Filling Time: TwinLife Empty-Nesting

Last week, I traveled to my daughter’s college to watch her dance, which is always amazing. While I was in town, I met up with my high school choir director and a friend to practice a song we’ll be singing in an upcoming alumni pops concert.

While I was visiting with my former teacher, she told me she always loves reading my blog. She said she appreciates that I write about what’s real and that I don’t try to gloss over everything; I’m honest about how hard it can be.

And, dang, it’s hard.

It’s hard to work full time outside the home in a job with a lot of inherent stress. It’s hard to navigate being a mom. It’s hard being with the same person for over 30 years. It’s all hard. And sometimes all that hard just makes you tired.

I’ve been tired a lot lately.

If I write about the “real” of last week, I get to share the joy in seeing my daughter dance, in singing show tunes, in meeting up with an old friend to watch a college baseball game in the sun. But I also need to share that by the time I got home Saturday evening, all I wanted to do was lie in bed, and that feeling didn’t change when I woke up Sunday morning. I was lethargic and unmotivated and sad, mostly because of work stuff, but also just everything.

Finally, as I lay on the couch Sunday morning with the sun streaming through the windows, I said to myself: You need to get up and do something.

So I did.

I thought that my husband and I should work on our FillingTime relationship by actually finding things to do together, so I decided we should go biking. I’m not sure the two of us had been on bikes together since our children initially learned to ride. In fact, neither of our bikes was actually rideable (needing some major TLC), so after I convinced my husband this was a good idea, we hauled out the kids’ bikes, cleaned them off, pumped up the tires, and set off on a Sunday adventure.

We entered a local rail-trail around noon, along with a gaggle of hikers and bikers who also felt the need to get outside on one of the first beautiful Sundays of spring. We quickly realized that our normal workout routines did not prepare us for biking. It was work! By the time we biked to the next town and back (about 10 miles total), my legs were screaming, my abs were twitching, and my butt hurt.

But I was out of bed and off the couch. I had worked through the hard, and I didn’t want to go home. So I suggested that we hit the local cider mill on the way back to the house. We hadn’t been there in a long time, and it was the perfect, sunny day to join everyone in a 20 mile radius who was thinking that cider would be the perfect afternoon drink.

After ordering our drinks, we found a single picnic table in the sun where there was room to sit. My husband asked the couple who had occupied it if we could join them, and we sat down on the opposite end and started chatting. We talked about work and the kids and where/when we want to retire.

Then I noticed someone sitting on a picnic blanket wearing a shirt from my son’s college, so I wandered over to ask if he was an alum. While I was talking to him, my husband made friends with the couple sitting at the other end of our table. We talked with them about their relationship, and she asked me for advice. I shared my thoughts with her, and she smiled – a brilliant smile. I joked that I wanted to be invited to the wedding.

Shortly thereafter, a very precocious six year old became my husband’s new best friend, and her mom and I chatted about being moms – and how hard it is. She asked me for some advice, and I shared my thoughts with her. She thanked me with tears in her eyes as the family packed up their blanket to head home for the day.

We stayed at the cider mill for hours, engaging with strangers in authentic conversation. I didn’t seek out these conversations to change lives; I just started talking to people, and what started out as a day of lethargy became a really lovely day of local color, one where I was able to connect with others.

Dang, it’s hard.

And sometimes the way through isn’t big or dramatic. It’s just getting out of bed, touching grass, and opening up, just a little, to whatever might come of it. It’s about letting your inner light out to shine a bit for others so that they can shine back to fuel you.