Musing

Time flies!  Perhaps more than my wife, I have always been aware of that.  She would get frustrated when the kids were little and there were so many sleepless nights/diapers/snowsuits/  I would always say "it is only for a season."

In reality i should have just been quiet while I was helping!  She was frustrated and didn't get what I meant. It wasn't the right time to share that.   But now, suddenly it is hitting her.  The little guy in the picture above will join a Coming of Age program in our church.  He is on his way to being a young man.

Rob is in his second year of college.  There will not be too many more years with him living here, and Miss Lissa at 9 is all ready fiercely independent and ready to take on the world in so many creative and exciting ways.

I know that things that have been the same for us for many many years, are due to change soon.  The way holidays get celebrated, the times all of us are able to be together. Even who is home for supper.  These changes make me melancholy.  I know the wheel turns and it is right that it do so.  But I miss those baby fingers curled around mine.

On the other hand, the changes also have heralded the advent of occasional (and likely ever increasing) adult time for my wife and I.  It is easy to lose relationships in Parent Land.  And the times that we nearly did lose it, I know it was my fault.  My circle of friends is really large, but they are mostly also parents of other kids.  My wife craves time sans children, and has a circle of friends who either never had kids or whose children have flown the nest. I have less in common with them, though I do like them all.   It has made things challenging for a few years but as the wheel turns and the kids become more independent there have been more walks with just she and I. More nights by the fire pit with a glass of wine.  Occasional lunches out for just us.

These are good and the balance--the yin to the yang of the nest slowly emptying. Rediscovering, reimagining our relationship for the years to come and watching the kids set sail on their own journeys will be a new adventure.