Musings from my Empty Nest

In Bangkok. With Chang. Not dead.

That’s the Facebook status my daughter posted this afternoon. Who’s Chang? I asked, fearing she had been inadvertently been recruited as a mule on the flight over. Beer came the response. So that’s all right then.

It’s not as if she isn’t street-wise. She’s been travelling alone since she was 16 – Amsterdam in the winter. That first trip was a baptism of fire since her flight was delayed overnight, she got on the wrong train in Holland and – survived. At 19 she backpacked across the USA alone. She knows what she’s doing and I don’t generally worry that much, once she’s gone. It’s the going I find hard.

Jo Blackwell Writer, Blogger and Photographer

Me and my wanderer

The sofa seems awfully empty after two month’s occupation. It’s not that she’s noisy, (though the TV is!) It’s just that she has this huge energy that fills the house with…something energetic.

It’s weirdly quiet today and- hang on… Son no 2 just rocked up with his friend…  they’ve gone into my garage – sorry – music room and fired up the keyboard. The kick drum has started up and…wait for it… there’s the guitar.

Different kind of energy, but it’s life, Jim, just as we know it.

You do know, don’t you, that I write these posts as much for myself as for you, dear reader? That I don’t actually have any answers, I just pose endless questions. Questions to which there probably are no answers, but that bother me nonetheless. Like: did the midwife really cut the umbilical cord when these people were born? Or is there actually an invisible, mental cord, or a heart string maybe – a chord – that keeps them close in my heart and mind even when, physically they aren’t here?

I know women who are able to simply move on themselves when the kids move out – or move out themselves! Others who move home, meaning that all that’s left for their offspring is a sofa to kip on when they visit. I’m not saying that’s wrong, I just know from my own experience how much that can hurt.

It’s a standing joke between me and son no2 that he can only imagine me in relation to himself. So when I hear his key in the lock, I wake, like clockwork and become “Mum” again.

Silly boy. Silly me. I spent last Saturday helping daughter no1 and her husband move house. I’ll visit son no1 and the grandies this Saturday. And in between I’ll sort out my marketing plan for my business and maybe do some Christmas shopping. Maybe even see husband of my heart for a while. I need a life. I have a life. I’ll make a new one.

Just not today. Today I miss someone. And I feel a little bit lost. Think I’ll go and get me some Chang.

From my archives

This post is linked to #ordinarymoments on Mummy Daddy and Me Makes Three