Over the course of ten days, I spent over 25 hours sitting – in a car or on a train – and five nights out of my own bed. With a visit to each of my kids sandwiching a 24-hour work trip that ended with concert tickets, it was an intense stretch. Over the two weekends, we visited our children, met our kids’ new fraternity brothers and sorority sisters, and partied like it was 1996.
And in some ways, it almost felt like it was.
The college visits were a bit different than they had been in the past. We were specifically invited into the party-scene, where we met both my kids’ new friends and their parents. At my daughter’s school, I reconnected with several friends who also currently have children attending. In between the weekends, my husband and I saw one of our favorite bands, one we have followed since we were just a bit older than our kids. Dancing at my son’s fraternity party, singing along live with a favorite band, and hopping from party to party at my daughter’s family weekend invited me to reminisce with my husband about our own adventures years ago, and somehow that mindset helped me see my kids as maturing adults in a way that I hadn’t before. It reminded me of the first time I sat at a bar with my younger brother in our shared college town and saw him, suddenly, as an adult, a true friend and not the little brother he had always been. Sharing a real college experience with my kids put us on the same playing field. They’ve leveled up this year.
It was easy to slip into a college frame of mind. My body did not slip into it quite so easily.
When I ended my ten day whirlwind, I was wiped. The travel, the socializing, and the energy it takes to present at a conference had caught up with me. I wanted to think deeply about my work and get things done, but for a while I had very little to give. My body hurt. My brain had limited function. I needed rest.
Ironically, after such a hectic stretch, my new commitments to filling time via a choir and yoga class kicked in the next day. I was worried that these scheduled activities were going to seem like chores given how tired I was. On the contrary, they gave me some of the rejuvenation I needed. When I sang, my voice felt strong. My mind and muscles relaxed as I took in the sounds of the lush SATB choir around me. At yoga, I was welcomed into an established community with warmth, and my body got the stretch it desperately needed.
Starting the week by keeping those commitments helped me to give myself a little grace – I skipped the gym twice, took a few extra naps, and generally just slogged through the week. By the weekend, I was ready to face the upstairs hallway, where piles had been sitting for over a month since my kids moved back to school. Clearing the space helped clear a little room in my mind, too, and I began to feel some of my brain and physical energy returning.
Though I’m feeling refreshed, I’m acutely aware of how long it took me to recover. I loved my ten days of craziness. I loved seeing my children and sharing a little of their world. I loved the reminders of who my husband and I were in college. And I’m learning to give grace to the fifty-year-old body that carried me through it.
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