Too Much

And All. Maybe not ALL, but too much. These are the side trips of my life at the moment - little jaunts that make it challenging to "go with the flow"; things that must be either denied or dealt with on a daily basis. Husband lost job in May - in this economy - in a depressed California County. Said depressed California County is covered in smoke and has been since the beginning of June. Some days the air rates hazardous. Hazardous air that can't be exercised in. I have already expressed how it feels to have the baby girl out of the nest, however, I haven't conveyed that there is still so much of her "stuff" in the house and in particular her bedroom. There is layer upon layer in her room with nary a 4 inch square of carpet cleared. It is like a land mine. She told me not to worry about it, just put it in her room, as if that room was a permanent piece of real estate that would be enshrined in her memory forever. Hello? May I be excited about her leaving so that I can invade her room, conquer it and call it my new sewing/quilting room and make a nice nest for guests. Ummm...hmmm., who pays the mortgage, - oh hell, yes, that would be me and I can be referred to in the near future, I hope, as Atila the Mum.

I feel one of the great disservices that I did for my child was to allow way too much stuff, things, plastic, souvenirs, silly collections, etc., to come into our house and in particular into her life. For instance - Beanie Babies. Need I say more? Of course there was a great rush to invest in the BBs in order to procure a college fund investment plan via BB's value. Okay - do you know of anyone who actually made money collecting BB's? I don't. I have a rich, Republican sister who purchased lovely lawyer glass front covered book shelves in order to display her Beanie Babies. Bless China's little heart! And what about all of the toys that go with happy meals? Or should I say come with Happy Meals? Toys that come and stay and never leave without major effort. So the empty nest is full of the dreggs of a childhood in America. Too Much!

So Empty...

I had no idea that having my one and only child leave home could feel anything like this. I am not even a very good mother. I was never one to have prepared, healthy meals for my child on a routine basis. In fact a favorite line when she would say she was hungry was "Didn't I feed you just yesterday?". This has been like an amputation because I keep thinking that my "little moi" is still right here but I know she is not. I can't move around in my world anymore without feeling crippled.

Since she has left home I have had the splendid remembrances that must be similar to the crying, ancient person's memory telling them they are still Daddy's little girl. Memories so real they have snapped into my present like some weird elastic inchworm whose back legs have just hit up against the front legs, bringing with them what was. I remember lying on my bed in Hawaii and feeling her forming body in my belly and it was real. REAL. So strange to feel. Little bumps and protrusions moving underhand. My experience of this memory is as if it was yesterday afternoon.

I remember bringing her home from the hospital and wondering. Not even knowing what to wonder, but wondering nonetheless - a wandering wondering. Just a few days after we started our life together - her body outside of mine, I kept having the feeling of wanting to fling the bundle away. The bundle of this thing that must be schlepped! I can still feel how wrong and foreign it seemed that I had to carry this bundle around always. And this feeling in direct conflict with my commitment to wearing her in a baby sling as much as possible and providing nurturing contact.

It was an experience like many rights of passage for a female in my world. Dangling, bouncing, breasts that arise from wonderful, flat, secure flesh - feel so odd loosed upon our bodies and yet feel wrong snugged up in undergarments. A flow of menses let loose to stain our surroundings, to stain our clothing and leave a delta of bloody debris in our sacred space and yet to wear that peculiar object, the sanitary napkin, held in place by the odd belt with tortuous hardware - that also felt so wrong. My body becoming two bodies with such a strong, physical connection now cleaved by the departure of my girl. I know that it is the right thing to happen; it just feels so wrong.

Perhaps this is just my experience in this miraculous physical world. I have always felt as if it was all just a little to strange to trust completely and feel at one with. All of the extras. All of the extras that I have lined my nest(s) with. And now I have no fledgling in my nest and I am Raven of the Empty Nest. This is the only way I know to name the role at this time. How could I have missed out on having an inkling of what this would be like. I am so ill prepared. I look at other people whose children have flown and wonder how they can seem so happy and carefree. Childbirth was understandable and so reassuring to have that role of Mother thrust upon me with the bundle. But this me, this Raven of the Empty Nest - I don't know who she is...YET.