Aging, Humor, Mommy Lessons, Raising Kids,

A Mom’s Pre-Empty Nest

I?m laying on my stomach. My head to the side as she applies the solution on my raised moles. I?m told this will force them to scab and fall off and in a few months my back will be beautiful and smooth.

As my head is pressed against the paper on the dermatologist chair, I gry. New word. I giggle and cry a little. ?Is this it for me? I?m trying to get a younger looking back?? I turn over and get dressed. Now I?m getting botox. I produce a severe underbite so that I can get Botox in my neck in just the right places. Again, I gry. “Is this it for me. I?m getting Botox in my neck so that my neck can look  three months younger?”  We move on, the needle goes deep. Deep under my cheekbones. They become lifted. You get it now. Is this it for me? I justify it, the higher the cheekbones, the closer to g-d?

I leave, pay, and make an appointment for  three months from then.  It?s a funny thing about the day. I go and get these things to look younger, yet it makes me feel older.

You see, at 46, I find I?m at a super strange time in my life. One kid in college, two in high school, yet I feel like an empty nester. The only thing that reminds me I?m not is when Julia, my almost 15 yr old says, ?What were you just eating? “Celery” I respond, ?I heard you,? she deadpans.

What are we to do at this stage? Save the past seven years, I have mainly been their mom. And like many of my friends, we say, now what? Our kids are home, but not. They need us, but for what? Food, transportation?maybe, money?always. Love and affection, ugh, ?you?re annoying me MOM!? It is a perfect time for us to really do our own thing. What is our thing? And is it too late to have one? I am motivated by those around me who decided to create a second act. A new author, a clothing rep, an entrepreneur. I created my own thing with my writing and styling. Yet why do I still feel pangs to do more. Be more?

I try to explain to my husband that while I enjoy this stage, I am scared of it as well. Because the focus is on me more. Moms rarely have that luxury of focusing on themselves, so we make excuses for why we can?t. Kids still need me.. they kind of don?t that much. My husband needs me, he does, but blow jobs buy a lot of time. My friends, my parents, they need me.

Truth is, we have the time to do everything, if the desire is there.

And honestly, no one else calls me old but myself, in the morning, when I look in the mirror. Or when I stare in the salon mirror on roots day. Or, at a hotel where I glare at 20yr olds who forgot to pull their bathing suit out of their ass.

 

 I know I will continue to gry over these dilemmas and I will continue to gry at the dermatologist.

 

But I?m also excited because I know I still have more of my own things to discover.

 

And it would be super weird if my life didn?t match my neck.

 

 

Tags: aging, empty nesters, moms, second acts in life,