Sunday, November 20, 2011

Ragged And Random.....




My sister, The Little Blister, appeared on my blogroll yesterday! No warning, no mention in our last phone conversation, just there: "Empty Nest, Riseoutofme." I felt a surge of delight! How long has it been?  A year! Twelve long months of nothing new? I speak to her regularly by telephone. I had her here in May and June. But I love it when she writes, and reading her blog was another connecting thread that I have sorely missed.

What brought her back? Loneliness? The rattling emptiness of her nest? We long to have time to sit and think, time for ourselves, time to finally do all the things we never had time to do while they were growing up. Time to read all the books, time to write, time to sew. So we sit and think....



........about them, about how far away they are, about how much we'd like a "just because" call.  Sometimes I ruefully think I'm getting my comeuppance. How did my mother feel when I blithely took off across the ocean without so much as a backward glance, and only a sporadic letter here and there? No computers, no cell phones, just miles and miles of distance....and silence. I'm so sorry mum.  Now that it's too late.

The older I get the more I appreciate my mother. She was a very private person and things were much more formal back then. She never bared her soul to me. She was the mother and I was the child. No blurring of the lines...... How appalled she would be at this blogging lark, where you hang your heart on your sleeve, for total strangers to see. I used to be more like her, but life has a chastening effect. It  humbles you and makes you care much less about keeping up appearances, especially if those appearances are false.

But, ay. Total strangers. There's the rub. With actual friends spread far and wide you get to thinking of your blogging friends as real friends. Connecting with them lessens the lonliness. And life is a lonely business.

There, I said it.

 Humans need connection, at least the female of the species, And the male too, though they're more about the tough exrterior, and maybe some of them don't need, or even want, connection on an emotional level ----- God forbid I should be emotional. How weak and needy and annoying. Just give me the facts ma'am; stick with the facts and we'll be on terra firma......Oy.

The lure of the blog....Reach out into the darkness with a humble bouquet of random thoughts, some of them ragged and ill-formed, but no matter. There's always a chance you'll hit a chord and some empathy will come winging back to you whilst you sleep, and there in the morning you find it. Validation. Your crazy thoughts are maybe not so crazy after all. Others have felt just so. Thank you God for bloggy friends!


I would hazzard a guess we're not the first to feel this way, to long for the empty nest and then not care much for the cavernous echoes.

Freedom takes a little getting used to when your life has been over-scheduled for thirty years, but we're up to the job. With a nest not quite empty yet, I'm ready. Put me in coach. If we can only weather this latest glitch, I will be embracing freedom, though, sigh, I'm not holding my breath.

We're in this together Blister. Not just you and me, but anyone who has ever arrived in the delivery room and realised, in consternation

"There's no room here to turn around, I have to see this through! "

And see it through we did. Thus far. They just forgot to tell us, amid all those contractions, that it wouldn't end when they turned eighteen; it wouldn't end when they graduated from college.....

What they forgot to tell us was that it would never end. Being a mother changes you forever. Crazy, crowded nest, nest with only a few stray feathers, or Empty Nest. No matter. They've got us in thrall. Until we die.

Courage Blister! You'll have more time to write!        

13 comments:

Relatively Retiring said...

Oh YES, how this resonates!
I am so immensely proud of my very different sons, their independence, their ambition, their maturity. BUT........ they seem such a long way away!
And I so appreciate my blogger friends, and yes, they feel like real friends.
Good luck, Blister.

dianne said...

i think that blogging friends may feel like real friends because ... well ... we ARE real friends - on a different dimension, perhaps - but real, just the same

how far away our children are ... well - that's a different thing altogether ... my home is as close as the next bedroom, and as far as a bit more than seven miles - but most of them couldn't be farther away, even if they lived in a different hemisphere...

and sometimes i find that i've completely forgotten to be worried ...... i think i might be a bad mother

Ali Honey said...

I most certainly consider you a friend.One who makles me smile and think and reflect.I certainly like what I do know of you.
I think we sometimes know more of what our bloggy friends are doing than our in the flesh friends and neighbours and family.

Pauline said...

I love being a mother. I don't like that my kids are so far away but at the same time I am proud that they are able to make their own ways. I love my nest, even though it's empty. I fly off to their nests as often as they let me.

So glad I have blogging friends to share all these thoughts with!

Thimbleanna said...

Well, I like to think that invisible though we may be, if we were actually lucky to live next to each other, we would still be friends.

As for the empty nest, it's no. fun. at. all. Especially when you consider that their world doesn't revolve around us, like ours revolves around them. It's very sad. ;-(

Birdydownunder said...

oh Molly have you been inside my head. Just substitute Australia instead of America and those are my thoughts.
I often wonder if my kids get the itchy feet from me and I know just how my MOther felt and why she cried all night when told I was going downunder.

Pam said...

I brought up my children with the strict rule that they weren't to live (permanently)overseas! None of this "let them fly" stuff for me. (Though I do feel a bit guilty.) And I hate hate hate the empty nest, as I've said many tedious times before.

Bloggy friends - they're wonderful, aren't they? Lovely post. Lovely lovely post.

dikvipreal said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
StitchinByTheLake said...

You have hit the nail on the head! Our children never leave our heads or our hearts, nor do our sisters. Our blog friends fill some of the hole left when all that we have come to know when we're raising our families ends. We begin a new life with only snippets of the old left to remind us. But those snippets oh how they tug at our heart strings. blessings, marlene

PBS said...

Oh it's so great to make connections, for sure! And good to have a place to write and pour out our thoughts. Your post really resonated with me, too.

secret agent woman said...

I'm on the cusp of this, with my first off at college. I'm thrilled for him, a little sad for me.

secret agent woman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
secret agent woman said...

Oops, pu that in the wrong place!