irumeur… Vacation

Family Vacation – Cedar Point

My girls will soon be out of the house.  Now, when I say soon -one is a senior and the other a junior (high school).  Their about to turn seventeen.  Ready to move on, at least in their eyes.

They wonder how I will handle the empty nest syndrome.  For a short span, I experienced being a motherless mother when my adult children graduated.  I won’t deny the emptiness of those years.  Especially, since I started over less than two years later.  Yet, my husband and I had fun (We were younger then).  I look forward to days without school demands, Teen PMS, the sleepless nights waiting for them to arrive home -safe and the mess -not only the girls but their boyfriends, friends and friends of friends.  Ugh!

Still, when I analyze the time we have left, the days to create more memories, and arms filled with daily hugs, plus the moments left to sit side-by-side sharing our lives I come face-to-face with reality.  They will leave!

This year, we are going to Cedar Point -the roller coaster capitol of the world (or so I am told) not because Bob and I are interested in riding roller coasters (we’re not) but it’s what the girls want to do.

It won’t be the four of us, and we aren’t taking the grandchildren.  We’ve invited the boyfriends.  Are we crazy?  No.  We want our girls to join us on vacation.  We could go somewhere ‘we’ enjoy, without them, but time has become precious and if we leave those boys behind the girls won’t go or, we could force the issue and listen to a non-stop barrage of boredom.  The mathematics simplified: x-2=2 (x being 6), and the two, isn’t the girls going without us.

Four days, six people, three dogs, two cars and two hotel rooms with four tickets to cedar point -$$$.  What will Bob and I do once the children are riding speed demons -not much -they spent the money.

I wish the time we have left, would slow to a crawl.  I want them to live a full life, experiencing things I only dreamed -college, a career of their passion, plus those I’ve experienced -traveling, marriage, babies (more grandchildren -how will I hold up?), buying your 1st home, becoming a grandma, and growing old.  But -not yet.

I need more seconds to scold them, more minutes to hold them, more weeks to watch them grow, more months to share time and more years to live side-by-side.  Happiness and dread cloak me as the time grows shorter.  I wonder if they will become so involved in their own lives the days we share will become fewer.  The final days of life are upon us and I must move on even in the emptiness of my arms.

Then again, those arms still fit (although, barely) around the man I love.  Woo-hoo, maybe we can at last share our marriage without the demands of a child insisting we meet their life expectations.  I think…’we’ can do this!