Blogging For Kicks

So, Christmas is over, everyone’s gone, and I’m left alone to think. Dangerous proposition, no matter how you look at it. But, here I am, just the same, and no one to share those thoughts with but you…..so here goes.

Three of my six kids made it home for Christmas. .500 is good in baseball, but not in Momland. See, that still leaves three others I haven’t - and won’t - have with me at Christmas for at least another year, and that’s simply unbearable. I’ll fess up here, since it’s just you and me: when everyone left I sat here and cried like a baby at the thought of being alone again. Pathetic or what?

I finally figured out that I spent two-thirds of my life with my kids. Forty out of sixty years…..that’s longer than most of you have been alive, probably, and certainly longer than most careers last. It’s all I know at this point, and now it’s gone. I need the hustle and bustle of my kids around me or I’m simply a useless lump, sitting here blubbering like an idiot. I guess it’s called depression, really, and I could go get some pills for it, but to tell the truth, it wouldn’t help. Nothing will help except to have my kids here, and that’s not going to happen. They’ve grown up and gone their own ways, and that’s what I raised them to do, after all.

Man, I should have known better, you know? I mean, had I known it would be like this, I’d have tried to cripple them emotionally, keep them tied to my apron strings for fear they’d never be able to do anything right without me. I see older ladies with sons or daughters always at their sides, never marrying, never moving on with their lives, and while it used to make me sad to think how much those kids were missing, it now makes me envious of the mothers. They’ll never wish there were someone there to talk to, and they’ll never have to make dinner for one. God, that’s the saddest thing of all, making just enough for yourself. It’s like wasted effort, you know?

So, anyway, here I sit, feeling sorry for myself, wanting more than anything to have all my kids move back home with me so I can hear the echo of their voices ringing through the house instead of just the thumpa-thumpity-thump of my own heart beating. I keep the TV on day and night now, just so I can hear something else, voices saying inane things that matter not a whit to me, but at least it’s noise. The quiet is deadly, you know?

Before you start thinking I’m a suicide waiting to happen, let me assure you I’m far too chicken to do anything like that. Nope, I just sit here crying my eyes out, waiting to hear their footsteps on the doorstep or their voices on the phone, and wish I’d taken more “me” time over the years, gotten my own life instead of working so hard to make sure their’s were full and as happy as I could make them. But had I done that, where would they be now? Would they be able to live their own lives and be happy doing it? Would they have gone out on their own, found their own niche, and built their own happiness around it? Or would one or more of them be following me around like my puppy dog, never becoming the person they are capable of being because of being bound to me? All things considered, I’m glad of the way I raised them, and I’m very proud of the person each has become, where they are in their lives. I just wish I could see them a little more often. Is that too much to ask?