Tonight, after 20 years of parenting, my creativity evaporated, so I just said:
“What did you learn today?”
And then I heard a whole lot about Bangladesh.
Category: Teens
when the end is near…
There was the afternoon
when i slid down the wall
in the hallway
in front of the bookshelf
and dozed there
with a lap full of journals;
until voices lifted my gaze
out the window
toward the hill,
where Aidan,
tall and lanky,
like a teenager,
used a plastic bat
to hit snowballs to his friend.
Unlike his older brother,
Aidan has lulled me,
with his child-like ways,
into the fantasy
that “we”
will always
be.
(Emily was right…
How softly summer shuts, without the creaking of a door.)
Money Troubles
I’m having money trouble. On the inside.
I thought the pain in my stomach tracked back to summer’s surrender to fall (when my mid-life chocolate consumption spiked from a bar a month to a desperate nibble every shrinking hour of the day); but after some in-depth chakra exploration this afternoon, I realize that the pain came on last spring–as my self-employment income plummeted.
I’ve since restructured the budget, and found a greater place of ease; but my stomach is still talking.
I listen in more closely.
It flashes back… to a young mother, sitting at the top of the stairs, after a long day home alone, with an infant.
I’m weeping.
Or I want to weep.
“I don’t remember my last paycheck,” I say.
Twenty years later this seems a silly thing.
And a curious one.
It’s hard to remember a time when I was defined by a paycheck. I’ve spent so many years now prioritizing home and family that income has grown comfortable in the back seat.
In fact, when I sit down to shape my goals for 2016, I find that my visions flow easily, until I get to the category entitled: finances.
I try, but I can’t even begin to wish for more. I don’t know how. I feel wrong.
Apparently I’ve exchanged fear of not having enough to fear of having too much.
This is further complicated by my long established role in the home. Instead of bread winner, I’ve been budget maker, deal finder, abundance-shaper.
I keep thinking there will come a time when my role is no longer necessary, but as the kids come of age, it seems just as relevant, in new and different ways.
Over the years as a parent, I’ve chosen to have less, so that we can have more.
Can I have both?
More income and more…
What is the other more?
More me. More family. More connection. More values. More alignment. More passion. More contribution.
With this insight, comes release.
A big exhale.
A softening of the belly.
The Empty Nest Diary 