Almost Grown
Navigating a mother’s heart when the kids start doing their own thing.
“We need to start thinking about Christmas,” my husband told me the other day.
“Christmas? My God, I’m just getting caught up from the summer. I cannot even begin to think about Christmas,” I told him.
Our lives are full over here - busy, fun, exciting, and very full. Coordinating six kids, plus their plus ones and ourselves, the dog, all of it - is a feat worthy of an Olympic champion.
I’m winning my gold medal in coordination over here.
The holidays can become an effort of herculean proportions, and to make it all happen, you need to begin that effort - apparently, in the middle of August.
But it feels weird - like stepping into Target in September to the din of holiday carols, weird - because who wants to think about Christmas in the hot and steamy days of summer?
Apparently, we do.
The first course of action is to ‘take a poll’ of what everyone is up for, wants to do, etc.
“How do you see the holiday playing out?” we ask each of them. “What do you think you’re up for?”
“I’m up for coming to NYC,” says one.
“Great,” we say. “What if we rented a house somewhere up here?”
“That would be fun,” says another. But it will have to be a few days after Christmas because she and her plus one are going to his parents this year for the actual Christmas day.
“Ok”, we say.
“How about Vermont,” we ask another child.
“What the fuck is in Vermont?” Being a native Floridian, she is confused.
“Maybe a dreamy, snowy Christmas?”
“Oh, okay,” she relents.
But then she hits us with the sting…
“You know, Dad’s been asking if we can spend Christmas with him this year…”
My heart stops because, WTF?
In all their years, and even the years after I divorced their father, my kids have never once not spent Christmas morning with me. It is something I can’t imagine and don’t want to fathom.
But I keep it cool because that’s what is required of mothers - to be insanely non-human in support of their kids no matter how much it hurts.
“Well, that’s okay,” I tell her. “What do you want to do?”
“I can’t imagine not being with you for Christmas,” she says.
I cannot imagine it either.
“You know, you’re getting married and soon you’ll be making your own plans that suit you and your husband, so I guess it’s time for us all to kinda get used to that. And it’s time for you to begin doing what is right for you around the holidays.”
It was a stellar moment of maturity for me. (Mom gets the gold!)
I know I am right and I know I gave the right answer - the best motherly answer - but I wonder how long I can hold up this facade.
The ache in my chest is palpable. This is causing me physical pain. And I don’t know if I can handle it, which is unexpected. I have always been the strong one. The one who does what’s best for the kids.
And I hope I can hold up my end of the bargain on this without slipping into a chasm of darkness.
This part is inevitable, of course. My youngest is 20 and it’s unlikely everyone is going to want to come home for the holidays—especially as they are establishing their own homes.
But how does a mother’s heart take it?
This transition in mothering feels brutal.
I’ve often said mothering after divorce feels like experiencing an empty nest about ten years too soon. But now that I have an actual empty nest it feels worse than I could have imagined sometimes, especially around the holidays. Or to be clearer, especially around the holidays when my kids might not be a part of them.
The newness feels like too much. I wasn’t expecting this.
I breathe in and try to let this reality sink in as I turn off the light and prepare for sleep.
Walter says in a whisper, ‘So, are you ok?’
“I think so,” - I tell him.
“Are you sure?”
I don’t know, and as I let the idea of all of this swim through my body, the tears flow a little.
It’s hard for me to cry.
I thought I was ready for this but I don’t think I am.
All the feels reading this. I found you on Sarah's introductions. This was so honest. xx
I'm not quite there yet, my oldest turns 16 this year.
I do still remember being the one who broke the family Christmas on my husband's side. We were the first ones married and the first ones with a baby.... AND the first ones to decide we wanted to set up our own Christmas morning traditions. It didn't go over well, but we all survived and now I could be only a handful of years from being on the receiving end of that conversation.