This is the season for the celebration of new beginnings. Every May, I am reminded of this season when I open my mailbox to find it overflowing with a myriad of invitations.
Some are for high school or college graduations. Others are inviting friends and family to celebrate the union of two joining their lives in a new future together. No matter what the event, it is always an occasion of great joy and celebration.
We had our own celebration this year as my husband’s oldest son graduated from college. The coliseum was alive in a sea of exhilaration, pride, happiness! Years of work, promise and hope were fulfilled before our eyes. The joy that radiated seemed to have a life of its own that was reflected in every word, every breath, every smile. For the graduates, one door was closing while another, yet fully unknown, door was just beginning to open.
It’s right and good that we are focused on the graduate at this time. This is their moment – their celebration to mark the achievement of the first of many milestones in their lives. Graduation should be about them. This is their walk down the runway and to make them the center of attention is exactly how it should be.
However, in the joy of their celebration, we lose focus that this life event marks not only a new beginning for the graduate, but a new beginning for the parents as well. One phase of the parents’ life – the life that revolved around PTA, car pools, little league, senior prom - is beginning to close. As our children begin the walk through the doorway to their future, we begin our walk into the next phase of our lives as well – a walk where we are no longer the parents of small children. A walk where we are no longer needed on a daily basis to kiss away the hurts of a scraped knee or broken heart. A walk where we have become the parents of fully functioning, self-sufficient adults who don’t quite “need” us in the same way that they did when they were young.
Despite the fact that we’ve worked our child’s entire life to bring them to this point – to enable them to take a leap of faith into their future – to equip them to be independent and separate from us, many of us still find our personal transition at this time overwhelming and daunting. I’ll never forget my reaction when my oldest step-son left for the Marine Corps after high school. He’d come to live with us when he was four years old. He was 19 at the time and quite frankly, driving me nuts. In the weeks before his departure, I was actually looking forward to delivering him into the tender hands of the drill sergeant!
To my surprise, I was totally unprepared for the reality of his leaving – for the void that I felt – the grief for the loss of his presence (yes, he was driving me nuts and I missed it!) – the emptiness that permeated from his room. It was six weeks before I could walk in his room without crying. I was suffering from what we’ve come to refer to as “empty nest” depression.
Why was I so upset? It wasn’t that I was not happy for him. In fact, the very opposite was true. He was living his dream. How could I not be happy for him? My grief was for myself. I was mourning my personal loss. I loved everything about being a parent. Like so many women, I poured my heart and soul into being a parent. I had voluntarily put my hobbies and interests on to the back burner for years. The truth was that a large part of my “identify” was wrapped up in being the “mom.” As he made the passage into his future, my self-identity shifted. If I was no longer the mother of “children” living at home, who was I?
Fortunately for me, my depression was short-lived. I finally forced myself to open the door to his room and clean up the mess left behind. There is nothing like finding a full gallon of stink-bombs fermenting under the bed to “cure” depression!! After my disgust over the stink-bombs subsided and the mess left behind was finally cleaned up, I took a long hard look at myself. Just like the mess under the bed had to go, so did my depression. Neither was acceptable.
How did I move forward? By reconnecting with me – by finding once again my “true north.” I gave myself permission to pull all those boxes of dusty dreams from the closets in my life and explore the contents buried deep inside. What treasures I found! I am still exploring the depths of these dreams even now and hope to still be doing so until the day I take the ultimate journey and pass from this place into the next.
In my heart’s eye, nothing will ever compare with the joy that I felt being the parent of young children. For me, those were “golden” years and every single moment is a precious jewel set in my memory. I cherish those years. But, I discovered that just as it was right and good for my children to move on to their future with joy, happiness, and yes, even anticipation, so was it also right and good for me to do so as well. I was better prepared when the next child left and even better prepared for the bittersweet closing of the door when the last child left. Life today is different but no less sweet, no less precious, no less joy filled, no less complete than before. It is merely a new adventure from the “what was” into the “what-may-be.”
©2009 Mary Kyle. For more articles by Mary Kyle, please visit www.texpen.com.