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!