I've been looking inside myself at my feelings recently. Made easy by going down to spend two nights with my eldest son. Been talking about my future and why it is alternately exciting and horrifying.
As it happens it doesn't matter which it is at the moment, as no-one is coming to look at my house. I'm not taking it personally, none are selling round here at the moment. There was a flurry in the summer and now nothing. But that is okay as everyone needs to get Christmas dealt with first.
It felt however important to deal with me though so that I'm as prepared and happy with my choices when there is other choice.
The excitement is easy to understand, a new start, the seaside, new friends to make locally, a whole new area to explore. And not forgetting the friends I already have down there who are so important to me.
So I dream of going to places and doing things. One of the first on my list is a place called Appledore. It was where the Golden Hind was built, Sir Francis Drake's ship. And I have always loved the name of the place. Even if it isn't as wonderful as my imagination, it won't matter. It will just be a place to tick off on my list of places to have seen before I die.
As I've said so many times before, I can't wait to have my friends to pop and have coffee with, not something I have any longer round here.
Now, I know that moving to Devon I will find it no doubt just as insular and parochial, as I find living round here. But it's taken me years here to work that out,and by the time I really know that about Devon I'll be too old to care!
I am a very friendly person so meeting new people will not be a problem. Nor I hope will be getting some work.
So all that is good, so what's bad?
Well it's leaving here. Not because I have a job,I've had it for 16 years and it is time for a change anyway. It will be tough letting go of the stuff I'm involved with at school. As I so enjoy that.
The real big reason is, I'm smashing the family home. Now my sons are men and are more or less making their own way in life. So in one way wherever they are is their home. But there is always the security of being able to come home if they need.
Home for them will always be where I am, the thing that scares me is although I will live in a new house with all the things they have grown up with, it won't be the place they have called home for the last 13 years.
There will be no memories of life having gone there before. The room that they will stay in when they visit won't be their rooms, they will be guest rooms. Now I don't think that for one minute that will stop them coming to me, especially at Christmas till they have their own families. I will also have the attraction of being near the sea, something I couldn't get much further away from in the part of the UK.
I talked all this over with Kit, and it was the first time I had articulated what my fears were about. He didn't have any solutions,nor did he have any criticisms of what I want to do. He understands totally my need to make a new life for myself.
He agrees I need to do it. And although he is understanding, my guilt button is pushed as I think about what it means for my sons, for me to up sticks and start again.
That said the one thing I can't do is live my life vicariously through my sons. They are their own future. I am not. I am and hope always to be a safe place in times of crisis for them. But I did not have my sons to look after me in old age. I had them to let them go to be the men they are capable of being.
After all Mr Newton didn't discover gravity, his son Issac did! Mr Einstein didn't discover the theory of relativity, his son Albert did!
So I know that all I am doing is letting them go, same as any parent, but because I've not lead a conventional life, I'm not letting them go conventionally either!
But moving on I am, as soon as I am able, as I know now what has been holding me back.... my fear of change, nothing more or less. Same as everyone else. I just lead a bigger life so my change was bound to be different from the norm.
Thank goodness!!!
15 comments:
Very articulate and emotionally literate - which, coming from you, isn't exactly a surprise. You've also managed to make this very comforting reading, at least as far as I'm concerned.
Anyway, you're embarking on this journey with your eyes open, and good for you.
x
Hello there! I read this post ~ and I read it again and yet again! I also struggle with the letting go part of parenting. I've done it successfully with son #1 and son #3, but have found it more difficult with youngest child/only daughter who has my only grandchildren. I believe I will have Carl (who has special needs) with me as long as I am alive and from there, any of his siblings will welcome him gladly. He can take his pick ........
I have loved visiting your wonderful country and Devon has always been my favorite! So I am wishing you happy holidays and good luck in transitioning. Your sons will always seek you out, will always feel safe and secure when they are with you .. and they will adore you forever!
I guess it was slightly different for me and my brothers as our parents moved from Kent to Hampshire when we were all young adults. Mother now lives in her third home since moving down here. None of us have lived in the house she has been in for the last 11 years.
But the reason it was different is that whilst we were growing up we never lived in the same house for more than 5 years. So for us home is where our mother is together with all the familiar objects gathered throughout her life and ours.
I don't feel that her house is home but she is. To me I probably find being in her house surrounded by all the familiar things and of course her soft but business like personality are more a home to me than the house I have lived in for 12 years with my children.
I still have memories from all the various places we lived. But it is the people who make up our families who are important not the building they live in.
I am sure that although your sons will find it a little strange visiting you somewhere new they will just be glad to be with you.
Turning this around a little you have just visited Kit in his home, I am sure you enjoyed visiting him in his new home just because it is where he lives even though it is not the home he grew up in. It will be the same for them when they visit you in your new home once you get there.
You will manage just fine and so will they. The important thing is to do hat is right for you.
hugs as always
LiR
Lady in Red is spot on with her observations. A home is not bricks and mortar but the family living within the walls. I have moved 23 times and lived in 3 different Countries. Circumstances prevented me from feeling guilty about moving so often with my children, looking back Mandy they coped remarkably well and did not affect my children from becoming the adults they were destined to be. Home to your children will be wherever you are. Spring would be a perfect time for selling your house and making your move to Devon. What a wonderful future you have ahead. I'm sure it must feel quite daunting at times, but if anyone is capable of making this happen it's you Mandy. ♥Linda
Mandy,
I'm facing some of the same fears. Perhaps for me it's misplaced grief. While my dad is still alive I have a place to live - the only "home" I've known for the past 40+ years, because I've closed up and moved away from all the homes my kids and I lived in when they were growing up.
What's going to happen to this house when dad passes away is a question. Out of anger and defiance I really don't want live here. Even if I were to gut the inside and start over again, it would still carry some baggage, I think.
But my soft, little kid side, that is scared of living without my mommy and daddy can't imagine this house without all our stuff in it.
I've left many a home, thinking at the time my heart would break and never mend. I do have a giant zig, zaggy car in my heart but it remains in one piece.
And one last bit of advice. Don't think for a minute that your boys won't leave stuff at your house - old or new - that they can't bear to part with. And you'll no doubt tuck it into a dresser, or a chest at the foot of the bed. One day your grandchildren will look through it and you'll laugh and say, "when is your dad going to take this home with him?" but hold it up to your cheek, smell a mixture of childhood memories and mothballs and know you'll never let it go.
A couple of sayings by that great American Philosopher, Mary Englebreit:
"No matter where you go - there you are."
And, "Bloom where you are planted."
Leaving home--very scary.
But you're ready. You know the fear and you're moving past it. Change is .... change! Geeze, it happens every day in front of our noses and we miss it. No two days are the same, yaknow?
It's a good thing. And the visit with Kit--exactly what you needed. No doubt it was something needed by him as well.
Home is where you are.
You're what they'll go to, what they come to now.
((((( the byrdie )))))
You're graced. I know you know that, but I just had to say it. Graced--and it's awesome to watch from here. I'm so excited for all of you!
A new chapter in your life supported by a very open heart. The only place I ever called home was Tampa. It took me 40 years to find and admit it too. Now it is all scary again.
That's it my little Firebyrd! Spread your wings & Fly!
You are so fearless to the outside world. You hold yourself with such confidence and poise, it is often hard for me to read these words of fear here.
I pause and think, oh but she will just charge right thru it, working and sorting as she goes, because thats Byrd.
But I feel the little girl in your words, and see the trembling hand that wants to go, but oh that first step.
You are a marvel lady, one of the brightest and most humbling I know.
Thank you for sharing -baring your heart the way you do. It is a light to so many of us.
LOVE YOU lots!!!
Wherever you are, that's where home will be. My parents moved so many times, sometimes it was exciting with a new bedroom, sometimes it was scary but I didn't mind moving all that much.
In the end, they still kept the same furniture, my Mom still made the same food, still the same smells around the house. It wasn't the house that made a home, it was everything inside it.
It's your turn to live for you now and do what you want to do. :)
xx
Things will happen in due course. I think it's great that you have taken the stand of saying "I'm ready, and we'll take it from here".This is the beginning of the next phase Mandy. How exciting.Letting our family know that we are there for them, but not too much.Helping their independence as well as our own.There is something refreshing about new beginnings.It seems after Christmas there may be all kinds of possibilities ahead, and guess in many ways, you will be pleased to see the end of this year.You've faced many challenges admirably. xxx
Good for you! Change is great, it's often just taking that leap that is hard. The boys will always know where to find you, and that's the most important thing. Hugs from Africa for you x
these times of transition are always both exciting and scary and disorienting too!
I like your attitude to your sons, letting them go into the world to become the men they can be, that seems like the healthiest attitude a parent can take...
Awww, nicely and very emotionally said. Leaving home and moving somewhere else is surely not easy. But letting go is a part of life, we have to get used to it, no matter how hard it is. And maybe it will bring more positive things than you expect.
Elli
Change causes so many unknown knock on effects in everyone's lives it's no wonder it's terrifying. My parents moving close to me triggered my depression and could have destroyed all our relationships. A year later everyone has changed, patterns have changed, it has all been positive and necessary. Even all the pain involved. As we can't predict all the bad things that might come out of a change we also can't predict the good. But there will be many good things. And in my case even the bad have led to good. :) best to you x x
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