When Sunshine was a baby we were as poor as church mice.  It was the early nineties, her dad was in law school and I literally couldn’t find a job as an accountant during tax season.  The recession of the early nineties was in full swing and we were feeling it.  I mean, we used to eat TUMS for dessert because they were flavored.  No joke.

There were two things we splurged on: cable tv and long distance.  Long distance, because we both wanted to stay connected to our family, and cable TV because it was the cheapest entertainment we could afford.  We didn’t even have movie channels.

What we did have, however, was Public Television and we watched it.  Back then, there wasn’t a huge amount of programming for small children, but Sunshine could watch Sesame Street, learn something —for free— and be entertained.  We loooooved Elmo and Bert and Ernie.

But, I always felt guilty during the annual tele-thon because there was no way I could afford to pay for the privilege of letting my baby watch these great shows.  I mean we once had to take her out of a day care because they raised the rate by five dollars a week!  A lousy five more dollars a week wasn’t in our budget.

Roll the years forward and I have the means to contribute to Public Television, finally I can pay back all those years when all I could do was take.  And let me tell you, it’s a great feeling.  Even though I personally don’t watch a lot of television, I know that somewhere out there is mom who’s trying to provide her kid with the best life she can give them, and letting them watch Public Television —and learn for free—is the best thing she can do.  Even if she feels guilty every time that tel-a-thon comes on.

But, it’s okay!  Because there are moms like me who remember being moms like her, and we write that check with pride and a sense of paying it forward.  Because we are.  We’re moms helping other moms, because that’s what we do.

If you’re an empty nest mom who would dearly love to give back and needs a place to start, I humbly suggest Public Television.  They still have great programming, and in today’s economy they need all the help they can get.  And just think, somewhere out there you’re helping another mom educate her kid.

How sweet is that? ?

Yes, the kids are gone and your days of soccer practice, dance recitals and trick-or-treating are over.  Or, yes, you’re single and all your friends are getting married and having babies and you suddenly have nothing in common with them.  That doesn’t mean life is without meaning.

A couple of weeks back I was talking to an old friend who’s youngest child was leaving the nest.  This is a woman who’s been a stay-at-home mom to three children for almost twenty-four years.  The only thing she’s ever wanted to do was raise her kids.  In the space of a few months, her youngest went off to college, her middle got a job five hours away from her, and her oldest got married.

Talk about an empty nest!   Although she was very proud of all her children, she was lost.

I have another friend in her mid-thirties. She’s single, not dating anyone, and finds herself coming home from work, dropping onto the couch and staying there until Jay Leno says goodbye every night.

With all the love in my heart, because these are two of the most fabulous women I know, I told them they need to get out of their own way.  All they see is what they don’t have: children at home.

What they aren’t seeing is what they do have, and what you don’t have when you’re raising children: Time.

Yes, TIME.  The one commodity every mom, stay at home or working, doesn’t have enough of: Time.

Time you can choose to waste, or time you can choose to do something with.  My suggestion is going to be do something with it: Volunteer.

Yes, my lovelies, volunteer.  If you’re feeling like your life has no meaning I can promise you that one Saturday morning pulling weeds at a community garden, collecting can goods for a local charity, or helping another mom pick out coats for her kids at a local coat drive will change your attitude.  It’s in those sweet moments that you’ll feel alive and like you’re contributing again.  It’s talking to that first time mom about whether to choose the coat that fits now, or to choose the one that’s a bit big, but will last until spring.  That’s when all those years of choosing coats for your own kids pays off in the knowledge you pass on to another mom, and the hug you get for your help.

These years aren’t the end of time, they’re just the beginning of the next chapter.  But, the beautiful thing is you get to take all you’ve learned with you and pay it forward.

So, get off your duff, get out of the house, and be the change you’ve been b!tching about.  It’ll put a smile in your heart.

I think one of my favorite Sunshine Christmas Moments happened Christmas of 2000.  Earlier in the year my entire family had gone to Ireland for two weeks.  We had a wonderful time and that trip is one of my favorite family vacations.  While we were in Galway, Sunshine bought a silver pendant necklace of the Boru Harp.  On the last day, we had to get up at four in the morning to make the flight and she accidentally left the necklace on the bedside table.  She was devastated.  Her Daddy hadn’t come with us and she was really looking forward to showing him what she’d bought.

This was in June.  Fast forward to December 22nd.  That’s right, two freaking days before Christmas.  She’s getting ready for bed and she mentions to me not to worry about her harp necklace.  My first thought was: what necklace?  My second thought was: Oh crap, that necklace.  So, I asked her why.  Here’s the exchange:

ME: “Oh, really?  Why’s that, sweetie?”
SUNSHINE: “Because I figured it out.”
ME (Oh crap, we have to deal with the Santa Clause thing): “Uhhh, you figured what out?”
SUNSHINE: “I figured out how he can bring me my necklace.  We learned about time and how the earth spins, and that means he can just pick it up on his way over the Atlantic.”
ME (Somewhere between laughing and Oh Crap.): “Um, Sweetie, we didn’t ask him about your necklace when we sent him a letter.”
SUNSHINE: “I know, so I left a note in the window last week so he’d have plenty of time to work it into his schedule.”

Whereupon, I’m laughing my ass off.  I mean, really, work it into his schedule? She goes to bed, I go in the other room and tell her Daddy and we both proceed to panic.  Every parents nightmare is about to come true in two days and we have no way to stop it.  When the necklace isn’t under the tree, the dream is dead.  She’ll know there’s no Santa Clause.  Just Hell.

However, *I* am a crafty and sneaky and, well, let’s just call a spade a spade, a DESPERATE mom.  Luckily, I could go back through all my transactions on my Quicken and I found the name of the shop where we bought the necklace.  We were only in Galway a few days, and we only bought stuff at one jewelry store.  I got up at four in the morning and called the lady at the jewelry store (I wish I could remember the name.  I think it was Thomas something.) and told her the problem.  Once she stopped laughing –and let me just say that took a minute or two.  I can still hear her cackling “He’ll pick it up on the way over!!”–she agreed to send the necklace via Fedex so we’d get it the next day, which was Christmas Eve.  She was my Christmas Blessing that year because she sent the necklace out within the hour, before my credit card had any time to clear!

I’ve never wanted to hug the Fedex guy so much in my life.  We got the necklace on time and I didn’t even wrap it, I just hung it on the tree.  Christmas morning she found the necklace and was ecstatic.  She put it on immediately and just beamed whenever anyone asked her about it.  Which everyone did because they all knew the story.  Later that night, again while putting her to bed, she says how she knew she was right:

ME: “About what, sweetie.”
SUNSHINE: “About Santa Clause.  Everyone at school says it’s your parents who bring the gifts, but I knew it wasn’t. Which my necklace proves.  Wait til I tell them at school.
ME (A little worried I’ve been snookered.): “So, you didn’t want the necklace back?”
SUNSHINE(Wide eyed and innocent): “No, I wanted it back, I really missed it.  So, when we learned about the whole time and earth thing I told my friend that that was perfect because I could ask Santa to pick it up on his way across the Atlantic and she said he couldn’t because he wasn’t real and now look: I was right!”
ME (Laughing): “You certainly were.”
SUNSHINE(Rolling over and snuggling Sweetie): “I knew I was right.”

Turns out Sunshine was just like everyone else in the family: Being nice is fine, but being RIGHT is way better!

All the things I wrote about in Part I are still true, but I’ve noticed some other things as well.  Behaviors and habits that I haven’t had since my single days are starting to creep back into my psyche and my everyday life.

Like, for example, suddenly my Honda Pilot, which I’ve always loved, looks a bit…dowdy.  Wouldn’t something a bit spiffier be better?  I mean, my days of hauling teenagers and their assorted crap are over, right?  I’m starting to think a cute coupe in blue might look a whole lot better on me.  Dontcha think?

I’ve also noticed that I’m hanging out in places in my house I’ve never really sat before.  A few months ago I decided my living room was a bit crowded, so I moved a chair and ottoman and lamp into a corner of my dining room.  There are several women in my family who either have small children, or soon will, and it seemed like a great place to put a chair they could relax in and feed the baby.  Genius, right?
Except that, I’ve also found it’s a great place to hang out on a Sunday morning and sip my tea and enjoy whatever book I’m reading.  The chair is comfy and right next to a big wide window with a great view of the neighborhood.  So, now, this place I created because I couldn’t bear to give up a chair I thought I might someday want/need, has turned into this little piece of heaven right in my own house.  Whodathunkit?

It’s like that whole nesting thing you do at about seven months, except instead of moving her stuff in…I’m moving my stuff back.  Hmmmm.

A few months ago I would have made sure the pantry was stocked with peanut butter, cookies, chips and nutritious snacks, now I’ve realized that I don’t need to buy that crap anymore because it’s sitting in the cabinet going stale.  Of course, I bought two packages of Chips Ahoy and threw them away, thus causing major angst about wasting food, before I realized that I don’t need to buy that anymore, but cest le vie.
Food is a topic that’s making a lot of changes too. My grocery cart is only about an eighth as full as it used to be.  Which is a good thing because my dining out budget has definitely increased.  It’s still a bit of a challenge for me to go home and actually cook when I’m only cooking for me.  When that happens “cooking” generally starts to mean cold cereal and soup.  Which is how the girl at Applebee’s knows my phone number on the caller id now.  (I know, sad, right?)

But, I think the most interesting change I found myself contemplating is the Movie Channel issue.  As you all know, once you have children over the age of about two, you tend to lose the premium movie channels.  Okay, one reason is that children are freaking expensive and when expenses are being reviewed in that monthly budget meeting you have with your spouse (a.k.a, the monthly fight about who’s spending too much.), one of the first things to go is the movie channels.  One, they’re expensive, and two, what’s on them is no longer appropriate for young eyes (Daddy, is that reaallll blood?!), and three, those young eyes also have mouths that rat you out to Grandma, or worse, the priest on Sunday.

But, now I don’t have young impressionable eyes in my house anymore.   I don’t have to worry about what might slip out of someone’s mouth at Grandma’s house, what movie’s the teenager’s sneak and watch after I go to bed, thus getting me in trouble with the other parents.  Which means, I can have that premium Movie Channel and totally destroy my mind!  Yippee!

All in all, this whole Empty Nest thing really is pregnancy in reverse.  The clock is rolling back and I have the freedom to come and go as Iplease, and to live, well, selfishly.  By that I mean, living just for me.  Whatever I want is not just okay, it’s great!  Just the way things should be. ?

During that time, I have come to one inescapable conclusion: I know nothing.

No, really.  No-thing.  Sigh.  The only thing I really know is how little I know.

Hence, the twisty pretzel of a brain.

Have you ever read a sentence, in a language you actually speak and purportedly understand, and honestly, truly have absolutely no idea what the in the sam hill it SAYS? This has been my life from 7pm to 10pm every night for the last two weeks and most of the weekends.

It got so bad I finally, practically in tears, emailed the instructor of a class I’m taking to learn how to blog to plead with him to point me in a direction because I had gotten myself firmly lost in the trees.   I’m taking a class called Authority Blogging given by a wonderful man named Chris Garrett of www.Chrisg.com.  If you haven’t heard of him, you should go read his blog now.  Then join his forums and take his class.  It’s a lot of money, but it’s worth it for a number of reasons.  (And, if I knew what I was doing, I could have a link to the class where I could be an affiliate.  Alas, I do not know this.)

First of all, the class is worth it because you get Chris.  He’s a GAM: A God Among Men.  No, really.

Secondly, because you get the wonderful people on the forums who are helpful and supportive and don’t make fun of those of us who have no bloomin’ idea what they’re doing.

And third, because you get a ton of information that hopefully you, and I someday, will understand and implement and have a fabulous blog.  I crave the day I can actually find the place on my dashboard where I can change “Blogroll” to “Friends of the Nest”.

Lastly, because when you’re really truly honestly lost in the woods you can email Chris in tears and he will lead you back out into the light by staying late and having a conference call with you.

So, if your brain is a twisty pretzel, go join Chris’s class.  Totally worth it.

A little background: I’ve been an accountant and small business consultant for about fourteen years.  But, in the last few years I’ve had this nagging urge to take my life and career in a new direction.  Specifically, in a writing direction.  So, a couple of weeks ago now, in a fit of pique and frustration, I sent an email to a blogger who writes about blogging as a profession and asked him how realistic it was to think I could create revenue with my blogs.  I’ve known for a while I needed help, but wasn’t sure what I needed to do.  He basically said that without a product of some kind, it’s possible, but a lot harder.  He was encouraging, but not overly so.  To make a short story shorter, since he didn’t try to sell me anything, I did a little research and then decided to sign up (and pay for!) his course called The Authority Blogger

Anyway, his course is all about being an authority in your niche and creating trust with your readers so that they buy your products and services and read your blog.  It’s a very Relationship Marketing approach.  However, neither ChelleWrites nor this blog really lend themselves to a product or a service.  They are both about my life and what’s happening in it or what I’m thinking about.

So, about a week into the course, I’m going through my morning routine, trying to figure out how to create a product people will want to buy that I won’t feel like a fraud selling, when I realized that because of all the negativity I’ve felt about accounting for the last few years I’ve never even considered blogging about small business.  I’ve got twenty plus years of experience, the last fourteen consulting on my own, that I could bring to the table, and I never even considered it!  Plus, I immediately thought of two “products” I could give away and about a half a dozen posts I could write for my flagship content and a couple people I could ask to guest post.

My point?  Sometimes the best ideas are staring you right in the face and all you see is something blocking your view.  I knew I wanted to blog as a profession.  What’s more, I knew I needed to learn a lot, and even then I had no idea how much!  If I hadn’t taken the step to ask someone else what they thought of my plan (albeit out of sense of frustration) and then given what they said a lot of thought, I’d still be spinning my wheels.

The wonderful thing about the Empty Nest years is we have time to explore all the things we’ve always wanted to do.  Do you have something staring you in the face that you’re looking around instead of at?

P.S. Look for a new blog Coming Soon!

My Coach and I were talking about this next step I’m taking during our session last week and she said something that’s been resonating with me ever since:

“If you love what you do, what you ‘DO’ is love.”

Just think about that about that for a moment.

How profound is it to think that by doing what you love, what you’re “doing” IS love?  That by going out into the world and putting forth the service/skill you were born to give, you’re “doing love” to the world.  I’m still in awe of the whole concept and it makes me more determined, and hopeful, that I can continue to have the strength to make these changes in my life.

Along those same lines, as part of my efforts to get back into writing, I took a course on revising and editing my manuscript with Lani Diane Rich.  I’ve known Lani for a couple of years now, and I think she’s a pretty amazing teacher.  During the last class she said something that’s also stuck with me: when you’re a writer, the writing is your Life’s Work.

Wow.  Another moment, another comment, from another smart woman in my life that left me staggered.  Writing as my Life’s Work?  When I heard that something deep inside my psyche sat up and went “YES!  That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout!”

In all the years I’ve been an accountant, I’ve never, ever, felt like accounting and consulting was my Life’s Work.  I never even really thought of it as my Career.  Mostly, it was just a job that paid the bills and kept me in cute shoes.  Other that? Meh.Whatever.
But, now, I’m looking at the books I’ve got half finished, the blog articles I’m writing and want to write, the websites I want to launch and they’ve suddenly taken on a new label of Chelle’s Life’s Work.  All of these things could be the body of work I leave behind to prove I was HERE and I MADE A DIFFERENCE.  They will not only be my thoughts and stories that Sunshine can read someday, or give to her daughters and grand-daughters to read to say “Look, this was my Mom.  This is who she was and what she was interested in.”

Now, this mass of half written books, blogs, articles, etc., could be what I give to the world.  The very real, very tangible piece of myself given because writing is what I’m here to do.

With Love.

For all of you who’ve been through the process of finding and obtaining financial aide, you’ll be able to relate to what I’m about to say.  The whole financial aide process is fraught with frustration, grief, teeth knashing, hair pulling, screaming into the dark of night, and, finally, exhaustion once the process is complete.  Honestly, I think I’d rather go through an IRS audit than the financial aide process.

Have you ever had one of those niggling thoughts that just won’t go away?  You’ve got this problem (Financial Aide), and, after numerous hours, you’ve solved said problem.  The problem is no more.  You have conquered The Problem.
Except, you just have this feeling that the problem isn’t quite taken care of.  Now, everyone is telling you it’s taken care of.  You’ve checked with the company who’s approved you, you’ve checked with the Bursar’s Office, the Financial Aide office, gone online and verified that, yes, the funds seem to be ready and waiting until they are accessed by the school.  You’ve even received a letter that the funds are approved.

Except, you’re mom-dar (Mom radar, or dad radar, as the case may be.) is telling that something isn’t quite right.  That little voice in the back of your head that said to take her to the doctor even if she isn’t running a fever is whispering frantically that, no, in fact, every isn’t right in your world.  Something is WRONG.
But, the rest of the world is saying that all is right.  You’re being over-protective.  Look, see?  The computer says it’s all finished.  You have a LETTER.  You’re done.

And that’s about the time screaming begins.  Literally.

This week we found out that somehow, someway, through no fault of anyone — it Just Happened— Sunshine’s financial aide was deactivated and the loan was closed.

WTF????

Turns out the financial aide I secured back in May was only good for 120 days.  Okay, why?  Why why why?!? Why would a bank do that when parents are told there is a limited pool of financial aide to draw from each year and you NEED TO GET YOUR PAPERWORK IN AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE OR YOUR KID IS F$%#^D FOR FINANCIAL AIDE.  Oh, yeah, and every other bank that provides financial aide has loans that are good for SIX MONTHS because of said sentence above in all caps.  You’re SUPPOSED to secure funding way before college starts.  As in MONTHS before college starts.

So why on God’s Green Earth, would the bank only give me an approval for 120 FREAKING DAYS???
AND, why in the hell wouldn’t they TELL ME THAT???

As I said, thus the screaming began.

Oh, and by the way, when this happens?  NO ONE wants to help.  Just try calling the American Education Services “Help Line”.  The nicest thing I can say is they were Unhelpful and Unsympathetic.

All of which only goes to prove that no matter the age of your little birdie, when the mom voice in the back of your head is whispering, you damn well better listen.

Sigh.

For example: “How am I doing?” In point of fact, I have a fantastic life. I’m enjoying my newfound freedom. For the first time in my life, I’m living alone and I don’t have to think about anyone’s schedule except mine. If I don’t want to go home until ten o’clock at night, it’s okay because there’s no one waiting for me to get home and feed them. I don’t have to worry about anyone’s laundry but mine, and if I decide to eat Cheerios for dinner, well, if it’s good enough for breakfast, it’s good enough for dinner.

I love my house, it’s not just a home, it’s MY home. I’ve decorated it how I wanted to without having to think about anyone’s feelings except for Jennifer’s, when she lived here, but even then I basically did what I wanted to do in every room except hers. My home is comfortable, attractive and welcoming and I’m very proud of that. Decorating is not something that comes easy to me and I worked hard at it!

So, I love my home, and I enjoy living there. I’ve thought about moving to a smaller place, it’s not like I NEED a home with three bedrooms and two baths and a garage. I could live comfortably in a two bedroom condo where I wouldn’t have to deal with the yard. But, for now, I’ve decided to stay where I am and I’m happy about that.

So, how am I doing? I miss being a mom everyday. Worrying about whether she has clean clothes, did she drink her milk, hearing about her day at dinner, and everything else that goes with raising a kid. But now, I’m creating the next chapter of my life and having a great time.

The other question: “Don’t you miss her?” Is just as multi-layered, and actually a little more complicated. Do I miss her? Yep, terribly. Am I prostrate with grief and unable to get out of bed? Ummm, no. It’s not that it’s been easy to put her on a plane and let her fly three thousand miles away, no, that part of this process was pure freaking torture. But, like I’ve said before, she’s got all the tools she needs, and now it’s her time to use them. Letting her leave the nest has been as mentally painful as child birth was physically. And so far I’ve done both without drugs! ?

Another question I get fairly regularly, either implied or stated, is whether I wish I would have had another one. The inference being that if I had another kid, I would be distracted by that child while I’m grieving this one going off to college. Well, sure, I wish I had another one. I’ve always wanted another child, but those weren’t the cards I was dealt. I got one chick, that’s all.

The thing is, I don’t think having another kid would help this situation anyway, because it’s not like another kid could take her place, even a sibling. I’d still miss HER.

The last question I get, which is usually from someone either much younger, or much older, is: do I want another one?

Okay, let me think about this. Do I want to get up at 3am for feedings, change diapers, deal with tantrums, and catch purple vomit? Uh, no. Been there, done that, had dried purple vomit in my hair. I’m good, thanks.

And, again, it’s not like any baby, or another baby, would do. If I could have a baby again, I’d have MY baby again. That’s the kid I miss. My Baby. My Jenny with her sense of humor, obsession with “spinning dresses”, and love for brownie’s over cupcakes. THAT’S who I would want back again: Nobody’s Baby But Mine.

Since I can’t have that, I have to keep moving, keep discovering what’s next, and keep living life to the fullest. Because you can’t go back, and there’s no sense in wanting to. There’s a lot of life left to live and a lot of life left to give, and now I get to see what comes next.

And it IS a “get to”, not a “have to”.

So, do I miss her? You betcha. Do I want another one? Nope. How I am doing? Good some days, better others, and really, really good on an increasing basis. Which, I think, is about all one can hope for.

However, what’s a bit harder to find are blogs by those being coached. Well, I’m one of those people and I have to tell you that Personal Coaching has been a phenomenal force in my life.

Now, before you write me off, hear me out. I used to work for a non-profit who provides Executive Coaching for low wage earners (SBF.org) and I saw first hand the kind of change coaching could create in a person’s life, so I wasn’t a stranger to coaching when I started this.

I hired my coach over a year and a half ago, when I was facing a huge crossroads in my life. I went looking for a coach because I was getting ready to navigate a huge crossroads in my life and I knew I needed someone to help me. I’m a single mom and small business owner and, at the time, my one and only chick was finishing her junior year in high school and getting ready to start the wonderful journey of Senior Year and ultimately going off to college. As anyone who’s been through that can tell you, it’s a process fraught with emotion and change.

In addition to the whole single mom thing, I’m a small business owner. I’ve been running my own consulting company for over twelve years. However, I wanted to completely change my career.

So, darling daughter leaving for college and complete career change = Crossroads!

Before I get into why I wanted a coach, we should probably start with what is coaching? Ultimately, in my opinion, coaching is all about having someone in your corner who supports and encourages you and helps you strategize how to achieve your life goals, both the big ones and the small ones. Coaching is NOT therapy. After my divorce I was in therapy for about six months and the coaching relationship is completely different. For one thing, coaching focuses on the future and therapy focuses on the past. I’m sure there’s more, but I’m neither a coach nor a therapist, so I’m not going there.

If you’re someone who doesn’t have a partner, whether a spouse or a business partner, and you’re trying to make changes in your life or your business, then coaching may be exactly what you need. As a single mom who also runs her own business, I needed someone to talk to about both personal and business issues that I was going to have to tackle in the coming months. My coach was there for that. Whether it’s dealing with my only child leaving for college and facing the prospect of living alone for the first time in my entire life (Go Here if you want to know about that.). Or, if it’s looking at my current business model and client base and realizing changes need to be made and then strategizing those changes, and in the process really getting down to the nitty gritty of what I need and want in my life, my coach knows about all of it and helps me figure out how to handle the current problem while strategizing the future. She doesn’t offer opinions, unless I ask her for one, and there’s no judgement as to what I should do, shouldn’t do. As she says during almost every call: “What can I do today to help you be the one and only Michelle.”

A coach celebrates your successes with you, commiserates over your failures. However, just like there’s no whining in baseball, there’s no whining in coaching either. Failures are nothing more than temporary obstacles that need to be re-planned and strategized to get the desired outcome. There’s no dwelling on them or breast beating or tearing at hair. There’s only learning what didn’t work and why.

Coaching makes me stop and take one hour for myself every two weeks to review what I’ve done and make sure I’m on track for what I want to do and where I want to be going. Steven Covey, in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, says that most of us spend our productive time dealing with things that are Urgent, but not Important. And, he says, periodically we need to take time to “sharpen the saw”. Which means if you want to chop down a tree, and then chop it up into ittybitty pieces to throw in your fireplace during the winter, you must stop at regular intervals and sharpen the saw so that you don’t expend more energy than is necessary to accomplish the task. You have to make sure the saw is doing the hard work. Even though sharpening the saw seems to cost time in the short run, it saves time in the long run because it’s a lot easier to chop wood with a sharp saw than a dull one (Trust me on this. I live in Kentucky. We actually chop wood here.).

Coaching is taking time to sharpen your saw and make sure you’re focusing on what’s Urgent AND Important. It’s that time we all know we need to spend thinking about the future, but it’s the time most of us don’t stop and take. Let’s face it, we’re all running in ten different directions at once while juggling fifteen different balls. None of which we can afford to let bounce. Coaching makes sure we’re really juggling the balls we want and need to, as opposed to those balls we, or others, think we should be juggling.

So, that’s what coaching is to me. Next time, I’m going to talk about what happens during a coaching session (well, mine, anyway). I’m offering this up because I think there are a lot people out there who are Empty Nester’s like me and know they need something to help them figure out “what’s next”, and maybe coaching is just the ticket. It helped me, maybe it can help you, too.

Sunshine started her Senior Year of High School a couple of weeks ago and the whole thing is very bittersweet for me.  On the one hand, this year is going to be so much fun for her and I can’t wait to watch her experience it.  I don’t want to miss one moment.

But, on the other hand, at every event, teacher conference, study group that meets at my house, school dance and special Senior Event, I’m going to be all too aware that this is the last one, or one of the last one’s, and that the clock is ticking and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

And I don’t want to miss one moment.

My friend and I were talking a few days go and it occurred to me during our conversation that this year, her final year of high school, is a lot like pregnancy.  But, in reverse.

No, no wait!  I haven’t lost it.  Just bear with me…

Just like when you’re pregnant, there is a date that it will all be over.  But, until that date arrives, there are things to do to prepare for what happens after that date.  College’s to apply to, scholarships to write essay’s for, sheets and towels, and that new CD holder that she’s going to need for her dorm room next year.  See, it’s a lot like getting the nursery ready.

Except, of course, that it won’t be in my house.  No, this time, all these lovely new linens I’m buying won’t be anywhere near my house.

Just like when you’re pregnant, there are hormone surges.  Little moments that tear tiny fissures into your heart and that I honestly think are the universe’s way of preparing you to let go.  It started last spring when she drove herself to school for the first time, and the day she received her Senior Ring.  Those special wonderful little moments that bring tears to your eyes, and what feels like a fist around your throat, because these are all tiny halting steps to that day when you’ve done your job and she’s ready to be that woman you’ve been raising for the last eighteen years.  Much like the moment she took her first steps from my arms to her dad’s and I realized she wasn’t going to be a baby forever.

Just like when you’re pregnant and you’re sitting on the couch reading or maybe watching a movie and you feel the baby move for the very first time.  The slight little fluttering of butterfly wings that happens in a microsecond and takes your breath away.  When you sit there and the entire universe narrows focus to the slight little bump on your abdomen and you try to will it to happen again.  It’s those little moments that take you step by tiny cataclysmic step towards a world you’ve never been to.  A whole new life.  A whole new world that this tiny wonderful being becomes the center of.  And, just like the moment I first felt her move was a step towards bringing her into this world, the conversations we have about where she might like to go to college, and where she might want to travel to on her summer vacations, are tiny cataclysmic steps towards taking her into her future.

There’s nothing like the first time you hold your child.  Childbirth is not a fun thing, and mine was a little more dramatic than most and is a story for another day (or not), but childbirth is quite the metaphor for all you go through to raise a child.  Putting their health, well-being and needs before your own, starting right there in the delivery room.  Before you even think of your own, really.  But, the first time you hold your child, or the first time she smiles at you and you know that she knows it’s YOU, her mom, not just a random smiling face, but YOU.  That’s when you know that your world is never going to be the same.    And now, you get to stand next to her at Target and watch her look at luggage and smile at the twinkle in her eye she gets thinking about the day she’ll be packed and ready to venture out on her own.

And, you have to smile.  Because it’s fun to think of that day because she’s so excited about it.  And you smile while you help her pick out a dress to wear under her cap and gown.  Just like you picked out that extra special outfit to take her home from the hospital in months before she actually arrived.  It’s a true joy to your mother’s heart that she’s happy.  And a few more little fissures show up on your heart.  Because you wanted this.  You did.  You worked hard for the last eighteen years for this.  You want her to be a woman who knows who she is and what she wants.  You want her to want adventure and learning and to not be afraid of the future.

And she is.  And she does.

You did a good job.

It’s a little ironic that a school year is nine months.  In the same amount of time that I nurtured and helped create that tiny little brand new human being, now I have exactly that much time to prepare myself for the next step in my journey.  I read someone else’s blog the other day (sorry can’t remember who) and they called it Life 3.0.  Life 1.0 is your own childhood and growing up years.  Life 2.0 is graduating from college, getting married and raising kids.  And then there’s Life 3.0.  And just like the other two versions, it’s my job to figure out what this one is going to be all about.  So, while Sunshine is busy taking steps one way, I’m looking over the horizon trying to decide what path will be next.

Because I did do a good job.  She’s an amazing woman and the world better look out because she’s coming and she’s unstoppable.  And, I helped create that as much as I nurtured her inside of me for nine months.

In the words of Buzz Lightyear (because I watched it so many times it’s burned into my psyche):  TO INFINITY…AND BEYOND!

Why?  I’m not sure.

One thing that comes to mind is that I’ve been in my current house for four years and that’s the longest I’ve lived in one place since I got married and moved to California when I was twenty-one.  During the interim twenty-odd years, I’ve moved something like twenty times.
No, I’m not kidding.

Between the Ex being in the Marine Corps and then with IBM (which I’m convinced stands for I’ve Been Moved) and crawling up the corporate ladder, we relocated…a lot.
There were times that moving was a huge pain in the patootie.  But, there was also a silver lining to moving, and it wasn’t just that my closets got cleaned out once a year for almost fifteen years.

No, it was that when you move from one city to another, you get a clean slate.  All the crap that is your life in one place disappears overnight and you’re left standing in a completely new city with no history, no work ToDo list full of stuff you haven’t gotten to,and a completely fresh start.  Although it was a little scary the first couple of times, after a few years, I have to admit that I secretly looked forward to moving.  That feeling of being liberated from whatever job I hated, apartment/house that I didn’t really like, mother’s at the day care/school that annoyed me, and a city that I hadn’t fallen in love with, was heady stuff.

In a way, I could be reborn in a new city.  The possibilities of what I could do were endless.  Okay, I still had to bring in a paycheck, but how I was going to do that, where I was going to work, that would all be new.  I was at a point where change could be made.  And that people, was as exciting as Christmas morning to me.  Even the annoyance of finding a new place to live, a new school/day care, a new doctor, dentist, grocery store, etc, etc.  Was sort of…fun.

So, now, I’ve been in the same place with the same people for four years.  A record for me.  And I’m antsy.  For change, for something new, for…well, I don’t know what exactly, but something.  Something that’s not what I’ve got and where I am now.  Something new and fresh and shiny.  A new challenge, a new place to live, a new car to drive, a new place to stop for my morning tea.  Maybe all of the above.

I’m also wondering if this is more of that pregnancy in reverse thing I was talking about a few weeks ago.  Maybe the antsy-ness that I’m feeling is nothing more than the need to nest, but for me this time.  Or, maybe it’s just plain old boredom and all I need is a few days at the beach to recharge.

But, I don’t think so.  The urge for change, the need for something different than what I’m doing everyday is becoming almost overpowering.  Which means I need to sit down someplace quite and formulate a plan because otherwise I’m libel to accidentally Tower my life, and that would be bad.  But I can feel it, the need for change, and also the pressure to change.  It’s almost like a hitch in the barometric pressure in the air around me.  There’s a feeling of a storm moving in and I can tell by the way the wind is blowing that if I don’t start making preparations, it could be a storm that takes me a while to recover from.

I’ll keep you posted.

I’m still learning how to drive this puppy, so expect a few hiccups along the way, but we’re going to have some fun here!!

Since implementing Man Plan ‘09 at the end of December 2008, I’ve been out with, had coffee with, IM’d with, emailed with, texted and/or had drinks or dinner with, almost twenty men. I know this because I have a spreadsheet. (Oh come on, you know you’re not surprised *I* have a spreadsheet.)

I wish I could say they were all gentlemen, but as with any project where quantity is risked over quality, you’re going to have a few duds. Not Dude’s — Duds. However, I can say the Duds have been few and far between and by the end of this little experiment I’m hopeful they will be a statistical anomaly.

In the meantime, here’s a few things I’ve learned along the way:

1. To say “No Thank You” as nicely as I can. And, once I’ve said it a few times, nicely, to just ignore the shouting, or in this case, the texting and the emailing.

2. To keep that spreadsheet I mentioned above. No, seriously. If you go out with twenty men that’s twenty first names and screen names you need to keep track of. Plus, you need a way to jog your memory about exactly who this person is, so keep some notes. Here’s an example (all info made up, not real people because that would be rude.): Screen name: BikerGuyintheK-Y Real Name: Bob To remember: met him for tea Sat morning at Heine Bros, went to PF Changs for dinner last night, into classic motorcycles. A lot.
Now, you can get as detailed as you want, but a few notes are helpful. I went out with 2 Mike’s, a Jim, a Jimmy, a Robert and a Bob. Trust me, notes were very helpful.

3. Don’t email or text too much before you meet. That’s a good way to exhaust your first date topics before you even have a first date. I like to email a few times over the course of four or five days before I meet with a person. This is because I like to ask questions and see what kind of response I get. If the only thing he comes back with is “When are we going to meet” and doesn’t answer my questions, then I know he’s looking for a booty call and I can move him to the bottom of the spreadsheet with the other frogs. If, on the other hand, he answers my questions and asks me some, then I’ve got a person who is actually looking to get to know me, and that’s worth my time.

4. Keep the first meeting short and make another appointment of some kind for something else for a couple of hours later so you give yourself an honest reason to leave. I’m talking about a nail appointment, hair appointment, have to pick your mother up and take her to the grocery store, something! Here’s why: I don’t know about you, but when I first started this dating thing I hadn’t dated for quite some time. I needed to give myself some dating “training wheels”, so to speak. By keeping the first meeting short, you can leave if there’s no chemistry, or if you’ve just run out of things to say right then. Hey, it can happen, even to me! By giving yourself a reason to leave, you can not only gracefully and genuinely say goodbye, but also, you don’t overstay your welcome. I found myself so happy to be speaking with a person of the male persuasion that I babbled on like a Chatty Cathy for hours. No, really, HOURS. So, now I give myself a reason to leave. And, incidentally, the only guys who ever say anything about it are the guys who make me ever so glad I made the appointment!

5. To put identifiers in my cellphone. At one point I had three “Steve Cell” numbers in my phone. First of all, I didn’t realize my phone would put in duplicates. I’d call that a “bug”, but Verizon evidently sees it as a “feature”. The bad thing is, one Steve was a new guy, one was a colleague at a client, and one was a guy I used to date a couple of years ago! Not good. Trust me, even if you can’t get a last name, you can put in something to tell you which Steve is which. In my case, I now put “POF” after their name if it’s a guy I met on Plenty Of Fish, and “EH” if it’s a guy I met on eHarmony.

See, I wasn’t kidding, organization is a must. I haven’t even gotten to the part of how to fit them in the schedule around work, gym, blogging (which I’ve been very bad at lately), traveling, etc., etc.

Dating over forty — Not For The Faint Of Heart!

I still subconsciously start looking for Jenny to come in the back door right around the times she would have been getting home, whether from school or out with friends, but that’s a habit I’ve had for eighteen years, so it might take a bit for that to go away.  But, it doesn’t make me sad when I realize she won’t be coming home, which is what I would have expected to feel if I had let myself think about it over the last year.

Instead, there have been days when I’ve felt a little liberated that she wasn’t coming home and I didn’t need to worry about having to stop what I was doing and make dinner, run an errand with or for her, or even talk to her.  NOT that I ever minded talking to her or making her dinner.   No, what I mean is, I didn’t have to stop and change direction, and that freedom felt liberating.

I think she’s experiencing the same heady sense of freedom.  She was telling me that her room-mate went home for the weekend and she had the dorm room to herself.  She said she liked having the room to herself, it made her want her own apartment.  That she could see herself living in her own place with her own things, just hanging out enjoying her space.

When she said that, I was so proud.  I’ve done my job, and I’ve done it exceptionally well.  My goal was to raise a strong, independent woman with  the strength of character and self-esteem to forge ahead and find the path to her life and her passions.  I’m so proud that I’ve done exactly that.

Yes, some days it feels like her pulling away is giving me microscopic tears to my heart, but at the same time, I have this immeasurable joy juxtaposed against that feeling from watching her become a young woman who has a backpack full of the tools I gave her slung over her shoulder, happily walking out into the world to conquer it in her own unique way.

And that is pretty freaking satisfying.

So, stay posted. I need to finish some stuff up and then I’ll be back!

My life is already pretty busy outside of Sunshine’s stuff, so I wasn’t worried about sitting alone in the dark crying over baby pictures. (Not that I haven’t been a little weepy from time to time over the last month.) BUT, well, sitting alone in the dark crying isn’t really my style anyway. So, I’m going to blog here about everything that’s going on in my NOT so empty nest!!

That includes Sunshine leaving for college, my new landscaping project (I have the ugliest front yard in the neighborhood. No, seriously. I do.), photography, dating over 40 and, of course, how to cook Southern!

I can’t wait to get started!