Shiver Me Timbers!

Mollie writes:

Maggie, Millie and May all have busy lives. For heaven's sake (literally!) Maggie is raising and home schooling four kids, including a little person who is still hooked up to Mommy for food. Millie has been raising six kids (and doing marvelously, I might add), and May is just starting out on the marriage track, complete with a house, two cats, a dog, full time work, and in the future, little folks of her own.

This diva's work is at a standstill. I no longer work outside the home, my kids are raised, grandkids are still a twinkle in my eyes - and we now have a smaller home. You'd think I could just dash off stuff for this blog left and write with all this time on my hands.

It ain't so.

What if someone gave you the gift of being able to eat anything you want and never gain weight? What if you won the $300,000,000. lottery? What if you could read any darn book you wanted, for as long as you wanted, in your jammies at 11:30 am?

I am rapidly turning into the lazy princess of my nightmares. I get up at 7:30 am and the next thing you know, I'm brewing myself a cafe mocha, watching CNN news and debating whether or not I'm going to plant bulbs, weed, write, read, go work on the sailboat with my husband, or maybe just spend the day doing nuttin'.

Or I could get my nails done. It's a possibility.

Well, I am already chubby and I haven't won the lottery yet, but that third scenario is definitely here. For the last six years, we've been living on Kidney Island and I've been reading, cooking, gardening, sewing, watching television and just generally having a lot of time for myself. When Millie and I started this blog, I figured I could write an entry a day, no problemo. But at some point my brain was divested of any relevant wisdom (meaning no kids, no comment) and I'm left with great memories, great adult kids, great husband, and a garden to die for.

Millie and Maggie and May STEAL time from their schedules to write. Moi, I just dither the day away. It's almost pathetic, except that the garden is flourishing (except for that clematis armandii that died during the last snow/wind storm). I've made every souffle I've ever wanted to make, I've made all my curtains and ruffles, dagnabbit, and if there's another non-fiction book on the European Theater during WWII, I'll buy it and read it ASAP.

So, I should write more often, I think, except that sometimes I feel like my years as a mom are irrelevant. When the boys were small - of course we had issues. We had prematurity, seizures, MS, you name it. But we got through it.

If I write anything relevant these days, it won't be about the active process of parenting. I'm coming to accept this. But I'm planning on writing more about what a woman does when the last diaper is washed, the last graduation celebrated, the last kid walks down the aisle, and the first kid produces grandkids.

From time to time, I'll sound smug, desperate, euphoric, frustrated, angry, amazed, stunned, amazed and incredibly irrelevant. But that's the good news. If parenting goes well, that's the daily status quo for any actively mothering person. I'll probably write more about sewage and less about projectile pooping, but that's relevant for my stage of life.

Here's to hoping that you all will get to this period of your lives. And if I dither, wither, or quiver, it's because I'm at that point in my life.

Cheers!