It has been quite some time since I have posted.....I have spent months thinking I needed to post something but instead I have been busy observing life from the perspective of a parent of adult children.  The hardest thing to do is to let your kids go out on their own.  I have had direct experience with many mistakes that parents and children make during this process.  My challenge has been to try to stay objective and learn as I go, as there is not often a guidebook for this stage in the life of a parent.  I have found that many things happen without our knowledge and, while it can be the most heartbreaking adventure, there are many things that can be done to avoid that feeling of abandonment and overall feeling of losing control.  

First of all let me remind everyone that there is no stopping the clock.  I always told my girls that my "job", as their parent, was to be responsible for forming functional adults in society.  I took that job very seriously and often used that excuse as the answer for their argument of why I was so mean.  I am not a mean person, instead I believe I am a reasonable parent that takes the time to hear my girls' argument while still maintaining my balance of right and wrong.  My right and their wrong.  After all I am the adult and have lived longer than they have.  I have some experience to back up the decisions I am making on their behalf.  I know what to expect and hope to help them avoid the same bad choices I may have made.  That being said, the fact still remains that, when they turn 18, they believe they know more than us.  This happens to every teenager at one point or another.  

What happens to our youth between the ages of 10 and 18?  When does that change, where they transition from idolizing their parents to avoiding them at all costs take place?  What can we do to avoid that and is there a way to turn back the clock so they will listen to you post 18?  I think about the kids who grow up and get the grades, apply for scholarships and go to college because their parent tell them that that is what they are going to do.  Are these the children that have mid life crisis when they turn 40 and wonder where their lives went?  Is there a way to achieve the balance of doing the expected and still finding their own path?  I see some kids who have had a great scholastic career and managed to respect their parents, work towards a college degree and still form their own paths.  So what is the difference?  

I like to believe it is in the parenting and that allowing your children to make some mistakes is a good way of teaching them how to deal with the ups and downs of real life.  How else are they to learn unless parents give them the freedom to make mistakes and forge their own paths.  

It is now years later since I started this post and life is so different than I expected.  My oldest daughter is married, a prominent artist in Baltimore and making a living doing tattoos after graduating with a Digital Art degree from MICA.  My youngest is living in Oregon, just finishing up her degree in Massage Therapy and tends to her garden in her new house.  They are good.  They are settled.  They are happy.  I have done my job.  I can say I have no regrets but I am not sure that is a statement that any parent can say with conviction.  Yes, I have regrets.  I wish that I had spent more time with them.  I wish I had saved more money.  I wish that I had the luxury of a teenage wardrobe closet at my disposal again but that is not reality.  I am 50 now, married again and looking at my options for the next 20 years.  What next?  I have kids on opposite sides of the country and so little time to visit.  I want. I want. I want.  

My age gives me a ticket to be selfish and feel that I accomplished something with my life.  Most people can say they partied in their twenties, college dorm stories and beer pong parties but I raised kids.  The opportunities are endless and I can be anything I want to be now....after all, I put two people on this planet and they are still alive.  I can do anything now.  

You ever have that kind of morning......

All I can say is I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

Everything in my life is good....well as good as can be expected for now. With the economy being a bummer, having a job that makes you happy is not so much of a priority anymore...having a job IS! I am happy to have one and it is a good job. I am able to come and go as I please, take time off without the guilt trip and I work really well on my own but it is just not cutting it for me. I have been going to school for three years now, aimlessly taking classes in the hope that I will stumble on something I really like, but it just seems to be an endless array of classes that add up to nothin. Well almost nothin.... I do have 30 credits out of 60 needed for any associates degree. I think the issue I have is this day and age it is too hard to just have one thing. I have this desire to pack in as much information as I can get in the hopes that, should I ever need it, I will be able to recall what I have learned and use it.

I don't know where I got this odd point of view but I am sure it came from my parents. They both had a very defined specialty that ended up also defining their lives. I don't know if that is the route I want to go. I am kind of a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of girl and feel that being restricted to one skill is like a death sentance. The question is how do you maintain a normal life while trying to hone ten skills at once? The answer.....INSANITY!

That is it. I am insane! I can't settle to one thing, I am always wanting to do something new, I do get bored easily but you would never know it and I try too hard. The result of this is that I am difficult to deal with and feel sometimes that it isolates me from the rest of the world. How do you change that? How do people, ones that recognize there is a flaw in their personality that greatly affects their lives, make a life changing adjustment to reality? That is the big question.

A very good friend once said to me "you have to take action and then commit to those actions. Bad habits are easy to break but hard to live with while good habits are hard to make and easy to live with." He is a genius....and he also has had a very specific skill since he was young and has slowly, through hard work and fortitude, built his way to the top in a job he loves and a life he thrives in. Go figure!

Side note:  Visiting this after a long hiatus and reviewing posts that I did not actually publish....this being one of them.  The friend mentioned above has since passed in a tragic way.  Too young, very missed and yet I am comforted by his words coming to me in this post.  He was wise and so very loved.  His name was Scott and he was amazing.  He lived every day as if there was no tomorrow.  He had passion for his family, music, the little eccentricities of life and taught me more than I knew at the time.  He was one of a kind.  What I take from this is that you never know when your last day is.  Hug the ones you love.  Never go to bed angry and always make sure that you greet each day as if the sun shines just for you.  I now know that I have a beam of sunshine following me through life....fashioned from love and beaming just for me.