Life in progress


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Milestones

Life’s milestones come in so many shapes and sizes. While many are like gigantic boulders others can seem like pebbles at first. But even a pebble can create a ripple.

Today my firstborn, my baby, who has somehow so quickly reached a height of almost six feet and eighteen years of age, moved out. A huge milestone for him and what I thought would be a smaller one for me.

But now I find myself thinking about how empty my house feels, even though my other two children are asleep in their beds. There’s no one to call down the laundry chute to say good-night to before I go to bed. I’ll turn off all the lights without worrying if he’ll trip over anything should he get up in the dark. The ripples have spread, just as my son has spread his wings and proverbially flown the coop. Just like that.


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Forty-something and still growing up

What is it about my life that at what should be my bed time I start acting like a teenager? I know damned well that I’m tired, and yet I refuse to do the sensible thing and go to bed.

I think that maybe it’s the quiet which lures me into wakefulness. When it’s quiet I can concentrate on writing. At night I don’t have to worry about the phone ringing to tell me someone has been misbehaving at school and can I please come and pick him up.  During the day I’m so worried that my creativity will be interrupted that I would rather procrastinate by playing Bejewelled than run the risk of starting and having to stop. Then there’s the fact that at night I can act like an adult: having a child who refuses to play silently by himself (and by that I mean if I don’t play with him he screams at me until I do – long story) is hardly conducive to sitting down to a peaceful cup of java and a pleasant read.  Oh, and wine of course. THAT I can enjoy a glass of after the kiddies are safely tucked away in bed.

After all, isn’t being a teenager all about wanting to grow up? Yeah, I’ll bitch about how tired I am in the morning…

Maybe I’m not really grown up after all.