I feel like I’m in limbo… some weird place where I come to figure out the next stage in life. My youngest daughter just finished up 6th grade. We are finally (after 12 years) completely done with elementary school. It was something I had looked forward to for a long time and now that it’s here, I’m feeling a little lost… empty.
No big rah-rah moment, no balloons and confetti. Just this quiet space where I no longer have small children. Officially.
It feels awesome… and then it just makes me feel strange. Summer will go by fast and in August, we’ll be starting school again, but this time with 2 in high school and 1 in junior high. And I won’t have to run into the office every day to pick up my PFO mail. And I won’t have anyone to wait with me at pick-up under the shade of the old trees. I won’t have family nights to plan and PFO meeting to attend. Sure, I could join all those parent groups in the junior high, but I don’t think I want to. After volunteering for 12 years, I’m kind of done. I’m tired. I’m ready to focus on just me.
I will miss my mom friends and my teacher friends… but I also relish the quiet of sitting in my car waiting for my daughter to get out of school. I can sit and read a book or scroll through Facebook. I don’t have to get dressed and do my hair. I’ll have time to exercise (yea… right) and clean the house (guess again). I’ll have no excuse for not writing more or working harder.
This new no-more-little-kids phase is starting to settle in. No more arts and craft projects (or tiny ceramic bears)… no more letters home from the teacher… no more class parties. No more feeling annoyed when I have to make a run to school and no more feeling guilty when I decide not to show up for an event.
I have the time to do all those things I’ve always wanted to do. I just need to try and remember what they are.
I’m trying to make sense of this new place I’m in. The one where they don’t need me every second of the day. The one where my children are now all learning things they didn’t teach when I was in high school. The one where they make their own plans and have their own interests. There are times when I’m feeling a little left out… and then I remember how awesome it is that I don’t have to drive them everywhere or make every meal for them or get them dressed. They have grown into beautiful, independent women. Probably less a testament to my parenting than to their own characters.
So onward and upward. And I just might be stopping a few times this summer to smell the roses.
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