Life as an empty nester !

It has been a long while since I wrote down anything.... so much going on in my head but unable to transcribe it into words, into formal sentences. It is like my brain is frozen; my mind is numb. Yesterday, while scrolling endlessly on Facebook, I came across a post, something about being at a point of life not knowing where that point is and that is exactly where I find myself, at a point, do not know what, where or how I got there.

This is our year one of being an empty nester. It was going well for my children, they had settled down and were enjoying their first year of being away from home, however it ended up being challenging for all of us as life decided to throw some unexpected turns at us.

When everything seemed to be going well, we lost one of our nephews, 26 year old, to a tragic motor bike accident in October and 2 weeks later my children had to endure another loss, a loss of their peers, of 3 of their college mates to an horrific act of gun violence , a mass shootout at their university. The emotions of grief, shock, sorrow we collectively faced as a family were simply unbearable.

On top of it all, my body decided to throw all those things at me which I had heard that all the women of my age go through, but never did I imagine them to be like this. I was barely making it from day to day. It has been one of the roughest years of my life.

But somehow, we got through it by supporting each other, by being there, by checking on each other. The school year is almost over. My life revolved around my three children when they were home. I missed them a lot. We went to see them as many times as their time would let us.

Now it is almost time for them to be back home for the summer. I am not nervous or apprehensive. I am in fact looking forward to it. The house is going to be full again and so will be the refrigerator and the sink. But that is ok. The house has been quiet for a while now, I am ready for it to be filled with the sound of music, laughter, conversations. I was finally able to write all this down today, my ramblings of sort. What about you? What stages of life are you at?? It is ok even if you do not know. Face them as they come. Life can be challenging but having loved ones makes it all better.

I took these pictures. There was a bird's nest in our yard not too long with three eggs, the eggs hatched, the babies grew and flew. The nest is empty now.

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