Here I go!

For twenty five years all I have known and have taken joy in is the raising of my family, my boys. With the oldest one now well on his way to independence, teaching on a little island in Alaska and the other one a senior in college I have had to face the fact that my role in life has changed. It has taken me almost 4 years to reach this life altering realization. What now?

Thanks to technology and the direction of the younger generation, I have found this form of expression to share and hopefully reap the benefits of others in my position who may read this blog.

This initial entry will be extensive to give you a background on how I came to this point in my life and why it is so important to me.

I am a positive person. Always have been and always will be. That is not to say I don't have my bad days but I try very hard to make them few and far between. I am this way due mostly to the way I was raised, in a family where meaningful togetherness took precedence over any and all other activities. If the choice was between a day at the beach or working in the yard, the beach always won out. Even though both of my parents worked, they were always there at every important event of my life and for that I will always be grateful. It is that dedication I tried to bring to my own family. I hope I succeeded.

For better or for worse, I have always put my family first. Even before my first pregnancy I put the baby first by getting as healthy as possible prior to conception. That carried forth to the pregnancy and the birth which was achieved completely naturally without so much as a tylenol for pain. I am convinced that my children owe their extremely good health to that fact.

Even though I worked full time almost all of their lives, I was completely involved in the lives of my children from the day they were born. I attended all of thier little performances in daycare and elementary school as well as award ceremonies, classroom parties, birthdays etc. I was thrilled when they became old enough for the local sports programs and I ended up coaching baseball for 10 years. Otherwise, I was at every soccer, basketball or youth football game. I also chaperoned their snow ski bus along with their dad for 8 years until they became ski instructors themselves.

When highschool started it was another world all together. I never missed a back to school night and even though many of their sports performances were during work hours, I made sure I was there to watch them play. Eventually I took charge of the football fund raising and support effort and planned and participated in the Senior Grad Night for my youngest son. In his last year of highschool I don't think there were very many days or nights that did not involve something having to do with school, sports or friends. Imagine then how hard it was to go from that level of involvement to nothing.

I tried to bridge the gap of inactivity by following his rowing in college. We went to out of town rowing competitions including a trip to Sacramento from Gig Harbor. I just could not let go of the attachment. I realized it had gone too far when I was attending his Ultimate Frisbee games. But how could I not?

For a time, I moved from caring for my children to caring for my parents. Those same parents who put me first and foremost all of their lives now needed me to do that for them and I was glad to do so. It kept me fulfilled, continuing my need to be needed. But that was relatively short lived as my mom passed away in July 2003 and then my dad recently in October 2007. That is when the empty nest really came to fruition.

Now, at ages 25 and 21 my boys still "come home" for some vacations. Most recently this was for the Christmas holidays and believe me I was thrilled! Just being in thier presence, perhaps talking of nothing of significance, just being was all I could ask for. But I came to the sorry realization that I am now only a small part of thier bigger lives and that somehow that is how is should be. I have done my job. They are great adults and while I will always be there to support them when they need me, they will not need me to any great extent. Now, when they "go home" it will be to whatever life they have made for themselves and I am proud of that.

I am now at a crossroad. I can wallow in the self pity of having no one dependant on me for anything (although a husband is always that to some degree). I have never been one for self pity. So I am choosing the only other option I can. I am going to take care of myself! This blog is the first step in that process. Along the way I am going to share my own thoughts and observations. No one may read them but that is not the point. I will acknowledge them and in doing so, will hopefully achieve the solution to that syndrome commonly known as the empty nester.

I hope that anyone reading this with anything of value or just encouragement will be able to share that and perhaps we can all help one another.