Motherhood Never Ends

by Amy Ruhlin

It's almost Mother's Day, and my 19-year-old-son is preparing to move into his first apartment. My 22-year-old-daughter is getting ready to graduate from college. I have made it through my first year as an empty-nester. And life feels huge.

At times, I've felt like I'm the one who went off to college. I adore my kids. I miss them so much that sometimes I physically ache. But, also, right alongside of the hurt, I've been having the time of my life remembering other loves.

I've attended rock concerts to see musicians who I haven't even thought of since 1975. I've traveled to the beach, and to the mountains, and to nearby towns, all on a whim, at the spur-of-the-moment, for my own enjoyment. I've been responsible for no one other than myself.

There was a time when I would have considered all of this unnecessary, or maybe even selfish. But now, after 22 years of motherhood, I realize that it has been one of the most loving things that I could do.

I've remembered what it feels like to be 20-something. I've remembered how to be wide open to the world around me, to stand at the edge, to feel possibility.

Yesterday, I visited the kids at their college. I took my son some items that he needs for his apartment: bedding, towels, utensils, toilet bowl cleaner. I took my daughter shopping for graduation dresses. I took my whole self into that familiar sweetness of mothering.

And this time, it felt bigger. It had expanded. It included me.

I was able to fully embrace and celebrate the thrilling place where my children are in their lives, because I have been doing the same for my own 52-year-old self.

Thankfully, motherhood never ends. Even in the midst of facing an empty nest and watching our kids fly away. It simply stretches, and shows us that it is a love that is huge.

This article was previously published on The Huffington Post

Life in the Empty Nest

by Amy Ruhlin

My nest has been empty for three weeks. The first night was the hardest -- the night my husband and I drove home from dropping our son, our youngest, off at college. Neither of us spoke a word in the car. Speech was too small, so we sat in silence, but I could feel us moving, together through the seismic shift.

When we got home, I sat down on the sofa and finally, I wept. My husband wrapped his arms around my shoulders.

"You did a good job," he told me. "You were a good mom."

I heard his words and the vise around my body began to loosen its grip.

Love comes to us in different forms, but when it comes to us through our children, we seem to claim ownership. Mine, we think. But the truth of it is, they are only passing through. And still, we give it our all, so it's hard to let go.

That night, my husband and I both had dreams about our son. Nightmares, actually. In my husband's dream, he sat on a beach and saw our son being attacked by sharks but he could not save him. In my dream, I sat on the floor with my son cuddled up to my side. He was small and frail and afraid as we watched a man in the room circle us with a loaded gun.

In the light of morning, I knew that our job of protecting our son was over. And despite the bad dreams, or maybe because of them, I knew that our son was safe and that he was now able to protect himself.

My husband went to work. I work from home, so I was on my own for the first full day in our new nest, a day that I had been dreading. But as I moved through it, I found my rhythm. I worked and I stretched and I piddled, but mostly, I felt grateful. I walked through the empty rooms of our house but they felt full: of love, of memories, of possibilities.

In the evening, I heard my husband's car putt-putt into our garage and I leapt up to greet him at the door. This surprised me, as I haven't done any leaping in a long time.

"Hey!" we said in unison, as he walked through the door. I felt 26 again. And I could tell that he did too.

We had a roaring good time together in our 20s, my husband and I. We married, began our careers, renovated a house and at the age of 30, had our first child. I thought those early days would last forever.

"Wanna go out for tacos and margaritas?" my husband asked me. I smiled and grabbed my purse and we got back into his car.

At the restaurant, the waitress offered each of us the 32 oz. sized margaritas and we laughed when she brought them to the table. Neither of us had had a drink in that large of a frosty mug since our early days together.

Over the next few weeks we went out for mimosa brunches, drove our boat across the entire length of the large lake near our home under the moonlight, visited a new blues club to hear a jazz harpist, had a spur-of- the-moment weekend beach getaway and sold the family car.

Our nest is different, but it is not empty. All the good stuff is still here: love and hope and joy and laughter. It feels a lot like it did in our 20's, when it was just the two of us. But this time, we know that these days will not last forever and that we are only passing through. We know that there will be more seismic shifts and how lucky we will be if we can continue to move through them together. And we know that a time that is often seen as empty, is actually the richest time of all.

Did You Get A Text Today?

by Amy Ruhlin                                 

Today I decided to watch college football with my husband. I actually don’t much like football. I don’t even fully understand football. But my daughter is in college and my son soon will be too so watching it seems like the appropriate thing to do. My husband has a competitive spirit but I don’t. While he screams things like, “You idiot, you missed the pass!,” I select my favorite team based on who has the best color uniforms. 


We sit on the sofa in front of our flat screen TV with our cell phones and laptops nearby. I tell my husband that I have selected the team that I want to win and he tells me that he is pulling for the other team. This will at least make it interesting.

I find the game entertaining for about ten minutes so I decide to ask my husband a question that I have been asking him daily for the last two years since our daughter went away to college. It is a question that I never imagined I would be asking so frequently. In fact, when my daughter was in high school, she told me about a college friend who always made sure that if she texted one parent she would also text the other because if she did not, one parent would feel left out. I remember telling my daughter that I thought this was ridiculous. I would never indulge in such silly behavior.

“Did you get a text today?” I ask my husband.

He smiles and says, “I got two.”

“Two?" I haven’t gotten any in days!,” I tell him. I pick up my phone and check my messages just to make sure.

“And I’m Skyping at 4pm,” he says with a grin.
 

I look at the TV and I see that his team just scored a touchdown.

“Skyping ?”   “Who set that up?,” I ask.

“I did,” he says.

“Why’d you do that?” I ask.

“Well, it’s been a while since we’ve seen her,” he says.

“Hmpf”, I think. He could have consulted me first. Am I not included in their little Skype party? I am feeling left out.

“Well, I got a facebook message from her yesterday. And she sent me the opening paragraph of that big paper that she’s been working on,” I tell him.

“She did? I’ve been wanting to read that paper!” he says.
 

I glance at the football game and notice that my team just intercepted the ball.

"Well, I think she sends me the things that , you know, are  important to her personally, and she contacts you for the financial and technical stuff," I say.

I see that a football player is limping off the field with a hurt foot.

My husband says, “Nah, she texts me personal stuff too.”

“Well," I tell him, "I’m going to Skype with you.” I actually don’t like to Skype. I hate seeing myself on screen.
 

“That’d be great,” my husband says.

The games end at 4pm. I look at the TV and I see all of the players running onto the field, both teams, together. I look at my husband’s laptop and I see our daughter’s beautiful face filling the screen. And in the bottom corner of the screen I see myself, nestled into the crook of my husband’s arm, a middle aged mom and a middle aged dad , happily talking to their 20 year old daughter, together.

Will We Be Happy In Our Empty Nest?

by Amy Ruhlin
                            

It’s a cool morning with the first hint of fall in the air so I drink my coffee outside on our back patio. I look at our overgrown rose bushes and thinning mulch beds but what I see is my children when they were young. I see them helping us plant shrubs in our new lawn and spread pine straw around our flower beds. I see them hiding Easter eggs behind the maple tree. I see them holding my husband’s toolbox as we hammered nails into the towering pines to build their tree house; it is still there but the wood is beginning to rot. I see the empty space along the row of cedars where the swing set once stood, then the trampoline.

I walk around the corner of the house, along our stone path made of hand painted rocks and I see the step that my daughter made , the stone with the words “Love Blooms Here” spelled out in glass beads. The 16 years that we have spent living in this house are palpable here in our backyard; there was magic here. I cherish the memories but I also feel my grief. As I walk back into the house I notice that a few leaves on the Dogwood tree have turned from faded green to bright orange.

 I notice a stack of envelopes on the kitchen table; they are addressed to my son and they are full of letters and fliers from colleges. I see the envelope that is stamped with the word “Accepted.” In eight short months our son will graduate from high school and the empty nest will become a reality for my husband and me. We are planning to sell the house, to leave the suburbs, to create a new life for ourselves. We talk it up but I secretly wonder if we can really do it, if we will be happy, if our lives will have the same zest, the same magic as we’ve known  all of these years raising our children in this house.

I walk upstairs and I notice the worn carpet. It is matted down from where my daughter sat on the floor of her bedroom for years playing with her dolls, giving them their own voices, making them come to life. It is worn from where she and her brother sat for many summers in the hallway building rock houses, giving each rock a name, their young voices making stone come alive.

I think about the phone call I got early this morning from the carpet store. Our order is in: 159 square yards of new carpet to be installed in the entire upstairs; the old carpet will be ripped out and carried away, the new carpet will help to sell the house.

I sit down at my computer and I see a quote that someone has just sent me. I notice that it is by Roald Dahl, our favorite children’s author; we often read his books together as a family. I read the quote:

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

It is a quote that I know my 20-year-old daughter likes so I copy and paste and send it to her. A few minutes later she sends me a response: a single small black heart created by typing two different keys; to me, this is magic.

I look at the heart that she made and my own heart lifts. I believe our magic is not over. It is not something that ends when my children are grown, but rather, something that they help me to see. I believe that it will be there in my next act, in our empty nest. I believe that at the age of 50 and beyond, we can still see with glittering eyes.

I Want My Cool Back

by Amy Ruhlin

                             

My daughter and I sit in a coffee shop near her college campus. She has just turned twenty and I watch her drink a mocha latte topped with whipped cream while I sip herbal tea infused with antioxidants. She wears skinny jeans and a lace tank top, her blond hair swept back into a smooth ponytail. I have on Bermuda shorts, but I am sporting my new denim jacket ,and I have remembered to flat iron my hair so it is only medium frizzy.

I am surrounded by 20-somethings. They order complicated coffee drinks with ease and carry heavy backpacks with confidence. Some of them wear knit caps made of wool, and eyeglasses with black frames.

I love this quintessential college town. It oozes cool with its locally owned restaurants, funky art galleries and live music venues. It reminds me of how my husband and I lived when we were in our twenties, before we moved to the suburbs to raise our children. It reminds me that I am tired of chain restaurants, manicured lawns and cul-de-sac streets. I want my cool back.

“So what’s the deal with the kids wearing caps and glasses?,“ I ask my daughter.

“Hipsters,” she says.

I decide hipster must mean cool. I assume it is a cross between hippies and the beat generation; it must mean good music and social causes and great literature.

“You know, “ I blurt out, “Dad and I used to be cool. We were original hipsters.”

I want her to know that I was not always a middle aged mom with over- processed hair and fluctuating hormones. I want her to know that her Dad did not always have an achy back and goofy dance moves. I want her to know that we were totally cool.

“Uh, it’s really just about what they wear Mom, but I’m sure you and dad were cool. We should probably leave now," she suggests. 

Clearly, she is not getting it.

She goes to her classes, and I drive back home. My 16-year-old son comes home from school, and I meet him at the front door.

“Hey, I just found this old tape in the back of my closet! Will you listen to it?” I ask.

It's a cassette tape of course; we were way too cool for eight tracks.

“It’s your Dad’s radio show when we were in college,” I tell him. He was a DJ!” (weren’t we cool?)

My son politely listens to the tape while I point out that the music his dad played was very avant-garde.

The tape ends and my son says,

“Aw, Dad sounded so young! That was weird.” He forgets to mention cool; clearly, he is not getting it either.

The next weekend we all decide to explore a nearby city. We find a vintage record store with rows of vinyl, and it even has a display case housing turntables from the 1970's. It's a beautiful sight.

“A record store! Cool!,” my son says.

Then, he makes a beeline for a separate section in the back; the section that has the newly- released CDs. This is disappointing. Now, he won’t be able to see how cool his Dad and I look perusing the rock n’ roll album section.

“I feel right at home,” I say to my husband.

“Yeah, me too,” he says. “I remember spending hours in record stores when we were in college.”

He picks up an album and flips it over to read the back, just as he always did when we were young.

“I can’t read this,” he says. “Was the writing always this small? I’m going to the car to get my glasses.”

While he is gone, I walk through the store. I am wearing a new scarf, tied just right, and I think that it is billowing nicely as I stroll down the aisles.

I find an old favorite album. I rush over to my daughter, who has just wandered into the vinyl section.

“I listened to this  album all the time when I was around your age!,” I tell her.

“Aw, do you want me to take a picture of you holding it Mom? Here, let me fix your scarf first.”

She makes major adjustments. “There”, she says, “much better.”

She snaps the picture and shows it to me.

“Aw, that’s sweet. You look nice,” she assures me.

She goes back to the CD section to join her brother and I find my husband. He is reading the back of an album cover. He can see the writing now that he has on his 3x reading glasses.

He has just turned 51, and I watch him standing there in his Bermuda shorts and checkered shirt, as cute as ever.  I think about the years we have spent raising our two children, who clearly have kind hearts. I think about how, against the odds, we have been happily married for 28 years.

 And then, I think that we are totally cool.