Wait. I should have walked around naked.
My life is about to change. Again. PLUS: Cutie woven flats and tahini salad dressing.
Midlifers, it’s May.
This month has been looming large on my horizon for at least a year. So many plans and decisions have been made to accommodate two major events happening in the next 30 days for our family. By the end of this month, both of my sons will have officially entered new chapters of their lives.
Next weekend, we’ll all drive out to State College, PA for (hopefully) the last time to celebrate my youngest kid’s graduation. And then about 10 days later, we’ll travel to Europe to watch my other son, who’s 10 years older than his younger brother, get married.
As you can imagine, there have been a lot of logistics involved in coordinating the two major events. Airplane tickets. Car rentals. Hotel and Airbnb reservations. Setting up meals. Tour tickets. Outfits. The right shoes. Weight loss.
And then there’s been the part about how to navigate all that family time — another component I have invested a lot of time, attention and money into. Over the last few months, I’ve amped up therapy sessions, 12-step meetings and my prayer and meditation routines. I’m doing what I can to stay in my own lane and surrender any semblance of control I might think I have over family members. Of course, this might be challenging given that I’ve spent the last 30 years grooming everyone in the family to treat me like the kingpin. Like I’m the magic secret keeper of all the answers telling them what to do.
ONE DAY AT A TIME. (LOL)
So, it wasn’t until maybe earlier this week that I realized that my life was about to shift (again) as well. I, too, was about to experience a major life event.
In between the graduation and the wedding, I will go back to having a kid living at home with me full time. Sure, my son has spent summers here and holiday breaks, but that always felt so temporary. We’d get into our routine of eating dinner together and watching our “show” of the moment (a far better way to start conversations than sitting at a table staring at each other), and before I knew it, he’d be packing up his PC to head back to college.
I haven’t had a kid living full-time with me since Pandemic Times, when all four kids came home to ride things out and that was so life-changing, I wrote a whole book about it. Eventually, it was just the youngest two kids left and then my daughter moved out to Philly and my son went to college leaving me and our Goldendoodle behind to sort through it all (really me, not the dog).
After feeling suffocated for so long by my children for different reasons (mostly because I pulled them on top of me like a safety blanket-slash-buffer), it’s been a weird adjustment to living alone the last four years. Mostly, it’s allowed me to clear the decks of a lot of the external distractions that sucked up so much of my energy when the kids were my main focus and finally look inside myself.
Guys, there’s a whole world in there. It’s like my very own internal Diagon Alley (not sure what that is? see above), teeming with life.
What do I want my life to look like? What behavior is acceptable? How do I feel? How do I make other people feel? Do I even like myself, much less love myself?
I think you could bucket a bunch of those under “emotional sobriety,” and is it a coincidence that it has (started to) come after 4.5 years of not drinking and recovery work? We think not (*wink*). That has been the secret for me to get behind that brick wall and start discovering the crooked alleyways inside me.
While making my current favorite dinner the other night after work — roasted cauliflower, two over-easy eggs, crunchy chili oil (or Everything but bagel seasoning) — I realized that my weird dinner routine might be coming to an end. For now. I thought about it at Wegman’s this weekend watching the items from my basket move down the conveyor belt — the RX protein bars, bags of brussels sprouts and almond milk. Pretty soon, I’ll be shopping for two again, keeping my eye out for bags of clementines and gallons of whole milk that I know my son likes. Luckily, he also likes eating like an almond mom, so is happy with healthy dinners. And unlike his siblings, he really has no expectations from me around the type of service he requires, which is good but also kind of sad.
I met girlfriends for a late-afternoon catch up on Saturday. They are some of my “Little Moms,” mothers of kids my youngest son grew up and went to school with. They’re also fellow single moms and having their own experiences of remarriages, blended families and complicated second divorces. I’d gone out to dinner the night before with two other friends who also have corporate jobs and we all agreed it was nice to be with friends who “get it.” The same is true of my fellow single moms, another whole side of me that needs to be seen.
We sat on stools at the bar eating salads and me sipping my club-soda-no-ice and catching up on our lives and all of our pending college graduation events. How we’re navigating other kids and exes — all the logistics — so that our graduates feel loved and celebrated.
I told them how I only just realized that it was my last weekend home solo and that I felt like I had somehow squandered all that alone time.
I speared a chunk of beet on my plate and said, “I never took advantage of, like, walking around naked.”
“That should be the headline for your newsletter this week,” my fellow writer friend laughed.
And now it is.
Trendy footwear that won’t break the bank
This week, I’ve really leaned into cute woven flats I picked up in early spring at Target. Since then, I’ve noticed much pricier versions (Margaux and Loeffler Randall) that are super cute but also — I don’t know if they’re something I’ll be wearing in two years. Or even next year? I’m sure there’s a huge difference in quality and comfort but to go to work or out to meet girlfriends for dinner, the Target version is perfect. I also love, and have worn a bunch, this iteration.
The codependent in me NEEDS to share
Let’s just get it out of the way and I’ll answer a big YES to the question above. I listened to this episode and the follow up, “Save Your Life By Letting Go (of Codependency),” while pulling all my summer stuff out of the crawl space last weekend and identified with SO MUCH. I thought about all the friends and family members I was going to share with until I was once again reminded during the podcast by laughing hosts and guest how codependent that thinking was. GAH. Once again: One day at a time. Also, sorry to the one daughter who I sent it to (although I acknowledged in my text I was being codependent).
The dressing I make on repeat
For maybe the third (fourth?) week in a row, I whipped up this tahini/vinegar dressing for salads this week and as always, it is delish.
Thanks for stopping by
As always, I am so grateful that you took time out of your day to click over here and read this post. Because the Substack gods are always watching (lol), it would also mean so much if you clicked the heart under here or even said “hi” in the comments. And if you’re feeling crazy, consider subscribing to The Midlife Diaries or (here’s the upsell) investing in an annual subscription.
Here’s Substack asking for all our blood.
Love you guys and see you Friday!
xoAmy
club-soda-no-ice Is going to be my new favorite request! Walk around naked NOW. lol. You still have time to get it in. Favorite read of the week, as always!
Wow 🤯 on the Instagram post; makes me think about how fast time is going