The Dull Empty

 

With our youngest launched off to college this fall, we are officially empty nesters. When I have mentioned this in conversation with various people, the usual response I get is, “wow, aren’t you lucky! Sell the house now before they return!”

I don’t get it. That is anything but how I feel and if anything, it’s the opposite. Don’t get me wrong – there are a multitude of small things that don’t raise my ire anymore, like tripping over the pile of shoes in the entryway, or the trail of backpacks, school work, dirty socks and hoodies leading from the front door to the pantry, or the front driveway that has looked at times like a used car lot. But, the truth of it is that all these things are indications of what I cherish deeply – the company of my children.

And while I have been anticipating our youngest’s departure with excitement for him in his new journey, I have also recognized that I have been grieving for this transition; fearing the moment when the house will go unawakened in the morning, no longer jolted awake by blaring alarm clocks, squawking radios, and whining blow dryers.

Gathering dust and bed sheets that go undisturbed now mark the time until their return during the holidays. Until then, I am left to my own thoughts about what I was, and was not as a father, and the inevitable dull empty of not being able to do anything more than to ask their forgiveness and remind them that one day they will ask for forgiveness from their own kids.

For what they will be as a parents, and not.

Nine Twenty Four Fourteen

 

Am I standing too still,

or moving too fast

to capture the moments that speed past me?

Today is our 26th wedding anniversary, and I am deeply thankful for my wife and the relationship we have forged between us. Forged is such a perfect word, because forging is an outcome of heat and pressure – very relevant to our experience. As I steep in the satisfaction of the day, I am painfully aware of how much work our marriage has been for both of us. It causes me to wonder, is it this much work for everyone’s marriage? Or have I just complicated things because I have never been satisfied with status quo? Honey, you should have married a librarian…

Life stands between will, and willing

Frozen by the questions

of what matters,

and what makes a difference

Our marriage is like a film, spliced from a million fragmented moments of hardware store errands, poopy diapers, exhausted intimacy, choir concerts, teacher conferences, football games, track meets, camping among the Redwoods, laughing, crying, boredom, and regret for hurtful things that cannot be unsaid. Like Michelangelo and marble, I have mastered the art of apology.

Suddenly the simple seems complex,

and the complex incomprehensible.

The more I see my life from the perspective of the observer, the more I recognize it is of my doing, and it scares me. What and who I am is manifested of all that I believe myself to be, or not. And that frightens me more than it encourages. I fear that as I grow older, my non-beliefs outweigh my beliefs and suddenly Don Quixote’s quest doesn’t seem like such folly.

Rain returned today, soon turning golden grass green

And to peel paint on neglected railings on this monstrosity 

of a thirty something’s ego.

Turkey Loaf

Chapter 7 of The Underage Traveler – It is fascinating what is remembered and what is forgotten. In fact checking with my sister, I realize that I had conveniently forgotten critical details in how things went down in the family. Or perhaps, we are both correct and the only thing that matters is our version of truth. Because in the end, that is what we face. Our truth. No one else’s.

The Underage Traveler – Chapter 7_Turkey Loaf

It Just Is

I have this habit of wanting clear explanations for things when they don’t work out. The problem with that mindset is that often times there are no explanations.

It just is.

And that is the hardest reality for me to accept because it reminds me that I have little control over what happens to me. Or to those I love and care about. Or to anyone for that matter.

It just is.

Tolkien knew this well:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Oh, that I could have this perspective in the moment. No, rather, I allow myself to be drawn into the drama of not seeing things for as they are, but wishing they were otherwise, tantrums and all.

And it gets worse.

When the reality of the situation is exacerbated by my reaction to it. Like icing on the cake. Perhaps this is God’s way of showing me the old self I must learn to leave behind before I am finished here. The little me.

Until then, I am tethered to him like conjoined twins. Where he goes, I go. Where I go, he goes.

What a lovely pair we make.