Transitions

This past holiday season was a big change for us. It was the first year we would be spending Christmas without the kids. I haven't always handled transition well, but many years ago, I learned a valuable lesson. Transition can be as difficult or as easy as you make it.

As an empty-nester, your entire life is in a state of transition, and there are few other things going on to distract you from that focus. First you adjust to life without kids. For the first time in years you can do what you want. Exciting? Yes! But hard too. You suddenly realize you aren't even sure what that is anymore! Then, as the kids start their own families, empty-nesters are faced with some of their most difficult challenges...how to handle the holidays alone.

Up until this year, the members in our family have found amazing ways to manipulate their lives so that we could somehow be together at Christmas. This was hard, but doable when the kids were young. Once school entered into the picture, schedules became tighter. And, quite frankly, after the third or fourth time, traveling 1000 miles in winter became less enticing. Someone was always facing a snowstorm somewhere. And for the Floridians, slushy northern roads were no more welcome than a Great Lakes Blizzard was for the Mid-West family.

Last year, we made the Herculean effort to see both girls over the holiday. 3,300 miles in 14 days!
It was time for us to admit, the times were changing. We were facing Christmas without the kids.

Transition.

Larry and I don't discuss things a lot. We tend to circle around an issue and jab glancing blows at it to see what will happen. So our conversations went a little like this.

"What are we going to do on Christmas this year?"
" I don't know. I've thought about it. I don't have any real ideas yet. You?"
"Hmm. It'd be a good day to go see a movie."
"Yeah. We could try that."
(Not very creative, but when in doubt, movies are the go-to entertainment)

A week later....
"What are we eating on Christmas?"
"I thought maybe a ham. A small one."
"Gotta have stuffing."
"With ham?"
"Sure! It's a holiday.Gotta have stuffing!"
"We could invite Henry and Cathy."
"Yeah, That would be good."

It sounds a little melancholy and in its own way it is. But it's not sad. Just different. And we knew it would be. I remembered back to the early days when it was just two of us waking up on Christmas morning; the excitement at watching each other open the gifts. Was this any different? That would be up to us.

And so the plans were slowly made, though none of those first ideas came to pass. Christmas morning followed the same pattern it always had but it was more intimate. And in the afternoon we drove to my nieces and had dinner with her family and my sister. That was the first time my sister and I have been together on Christmas since we were children!

The empty nest can seem a little lonely when you've devoted years to your children, their needs, the space they fill in your life. But it can also be a wonderful place where you get to reconnect with the one you married all those years ago, back when you couldn't take your eyes or your hands off each other. Remember that? ( I know. That was a long time ago. It can still happen. Just give it a chance.) It's a great time to re-create some of that old magic and make some new traditions.

My wisdom doesn't come from my own experience. It comes from watching my own parents go through this stage. Their example of adapting and finding joy in new ways of doing things, taught me to just let it happen, and and see how it plays out.

Christmas turned out to be different, but quite lovely! No, there were no little ones tearing the wrapping paper off. The chaos was lacking. But we enjoyed it just the same. Instead, there were phone calls, cell phone pictures and videos. And we saw the Florida gang a few days later. So I got my kid fix. All was well.

I haven't blogged since our trip to Iowa in November. I had writer's block. Now, I realize, I was just watching December play out. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I wasn't going to make it harder than it needed to be.

See how well I learned my lesson?