A Pinch to Grow On...

I have been a little neglecting of my poor ol' blog. I thought with all the excitement in my house next week with company coming (YAY) and my daughter graduating (BOO) that I better get this updated in the next few days or I may not have a chance for a while.

Saturday, May 21, I will be celebrating my 43rd birthday. When I turned 40 I was okay, 41 stung a little because that made me "in" in my forty's, 42 was okay...43 seems to be kicking my butt a little. Maybe it has little to do with the birthday, actually, and just the things going on around me right now. I decided no candles on the cake this year, no wishes. Maybe the time has come to outgrow the birthday wishes...I don't know. Maybe I will bring it back next year. I don't know. Maybe because my dad is gone. Maybe there is a little guilt involved in having a birthday knowing he had his last one. Maybe it is the fact that he wont be calling me singing to me. Maybe it is because he wont be trying to put me over his knee to give me a swat for every year and a pinch to grow on. Maybe it is because a week later my baby girl will be graduating high school and then going off to college. Who knows...maybe it is just a little bit of everything.

I just had a memory of my dad I would like to share. I mentioned a "pinch to grow on." My daddy lost his right thumb when I was a year old. He lost it in a drilling accident; from my childhood, I recall that he lost it in an "elevator" but not THAT kind of an elevator! I learned that years and years after sweating and having panic attacks in those kinds of elevators! I still guard my thumbs in any elevators; you can never be too careful! Anyway, back to my memory. My daddy would come up and "try" to pinch my arm or my butt or whatever and claim that he could not pinch because he had no thumb. Then, I, like a complete idiot, would get comfortable with his pinching action around my skin until....BAM...I would get the holy crap pinched out of me. He would smile, giggle just a bit, and say that apparently he COULD pinch without a thumb. That is the kind my guy my daddy was, always joking around and always going for the cheap shot. However, according to him, I would never be too big not to get my birthday spanking with the pinch to grow on. I miss you, Daddy...more than anyone could ever know.

I am in the midst of yet another knitting project without completely finishing the last one. I just can't get through the scarf for Natalie. I am bored with it, I guess. I have done yet another throw for my friend's birthday and started my own (it was time). I have this yarn to do a wrap of some sort; there was a particular pattern is wanted to do for a wrap for me, but I have come across a few more. I am thinking that all the women in life can probably expect one for Christmas! LOL! I also want to do a tote and I am dying to try my hand at socks. Now...if I can only find some time.

If you would just indulge me in a bit of self pity here... As I start this new chapter of an empty nester...I get really sad and teary eyed and all I want to do is sleep. I have a dear cousin who has been trying to get me to prepare for this time, but I am not sure there is a way to prepare for having your last child, that baby of yours, leave the house. I thought I was ready. I did! I thought all was well. I thought I could certainly get past this...I thought wrong. I look in the mirror and I see this old woman staring back and wonder where my youth yet. Then, I look at my babies and realize exactly where it went. My son graduates college...yes COLLEGE, next year. My baby girl starts college this year. I wonder if I have done all I needed to do to prepare my daughter for that mean ol' world at there; then I look at my son and realize I probably didn't do too badly. As much as I would love both of my kids under my roof for the rest of my life, I realize that this is what I have been doing for the last 20+ years; I have been preparing my children to be adults. I have been preparing them to be self-reliant, happy, successful, loving, caring adults. I have been preparing them to go off and do the things that they need to do. I have been preparing them for their lives. The beginning of their life should in no way indicate the end of mine -- once I get this pounded in my head enough, I am sure I will be fine and be able to move forward. I think of the alternative where they don't go, they don't leave; as happy as that would make me, for a while anyway, I think of probably how sad in the long run it would make me. I think if my kids were not strong enough to leave my house, how that would indicate my failure as a parent. So...to all those naysayers who doubt my parenting abilities...I say, Bite Me. I may not have done it all perfect and I may have made a few more mistakes than I should have and I may wake occasionally with some regret of never doing this or that or whatever...but I wont hang my head in any shame, ever, about the way my children were raised. I hold my head up firmly with a little smile upon my lips knowing that my children are everything I ever wanted them to be. And both are well on their way in exceeding every possibility known to them.

Okay...that will be the last time I write about that. No more. I am looking forward and not behind now. Empty nest is no longer a bad word in my house. It is, merely, the beginning. The beginning of the rest of my life. Will you join me? Will you be part of my life? Can I always count on you to be there for me? With me? Thanks for always being there, even at those times I don't even know I want you there.

XOXO