Tales from a Mid-Lifer

When I moved into our house in late November, I pulled one Ziploc snack bag from a new box of 50. Four months later, 49 remain.

For over two decades, we needed three, 100-count back-up boxes of snack bags because I was packing lunches. My college kids shopped the pantry while on term breaks. When visiting them, I always stuffed goodies into the plastic zippers.

A single 50-pack will officially last a year and I’m using the must-have-in-2010 Hannah Montana beach towel as a bath mat in my new house until I buy proper bath rugs. Along with bubble wrap, the once-beloved Hannah towel was packing material for a serving plate that traveled from NY to TX.

When the kids are in the terrible twos you tell yourself, “We can do this…we got this…in three months it will be easier.”

Many things are.

Some things just morph into a different version of challenging.

I can’t get over it.

It being time…

   parenting seasons…

       life seasons…

           the shifts of importance…

Not missing Good Luck Charlie and going to the library were important. Now? The kids are building homes and careers, navigating the unpredictable, sometimes disappointing world of adulting.

And the parenting doesn’t end.

This empty-nesting thing isn’t empty.

Of emotion.

We pray. Cry. Sometimes hurt. For them. For ourselves.

Though now with more physical space between us, I still walk alongside them like support staff… an executive assistant who is thinking and researching and offering warnings: “trouble up there! Avoid that path; take this other one if you can!”. I pray for the wisdom to know when and when not to speak.

And this empty-nesting-but-still-full-of-emotion season brings new stuff into our own middle-age++ lives that we’re trying to navigate, accept, manage.

No matter how much I exercise, my back aches and my neck is aging faster than the rest of me.  

Parents and in-laws are deteriorating at a sudden, rapid-fire rate.

Friends die of diseases that rob them of independence and years.

You help.

And you watch.

Kneel helpless.

Have the privilege of being present while they breathe their last before meeting their Savior.

Another new, unwelcome season begins. Doesn’t matter if “it” was inevitable. You can’t prep for the aftermath like you do an exam.

But eventually grief gets folded into the fabric of our lives and we adjust again.

Start again.

Live again.

Hopefully, with renewed spirit, determination and intention.

Thank you for sharing your time with me today🤍.