Emptying the nest...

So, I come out of my room on Sunday morning feeling a spring in my step and a sweet tickle in my heart. Had a lovely meditation and am ready to launch into my Sunday; the house is quiet and there are little projects I hope to get to before heading down to the beach.

“Joni Mitchell would be nice,” I think to myself. For some reason Blue keeps playing in my head and I decide to put it on while I make breakfast. Musing a bit about my boy and his upcoming high school graduation, I head toward the stereo.

“Blue…Songs are like tattoos…” and unexpectedly, my heart breaks apart and I’m on my knees. And there you have it—a wave, in many ways the first real one, has hit. A bit like labor...but this time I'm birthing my son as he emerges further into his own life, rather than arriving into mine.

I’ve been told it can be like this. Wild fluctuations in mood—both for the teen and the mom—as we edge ever closer to departure for college, and with that, the beginning of a new chapter in his—in our—lives. But I’ve been pretty good so far, excited for him and living blissfully in some state of denial.

And there you have it. Denial, apparently, wears off. I’m like the bird in those cartoons, flying along and then smacking into the window, caught unawares.

The sobbing is primal, gut-wrenching. I’m astonished by its force, and the sudden appearance of this grief. I allow it, give it space: Take all the room you need, as if it wouldn’t. It’s impolite and demanding, and takes over the room, my heart and this day.

I find myself unable to breathe; the air is coming in and out, but I can’t feel it. I’m picturing him not here, not at his dad’s, not at his friend’s, but 3,000 miles away, which is where he’s theoretically going to be in two months. I realize he cannot go. He simply can’t go. I’ll talk to him. He’ll agree. He’ll understand it was all a big mistake and decide to go to the nice community college down the road. Or maybe some other little college within a few hours drive.

Of course I realize I’m insane, but I let myself play that scenario out, coming to the inevitable understanding that I’m insane and he is going to the very best place for him—for who he is and what he needs right now to become more of who he is, out from under my watch.

As it happens with grief, it subsides after a time and allows me to eat something. I wander around for a bit, considering who I might call—what friend who’s going through this right now, or what seasoned mother/ friend/ sister who has already been where I am and lived through it. Instead I just stay present with the waves as they come and go, not wanting to engage my left brain enough to actually try to talk about it.

Eventually, there’s a peace—that depressed sort of peace where you’d like to lay on the couch and stare out the window. But I rally, and set about cleaning out a box of papers, periodically coming across something like a Mother’s Day card or Ari’s selective service notice and the waves come again. Knocked over until it subsides, and then another fragile hold on acceptance.

The sadness follows me around most of the day, but it’s kind enough to let me function reasonably well, and even go down to the beach for a time. I watch the six foot five version of my heart play volleyball; he’s arrived not long after me after being in town with his dad. I leave him be, grateful simply to watch him from a distance after exchanging the proverbial head nod, feeling a little like a stalker.

Six pm or so I’m reading, puttering around the house. Ari comes in the front door and his appearance is so ordinary and blessed; my heart does a quiet little twirl. And then he tells me “a bunch of people are coming—is that okay? We’re gonna watch the Laker game” and my heart does somersaults and I lie through my teeth and say “I was about to go to the store—can I get you anything?”

I hop to the market picking up burger fixings and hot dogs and skip home and my heart is fully bandaged and intact and life is good and as it should be. They watch and eat and at half time go outside, the nine or ten of them, and play catch with a big rubber ball (really.) The game ends, the Lakers win the finals, and the seventeen and eighteen year old guys and gals go out in the driveway and play basketball, like they did after watching basketball when they were ten.

And grief has left the premises for a while.

I guess that’s what it’s like…These days I'm happy for him, thrilled at the adventure that awaits him. I guess you could say I'm in between contractions...