Today is J's first sleep-over. She is over at Lindsey's with her two girls and her best friend Katie. The house feels silent like it hasn't in the last five years that J has been in my life. This is what an empty nest will feel like - just that the emptiness will not be filled in the morning. Instead it will last days, weeks and months.
She will be gone to college, she will live and work in a different city, be married with kids - who knows she may be in another country. The phone will ring sometimes and it will be her with the sounds of her life playing in the background. Her happiness will bring me solace but there will be quietness to stay.
It will always seem like the other day when she was born and I first held her close to my body - the helpless little bundle of joy. She gave her courage to break out of a marriage that had become an entrapment, she gave me power to overcome impossible odds, to take chances that I would have never have taken otherwise.
I wonder what might motivate me to go on once she her wings are strong enough to let her fly away, what my life's purpose might be if not to mother J. Suddenly on a Friday evening, it hits me that "I" have long ceased to exist.
She will be gone to college, she will live and work in a different city, be married with kids - who knows she may be in another country. The phone will ring sometimes and it will be her with the sounds of her life playing in the background. Her happiness will bring me solace but there will be quietness to stay.
It will always seem like the other day when she was born and I first held her close to my body - the helpless little bundle of joy. She gave her courage to break out of a marriage that had become an entrapment, she gave me power to overcome impossible odds, to take chances that I would have never have taken otherwise.
I wonder what might motivate me to go on once she her wings are strong enough to let her fly away, what my life's purpose might be if not to mother J. Suddenly on a Friday evening, it hits me that "I" have long ceased to exist.
Comments
HC,
So glad that you recognized this, and early. This is a trap a lot of us single parents fall into - losing sight of all our identities other than the parent identity. True, we hold onto superficial identities like 'writer' or 'employee'. But we need to step beyond the parent identity and reclaim who we are - and the sooner we do it, the better it is for us, and for the children.
Some single parents go further and make the child a companion, confidant and equal - unwittingly casting the child in the role of partner. A child shouldn't be burdened with adult concerns. This also causes difficulties in the child accepting their mom's/dad's new partner. They feel this partner is replacing them.
Priya.
Children always challenge our limits and make us seek out newer horizons,and help us create new ones when sometimes there are no horizons at all . And while we make this journey alone or with the help of a spouse, in the end the eventual loneliness from tending to an empty nest, is our inheritance of the times that were.
Kudos to you for striking the right chord.
When you feel like it, think about your parents when you make an independent move.
I agree it is a codependent feeling.
SriPriya