'Tis the season...

Merry Christmas!

Today, by turns, I've had nostalgic mommy thoughts and forward thinking thoughts. My son turns fifteen tomorrow. He's almost grown up and beginning high school this year. Life is on the cusp of great change.

I've been a lucky Mom. Even though he has reached his mid-teen years where asserting independence is the norm, he's still quite fond of his old Mom. He still hugs me in public. He still says, "I love you, Mom" in public. So far, there's been a nice balance. He's drawing away and building his own life, friendships, and interests; but he still wants to have a foot in the inner family circle.

We have an odd little inner family circle; one Mom, one teenaged boy, two silly dogs, one very important cat, and, attached by a long invisible cord, one Dad. I've been fortunate there, too. While it took a while and a lot of adjustments for the Mom and Dad units to be able to carry on a conversation without fireworks exploding, we've finally managed to become co-operative parents again. Though we don't always agree, there is a united front and that makes raising a teenager so much easier. For my son, having both parents show up at social and school functions together has been an enormous source of comfort and security. It's the rare day that Dad's household is not in contact with our household. Somehow we've all managed in spite of the huge bumps in the road that we've all had to climb over. Sometimes those bumps looked more like brick walls, but, with time, they've come tumbling down.

So now, my son begins high school and both the Mom unit and Dad unit have taken a step back and uttered a simultaneous, "Whoa". Time marches on and it's suddenly clear that childhood ends. In four more years, he will be out the door and launched. More or less. We'll still be his personal bank and trust, but, mainly, he'll be his own man. That realization is a scary parenting moment.

One of our more amusing parental moments occurred last week as my son left for the week with his Dad. His birthday is tomorrow...Dad said, "If you'd like, I'll bring him back Saturday night so he can spend his birthday here." And I said, "No, it's okay, the whole family is going to be there. He'll have fun celebrating his birthday with them." He said, "Well, are you sure?" I said, "Yes, we have a birthday celebration planned for next Wednesday (Six Flags), so it's fine." He said, "Well, if you're sure you don't mind...."

Even a year ago, I'd never have imagined that conversation in my wildest dreams. There have been more conversations like that recently. The clock is ticking. We're both aware of it. Personal differences aside, we're perilously close to becoming parents to a full fledged adult. Sharing graciously suddenly seems to be the manifestly humane thing to do.

Watching my son grow up has been the greatest blessing in life and it's the one that will tear my heart out when he's ready to go out on his own. I've started thinking about the question "What's next?" When parenting is no longer my job...what next? The next couple of years are liable to be a little unsettled for me. Decisions to make while extracting every last ounce of joy in his remaining years at home.

Yesterday, I suddenly heard myself say out loud, "I wonder if I'll be too old to join the Peace Corps...." Doing what, I can't imagine. But, I guess, it's an indication that my mind is starting to work over the possibilities.

These are meditation rocks...informally, of course. They're on a beach about 3 miles from my house. People often sit on them and just stare out to sea. I've done that, too. I took this picture in June...it was a drizzly, foggy day and the sea had that stormy pewter color.

What's interesting about these rocks is that eleven years ago, they weren't visible. Then in the course of 3 months, we had Hurricane Bob and then the Halloween nor'easter (the one in the movie The Perfect Storm). The beach erosion after the nor'easter was unbelievable.

Where there had been no rocks, there was a 100 foot row of them, give or take. They were piled much taller than I am. They'd always been there, but had been covered with sand. It was a very disorienting sight...the entire landscape of the beach was changed. In some spots, there wasn't any beach left.

Now, eleven years later, the rocks are almost all covered with sand again and the wide expanses of beach have built back up. These are all that remain visible of that row of rocks.

Another of my sky pictures.
Out of 30 or so, only 3 came out well.
I'll post the other one soon.

Change

That's the one thing you can count on around here. I have started tinkering on this site and there's no telling when I might stop. I probably won't. Be prepared to see anything whenever you come to visit. 

It's raining fit to bust today, so there's no outside work to be done. My son is gone for the weekend and, in fact, called a while ago to see if I minded if he stayed at his Dad's and Step-Mom's house until Tuesday. Nope, I don't mind at all.

Although he did waver briefly..."I feel deprived," he said. "Why?" I asked. "Well," he said, "I'm having withdrawals. I'd like to come home and play my video games." I kindly pointed out that ditching his Dad for a video game is the last word in tacky. He laughed and agreed with me.

So...looks as if I've got a couple of bonus days to do whatever I want. Trouble is, I can't think of anything particularly pressing...although sitting down to read a book and watch a couple of movies doesn't sound too awfully bad.