, because she comes home every few weeks to visit (make no mistake - her local boyfriend is more of a draw than I am - but that's okay, because I get the benefit of her visit anyway).

I am not sad the way that some of the parenting websites told me I'd be. I do not sleep in her bed, wrapped around her pillow. I do not long for crumbs on the counter or dishes on the sink. I long for this: I long for what I've got. I long for her to know that she's got my full support. I long for her to feel safe, protected, but also capable of handling what life throws at her. I long to be her safe space to return to. But I also long for witnessing her as she grows wings. She's thinking of a semester abroad. She might move to California when she graduates. She doesn't think she wants to be a mom even when she's older. She has her own ideas of life, some of which I find exhilarating, and some of which make me worry, but all of which belong to her. 

One of my parents' angry threats to me when I was a teen was "you'll see when you're older!" and "just you wait!" I did wait. I got older. And what I learned was that my feelings of craving wings to fly were completely normal and natural, and that what every kid wants most in the world is the encouragement to fly and the certainty that a loving nest awaits them if they want to visit. I wasn't being selfish, or mean, or unloving, or ungrateful when I wanted a different life than the one my parents envisioned for me, I was just - living. Being myself, not them. Finding my own way. Every time they told me that my way of living was wrong, I yearned to fly farther away. Every time they clipped my wings, I flapped them harder, trying to make up for my lost feathers by expending more energy.

Parenting my daughter through each stage of her life has been healing and eye opening. 

My nest is empty-ish. But I'm happy, because I didn't raise my daughter to stay home with me until she was old, I raised her to go out and seek out her own dreams, and that is what she's doing. When I buy her little necessitates, or send her love notes, or encourage her to follow her dreams even when they're not mine, I'm really parenting myself too, reminding myself that this is what I deserved, too.

The more freedom I give her, the more I support her dreams, the closer we become. I honestly didn't see that one coming, even though it should have been obvious. My parents held me tight to a vision I didn't share, and I suffocated and struggled to break free of the confines of their vision; I gave my daughter space to figure out her own path and called out my support, and she has opened up to me in return. So obvious once I see it, but such a journey to get to this place.

My nest doesn't feel empty, even though it is. It feels like home. It feels like a soft place to land. It feels full of possibility.

Right now it's time for me to work on developing my own wings. Sometimes I feel jealous of my daughter - not for her youth and beauty, but for the possibilities that lie ahead of her. And then I remember that it's not too late for me, and that I can still recreate myself a hundred times over, and that just as she's got me cheering her on and believing in her with all my heart, she's cheering for me and believing in me, too. I can hear her shouting "Fly, Mom! You can do it!"

I didn't expect that. 

I'm still working on finding my way. I haven't got it all figured out AT ALL.

But watching my daughter spread her wings gives me strength to remember how to fly. I see her circling our nest, riding the currents on her wings, and I hear her call to come join her in the sky. We won't always fly together, or in the same direction, and I need to make sure not to crowd her up there - the sky is big enough to give her space - but after years of sitting on my nest, tending to my little baby bird, it's clear that we're both ready to soar.

It's terrifying and exhilarating. But I'm ready.

Flying Solo

 A few weeks ago, my daughter and I got in the car - which I had packed with ten giant blue IKEA zipper bags full of bedding, clothes, shoes, and more, per the recommendations on Grown and Flown and Pinterest - and drove a couple of hours east... and I left her there.

This is the longest I've ever been apart from my girl, and I feel hollow and strange. We've done up to a week apart before, usually with lots of phone calls to check in, and I always knew at the end of the week she'd be back where she belonged, with me. But this time, she's where she belongs at college, and she'll never be home again in the way that she was before.

Now, she has two homes. My home will always be her place to land, and the room down the hall is still filled with her things, awaiting her return for holidays. But she and I both know that she has two homes now, and her growth and her future lies mostly in the other one at the moment.

This isn't a woe-is-me, I promise. I couldn't be happier for her, because she's out there trying to live her best life, trying to discover how to navigate when she's that much closer to adulthood. I am proud of her for finding her way, for being brave, for meeting new people and having a roommate for the first time (as an only child, I'm pretty sure this is a shock to her system!), for figuring out food cards and dorm rules and where her classes are on a campus, but she's ready. For whatever bumps she's experiencing, she's ready. She can do this.

And so can I - I hope.

Everyone talks about kids remaking themselves in college, and how much their parents miss them, but nothing prepared me entirely for the truly empty house I'm in. My canine companion might really be my best friend, because I feel really alone, despite the wonderful folks in my life.

No husband.

No family of origin.

None of Tessa's friends in and out all the time.

And a global pandemic that absolutely refuses to go away (and it feels like I'm the only one really worried about this winter - what if it's worse than last winter, despite the vaccinations?!). I'm being careful (it turns out that was a good idea - because I had Pfizer, and after 4 months it's at half effectiveness for preventing disease, and I'm with 150 kids a day at school in my crowded classroom).

So here I am, more solo than I've ever been. I'm of two minds about this: time to write! to be a superstar at work! to exercise more and more! to take classes! to visit art museums! to hike! to cook! to do house projects!

...and curl up in a ball, possibly in front of the television, and not get up.

Honestly, the jury's out.

What I did decide to do was start therapy again.

Mostly, I want to work out my family of origin stuff. When my mother was hospitalized recently I reached out to her, and as soon as we spoke, I regretted it. She brought up everything I've done to offend her in the past 20 or so years (we thought she could be on her deathbed, and she wanted to re-hash that I had not invited her to attend Tessa's birth... sigh). She said, "At least when I die, I guess I'll know you reached out once" (in a sad, dramatic, sighing voice) and when I pointed out that I've contacted her regularly - most recently to send a graduation announcement - she had no reply. She acted like it was confusing why we're estranged. I said "the door has always been open to see you again" and when she acted surprised I said, "All you and Dad need to do is agree to no name calling, belittling or yelling" and she said - in a surprisingly snotty voice, "OH! So you have BOUNDARIES now!" and did not agree to those boundaries and changed the subject.

I think of all of it, that last one was the toughest for me. I have the no-yelling-belittling-name-calling rule for EVERYONE I meet. Cashiers. Waiters. Passer by. Students. Friends. Strangers. Everyone. I feel like it's the absolute lowest bar in the world, but in my family it's simply too much, and for me to express a boundary is unacceptable, even when it's a lowest-of-the-low boundary.

So here I am. 52, solo, in therapy.

I am determined to get to the good stuff. The good stuff looks like an active life, close connections, meaning, and love. Romantic love, too. But I know I have to deal with my "stuff" before I'll be ready for that.

Sigh.

I think my first big leap now is to figure this out. Therapy. Journaling, Determination. Asking hard questions.

And then maybe the good stuff?