Practicing The Empty Nest

My youngest is going to be away tonight on a Girl Scout overnight at a nature center. So, of course, I asked her last night if she were packed and ready. I made sure she knew to take a sleeping bag and pillow. She assured me that she had things under control. That’s the way I like it. She’s pretty good about such things, so I left her to her own devices.

This morning, just as we needed to leave, she informed me that she didn’t have anything to pack her things in as her sister had taken the duffle bag she usually uses. I gently upbraided her for putting off finding a suitcase until the last minute. Then, I dutifully went up to the attic and found her something to use. Several more times over the next ten minutes, I reminded her not to forget her sleeping bag. Soon we were in the car on the way to school, late, as usual. Halfway there, my daughter informed me that she had forgotten her sleeping bag. Then she looked at me and declared that it was ok…she didn’t mind being cold.

At work, I looked at my schedule and determined that I could get away at lunch and grab the sleeping bag and get it to her so that she wouldn’t freeze overnight. After picking up the sleeping bag, when I was halfway to her school, it dawned on me that she didn’t have a coat, gloves, hat, or boots. It is only in the last month that she asked me to buy her some jeans…up until then, she was a shorts and t-shirt-only girl…year ’round.

At school, I walked back to the middle school to drop off the sleeping bag and ran into her teacher. We had a brief discussion about how my daughter didn’t have a coat…and likely at a nature center, even at night, the plan would be to spend some time outside. We also agreed that she claims to never be cold. Since it turned out that my daughter was in gym class, I walked to the opposite end of the school to find out if she wanted me to come back at 5 with her coat.

She was grateful for the sleeping bag and assured me she’d be fine with no coat, so I went back to work and tried not to worry about her. I dug into my work, thinking how great it was that I didn’t have to worry about when to leave since I didn’t have to pick my daughter up from school after work. Just like when I would be an empty-nester! So, I stopped clock-watching, and next thing I knew, it was 6 p.m. on a Friday night and the office was empty.

So, I wonder if this whole empty nest thing has any silver lining after all. I had no plans for the evening…but that could be good; an evening to myself might be just what the doctor ordered. I thought about what I’d most like to have for dinner and settled on sushi. I called my favorite place and soon enough picked up my Dragon Valley Roll and two orders (hey, no judging!) of shumai. Back home I turned on the TV and fired up Xfinity On Demand…I caught up on my favorite TV shows, then called it a night.

Find the Joy in the Journey…and figure out from the small steps just exactly what you really want for the rest of your life!

 

A Tale of Two Alumni Events

This week I attended two alumni events for my college…and this just after attending my 25 year graduate school reunion last weekend. I got a BS in Chemical Engineering then stayed on at the same school to earn my MBA. So, that means I am doubly enthusiastic about my alma mater!

Event number one was put on by the Young Alumni Association and held in a nearby college town. Typically their events draw heavily on the graduate school population…in other words, folks much younger than me. This time, they made a point to reach out to all ages of alumni, using the words (in the original caps) ALL AGES EVENT! So, I decided to go, although before signing up I reached out to a friend close to my own age who lives in the college town. It turns out that two of the college’s professors are parents of her girls’ classmates, so three of them were going.

As it turned out, I didn’t mix and mingle at all. I sat with my friend and her friends and had a great time talking about how much the school had changed over the years and reminiscing about “the old days”. I had the most recent experiences, given my visit there earlier in the week and having attended my nephew (and future niece-in-law)’s graduation just the year before.

We left the event and walked back to our cars. I hugged my friend goodbye at the parking garage where I was parked and we promised to try harder to get together more frequently than every 5-8 years. Seriously! But even so, it is wonderful to have friends who, even when you don’t see them often, fall right into a conversation as if you spoke every day.

Next up was a wine tasting event with the regular alumni club. I’ve been to many events over the years and expected an older crowd…most of the folks I know through the club are 10-15 years my senior. The hosts were a couple I met through the club over 25 years ago, but I was surprised that all the other participants were new to me. I embraced the mixing and mingling challenge!

I met a couple who are 15 years my junior, who met their first week in engineering school. It turns out they live in the same town as me. Further, it turns out that their 18 month old daughter is in the daycare of my 13 year old’s school! The husband works at my company and we have colleagues in common. The wife is a chemical engineering grad who works for the state in environmental engineering. Much other common ground was uncovered as well. Who knew!

Also at our table was a woman a few years older than me who originally came from Brooklyn. The group of us sat with the alumni coordinator and we brainstormed ideas for events that we thought would really draw people in. We had such a lovely time! Meanwhile, we were at a wine tasting. Here is my plate, roasted veggies, charcuterie, and cheese. Mmmm.

We were offered tastes of wines by the sommelier, world-famous Madeline Triffon. She gave us a great wine tip…buy the cheapest wines from the best producers. She told us that a great winery will offer lower-priced wines designed by the same wine masters as their high-cost brands. They aren’t about to use inferior methods with any of their wines and they have the clout with growers to make sure their grapes meet their highest expectations.

So, I learned that I’d been right to follow my instincts and accept every social invitation that comes my way. What a wonderful way to meet new people!

Find the Joy in the Journey…and embrace friendships old and new…I learned in Girl Scouts to “make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold!”

Oops, I Raised Good Kids Afterall!

The other night I was inspired by youthful enthusiasm for such important values as Scholarship, Leadership, Character, and Service. Not only were the young adults enthusiastic about these values, they exemplify them to the extent that they were chosen for election into the National Honor Society (NHS). It reminded me a little of my younger daughter’s end-of-year Girl Scouts ceremony last year which I wrote about in my post, Memories. I am grateful that these organizations exist and that adults in the lives of these students are enthusiastically supporting their efforts by demonstrating the same values.

My husband and I sat there watching as our older daughter received her special cord, knotted in a particular way, down her back. I know I don’t have a cord like that, although I’m pretty sure I have a pin in my jewelry box received during my induction. My husband, well, whatever he got is lost to posterity. As we listened to the pledge, I felt that connection again, to something in my upbringing now coming to fruition in my child. As a parent, we all struggle to raise our children to be good citizens and empathetic to those around them, to work hard, and serve their communities. But sometimes in the throes of things, we delve to instinct…In seeing my daughter up on stage I realized that no matter how many mistakes I’ve made, I must have instinctively kept the right balance and given her a good-enough role model to follow.

I involve my children in activities when they are young that support my values, but by high school those values either “take” or they don’t. The invitation to apply to NHS depends on grade point average, but acceptance depends on all the things the young person has done on their own in high school that exemplify the values of NHS. There’s no free pass. There are many kids who get good grades, or display leadership, or serve others tirelessly, or exemplify character in other ways, but in order to get in to NHS, you have to demonstrate them all. Mom and Dad can’t do it for you.

This makes me very grateful to my parents for bringing me up well. They held the reins on me a bit too closely at times and maybe a tiny bit too loosely at others, but they did their best as do I. I’ve tried to consciously give my children freedom to learn and grow, and to make mistakes in a safe environment. Soon enough they will be on their own.

I once wrote about practicing my empty nest in Pre-Empty Nest Syndrome, but that was a lie. That was a sabbatical! In real life, I know the empty nest will be a painful growth process for me. I have already started letting go of my son and know that being a parent is a lifetime job…you never stop feeling responsible, but you have to let go anyway. The freedom I felt last summer was a “safe” freedom since I knew that the kids were not really on their own, but I was.

For my daughter, there is still a little over a year left of high school. She recited this pledge with the others and I know she will continue to make us proud and represent her school well:

I pledge myself

Always to seek the light of truth,

To hold scholarly habits,

To engage in worthy services,

And to lead forward in all things

That shall advance the welfare of the school.

I pledge myself to uphold the high purpose

Of the National Honor Society

To which I have been elected,

Striving in every way,

By word and by deed,

To make its ideals

The ideals of my school,

And my life.

Those ideals are: Scholarship, character, Leadership, and Service. Not a bad place to start!

Find the Joy in the Journey…sometimes it catches up with you when you aren’t paying attention!

Memories

I find it ironic that I love memoir, autobiography, and biography so much given that I have such a poor memory of my own past. I have a friend who has an amazingly acute memory of her childhood. I’m the opposite; I can remember some things vaguely and other things not at all. Every once in awhile a song or a fragrance will bring back vivid thoughts and memories, but if I try consciously to remember things, I don’t have much luck.

The other day I attended my younger daughter’s year-end Junior Girl Scout ceremony. After reciting The Girl Scout Promise, they recited The Girl Scout Law. This brought back memories of my own early Girl Scout years. The Law is as meaningful and universal today as it was back in 1912 when Juliette Gordon Low created the Girl Scouts of America. I doubt that this law alone shaped my ethics, but it was consistent with my upbringing at home, school, and church. Without realizing it, it is something that I strive to do each and every day, so I was stunned that I could almost recite it along with the Girl Scouts and that it made me feel connected to these young scouts and Girl Scouts everywhere.

The Girl Scout Law

I will do my best to be
honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong, and
responsible for what I say and do,

and to

    respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place, and
be a sister to every Girl Scout.

Living by this law, on the whole, is beneficial. There was one time, though, in the dark-days of my early forties, where living by the Girl Scout Law created a big problem for me. I trusted a neighbor who, meanwhile, lied about me to the other neighbors, used his pull in city government, and waged a secret campaign against me that caused my bank and builder to freeze in the middle of a major rehab on my home. Needless to say, this was disastrous! It was only by luck that we survived without losing our home, our marriage, or our sanity. And in the end, I am at peace with my own behavior which parallels The Girl Scout Law. It’s the only peace I can find about the situation, but it really did affect me in ways I’m still uncovering. I do think that “That which does not kill us makes us stronger” (That’s Friedrich Nietzesche…what is it with me and German references lately??), but it’s an awfully hard way to live. It made me bitter, angry, and fat (those things go together, you know). I know that forgiveness is a path through that pain…but frankly I prefer to find a different path…Perhaps, “time heals all wounds” is what I’m after. I have to hang my head every time forgiveness is the topic in church…because I’m not there…and much as I think and pray about it, I don’t know that I’ll ever be there.

But, for the most part the Girl Scout Law is a very rewarding way to live. I don’t claim to live up to it perfectly, but it is there as a standard in my mind to help me along the way. So, now that I’ve rediscovered it and laid it out in front of me…what does it mean to my 50 by 50? I think this is where “mission statement” and “vision” come along. So, I’m putting these each down in my 50 by 50…a personal mission statement and a personal vision for my life. Those aren’t quick and easy things to do, but they will lay cornerstones and guidelines for me that will help me live a life that is consistent with my values. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll help me solve the forgiveness riddle.

I’m sitting here listening to Tapestry, by Carole King. This is one for my song list…it reminds me of my older sister when she was a teen…she used to play it and I was enthralled. I am finding that the riddle of figuring out what songs to pick, then listening to them, is opening my childhood back up to me. And this song, in particular, resonates with my “patchwork quilt” of a life. It’s a rather mournful song by the end, but the beginning is what I particularly remember:

My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue
An everlasting vision of the ever changing view
A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold

So, I will listen to more music and have more memories and strive to connect on a deeper level with those around me.

Find the joy in the journey!