After the last kid grows up and flies down the road to chart his or her own path, get ready for a new adventure: you have more time, the house is quiet, and you don’t to hide your favorite ice cream behind the frozen ham hocks anymore. But, what should you do now? Here are some excerpts from my article “Empty Nest” to be published next month in Going Bonkers Magazine.”In hindsight, I was totally unprepared for the truth. I will live without my children much longer than I lived with them. That’s a difficult reality after submerging twenty years of my life into the responsibilities, joys, and frustrations of raising kids. Now that they’re happy, productive adults, I can look back at those years as a brief, marvelous moment in time when I had the privilege to be their mother. If you’re in the same precarious predicament, here are some suggestions to cope with the empty nest syndrome.1. Remember the Song “Cat’s in the Cradle”. Yes, the lyrics from the song by Harry Chapin are true. We’re so busy when our children are young that we forget that they’ll be grown up and gone in the blink of an eye. Take time to savor the years with your children. Besides, you need to keep a good relationship with your kids because you’ll need their assistance when you’re old and feeble.2. Prepare for Parting. If your child is getting ready to leave for college, plan for a family vacation or adventure before he or she leaves home. Celebrate the future and provide encouragement because your child may be just as apprehensive as you are. However, don’t feel too bad if he or she runs out the door shouting “Alleluia”. That just means you’ve given them some powerful and positive wings to fly.3. Give Them the True Gifts. Your children should leave home with the ability to survive. They need to know how to do laundry, balance a checkbook, cook a meal, and get a job. They also need to know that they always will be welcomed home any time with open arms, a clean bed, and a warm meal waiting for them.4. Reorganize your Life. It’s all different now and will never be the same. You need to assess your personal transition from primary caregiver to part-time peer. Your children want you to be happy, and they don’t need any guilt trips on their journey to independence. You can have the same feeling of freedom that they have if you’re willing to explore your own potential.5. Don’t Start “Pre-Grieving”. There is an online web site that actually has links to regular blogs for people who are “pre-grieving.” Even though their children are still at home, the parents already have begun to lament the time when they kids will leave home. With all due respect, it’s time to get a grip and a life.6. Relish Your Relationships. If you’re married, you now have an opportunity to rekindle the dormant passion that was put on the back burner while you dedicated your time to raising children. You may have to dig out the old photos, songs, and costumes to remind you of a friskier time. If you’re single, find some groups that cater to single men and women. You don’t have to rush into a serious relationship, but it’s nice to have a friend to share dinner and a movie.7. It’s Time for Self-Discovery. Your young adult children are out finding themselves, so maybe you can do the same. Have you always wanted to write? Or experiment with interior decorating? Or learn Spanish? Or take a computer class or a cooking class? Now is the time. Make a list of things you want to do and then design a plan for how you’re going to do them.8. Volunteer to Fill the Void. You may be lonely, but there are other people in your community who also have problems. Find a charity or organization that needs dedicated volunteers. You’ll feel better and productive when you help someone else in need.9. Schedule Appointments for Yourself. It’s easy to avoid doing activities unless you make a detailed schedule. Get a central calendar and make appointments that you intend to keep.10. Take Time to Travel. Look on the bright side. If you want to take a trip, you don’t have to have a NASA-type command center to organize a family excursion. Just throw a few things in a backpack and take off. And you won’t have to hear the incessant whine of “Are we there yet?” 9. Search the Internet for trips to take by yourself or with your significant other.11. Reconnect with Friends. Remember your best friend from college? Now is the time to find her and make plans to get together again. If she had children the same time you did, she’s probably wallowing around in her own empty nest. Call her and find out how she’s doing.12. Join a Club. Check your local newspaper for a list of clubs and associations in your area. You could join a gardening club, a book club, a scrapbooking group, a bird watching club, or a writing group. Find an association that relates to your career field. It’s a great way to keep the brain working.13. Focus on Fitness. Now that you don’t have to get up to make breakfast or lunches for the kids, take the time to concentrate on your physical health. Join a gym or participate in some exercise programs on television. As you age, you could experience problems with weight gain, lack of energy, and other physical issues that can be improved with regular exercise, a healthy diet, and daily vitamins. After all, you need to live long enough to see how your grandkids deal with their own empty nest.14. Anticipate Health Issues. Admit that you’re never going to relive your cheerleading days. Soon you’ll be lucky to participate in the tap dance group down at the senior citizens center. And menopause is just waiting to attack your senses and sanity. Be prepared.15. Baby your Brain. It’s time to concentrate on concentration. Keep your brain alert and active by doing word games and crossword puzzles. Watch documentaries instead of soap operas. Research ways to challenge your cognitive abilities and to keep your wits about you. If you become too forgetful, invest in sticky notes. They’re invaluable.16. Read More Books. When you kids were home, you were lucky to sneak time to read a chapter of a book. Now you can make a pot of tea, prepare a plate of goodies, and curl up with a good book with no fear of interruption. That’s a luxury, indeed.17. Get Political. Are you worried about the chaos in government? Now you have time to get involved in politics, campaign for a favorite candidate, or even run for office. Why not?Remodel the House. Your children have moved out, so you have every right to turn their bedrooms into a delightful guest room, or a creative hobby room, or a home office. Give them advance notice to pack up their treasures or you’ll put everything in boxes in the garage. It will be like having a new home.18. Go Back to School. Are you interested in completing your degree? Or in learning a new profession? Consult the catalogs for your local community college or university. Also, there are many online courses available. If you just want to expand your knowledge, consider taking classes for no credit.19. Relate to the Relatives. Now you have time to care for aging parents or to visit other relatives that you didn’t see when your children were small. Reconnect with family and plant some seeds to strengthen the family tree.20. Keep the Music Playing. Join a choir. Take dance lessons. Learn to play piano. Sing in the shower. It’s great for your attitude.21. Get Cultured. Search for events at museums, libraries, and concert halls. Get the best tickets you can afford, wear a new dress, and expect to be enlightened.22. Anticipate the Reality of Grown Children. Don’t fret if your adult children don’t call regularly. They’re busy with their lives and that doesn’t mean they don’t love you. It just means they’re busy. Even though your relationship will be different from now on, your love remains just as strong as ever.23. Keep in Contact with Your Children. Emails and pay-as-you-go mobile phone vouchers are efficient ways to communicate with your kids. Schedule regular telephone calls and send letters. For college students, a care package from home is always welcome. Include the hometown newspaper or some photos. Learn how to take and download digital photographs to share.24. Children are Human, too. Your young adults will probably make some mistakes, just like you did. They may struggle as they find their way, just like you did. Let them know you love them and are proud of them. They need to know that.25. Consider Retail Therapy. Remember when you had to struggle with strollers, noisy children, and demanding teens every time you went shopping? Now you can meander through the mall for hours without distraction and then improve your outlook with some rambling retail therapy.”
Midlife Cabernet: How to Find Sweet Love after a Sour Divorce
When I was invited to a New Year’s Eve party several years ago, I did what any 45-year-old divorced woman would do. I rented a costume complete with velvet gown, a jeweled crown, and an ornate scepter and went as “The Queen of Everything.” There was that awkward moment at midnight when couples were kissing and I dug into the artichoke dip with a vengeance, but otherwise if was a grand celebration of independence and a fresh beginning.
I’m not advocating divorce, but it happens. At the time, my priorities then were to take care of my children and myself. Dating was not a priority, mainly because I was too busy learning how to climb a ladder and clean out the rain gutters, manage household finances, complete my job as associate editor of The Boise Magazine, and monitor my teenage son’s parties in the basement.
Several years later, my friends invited me to dinner with one their divorced friends who was visiting from Texas. It was love at first bite, and we were holding hands by dessert. Eighteen months after sharing that first taste of the future we were married on the Greek island of Paros. We enjoyed an Ancient Greek ceremony complete with a little one-eyed musician who played an instrument made from a goat bladder. The following New Year’s Eve I truly felt like royalty as we celebrated the present and future. At our age, we won’t have fifty years together, but we’ll have a splendid, passionate time with the years we do have.
Here are some tips for finding love after divorce at midlife:
1. Don’t look for it. I had no intention of falling in love with my dinner partner. I just wanted a good meal, but ended up with extra dessert.
2. Stay healthy and exercise regularly. You don’t want a middle-aged partner who is a lazy, smelly slob so don’t be one either.
3. Keep busy. Find activities you enjoy and groups that appreciate your talents. Hang out with positive people and avoid crabby people at pity parties.
4. Don’t settle. Make a list of your non-negotiable requirements in a partner. Include politics, religion, money management, in-laws, and if they sleep with their pets. The less critical issues, such as chores and hobbies, can be mitigated if your prospective lover has a delightful sense of humor. (If many of us had made the list the first time, maybe the divorces could have been avoided.)
5. Wear sexy panties every day. No one else will see them, but you’ll feel like a woman who is comfortable in her own skin and refuses to be frumpy. Even though I’m a proud grandma, I still love silky, lacy underwear.
6. Believe in yourself. Maybe you won’t find true love for years but remember that a long marriage doesn’t necessarily mean success. Watch older couples together and you’ll see many who don’t communicate and others who look bitter. Choose to emulate the couples who still hold hands, make regular eye contact, and enjoy public displays of affection. Finally, as you should know by now, it’s okay to be independent all by yourself.
If you’re divorced, you realize something went wrong with your failed marriage. You can learn from the painful experience, get up again, adjust your crown, and take another chance on finding love. It could be waiting right there between the entree and the cheesecake.
Today’s blog was fueled by a 1997 Cakebread Cabernet – saved for this week’s anniversary celebration. Some delightful treats are well worth the wait. Happy Anniversary, Studley.
– See more at: http://www.test.elaineambrose.com/blog/midlife-cabernet-how-find-sweet-love-after-sour-divorce#sthash.LnuILoQl.dpuf
Today’s Cabernet
Oh, it must be a special day because today’s blog is fueled by a glass of 2005 Ferrari-Carano Cabernet Sauvignon from Alexander Valley. It’s about $40 a bottle, but you just have to find some reason to get this elegant wine so you can enjoy its classic flavors of black currant, cherry and anise.
Empty Nest – They Flew the Coop!
My latest published magazine article is titled “From Empty Nest to Fulfilled Life” and it will be in the next issue of Going Bonkers Magazine. For more information about the magazine, preview http://www.gbonkers.com/ I wrote the article after my two children grew up and left home. My daughter had moved to Maui, Hawaii after college graduation and was working three jobs in order to cover her expenses. My son had joined the Army and was serving as a Military Policeman in South Korea. My kids not only left the nest, they left the mainland! I was lucky to see them once or twice a year. I admonished myself for inspiring them to be so independent. While my friends lamented that their twenty-something children had moved back home or worse yet, had never left, I sulked with sadness at their great fortune. My children were several time zones away. What did I do wrong?You can find information to assist with your transition from full house to empty nest. Check online for relevant books and organizations. For additional online assistance, log onto http://www.emptynestsupport.com/ for articles, message boards, events, and services.
Today’s Cabernet
To celebrate the brilliant choice of Sarah Palin for a vice president candidate, tonight I will open a bottle of 2004 Merryvale Profile from Napa Valley. I’ve saved this $100 bottle for a special occasion – and this is it! This incredible wine is a blend of Cabernet Sauvigon, Petit Verdot, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc. Here’s to a dynamic blend of competent women everywhere!
Midlife Cabernet: It’s Time to Pack the Swim Suit and Order Pizza
We survived another swim suit season without accidentally pushing some bikini-clad beauty into the deep end. Hooray for us! After all these years, most middle-aged marvels have finally outgrown the suit and the trepidation about wearing it in public. Still, given the opportunity to lounge by a pool, some women would rather suffer acute diarrhea while driving through rush hour traffic in an old van full of screaming toddlers and surly teenagers. Mature liberation takes time.
After years of wasted angst and black cover-ups, I’ve discovered a handy technique for dealing with the intimidating scenarios of the lifelong swim suit competition: Laugh out loud. With gusto.
Pretty people at posh pools don’t laugh. They grimace with exaggerated aloofness while dangling perfectly pedicured toes into the water and signaling for the dutiful wait staff to bring another cold beverage with an extra twist of organic lemon. If you pull the short straw and find yourself surrounded by such characters, just begin to giggle and then graduate into a boisterous guffaw until your reach hysterical laughter. Either they will join the fun or leave, so it’s a win-win situation.
Last week my husband and I celebrated our anniversary at a resort in Napa Valley. After a devoted day of tasting copious quantities of Cabernet, we donned our respectable suits and sauntered to the adult pool. The last two empty chairs were wedged next to a gathering of young models whose fatless bodies were covered with only two inches of material. My husband tried in vain to hide his approval. The only men for me to appreciate were old guys with their trophy women or the hairy-backed Europeans in Speedos.
To survive such an assault on self-confidence, here are some tips for how to survive the next swim suit season:
- Grab your sweetie, get into the pool, and swim, laugh, and hug each other. Peek at the shocked and jealous glamour girls whose skimpy suits have never been wet.
- Splash back to your chair, slather lotion over your well-seasoned body, order drinks, and laugh some more. It will drive others crazy.
- Appreciate your body – the wrinkled eyes that have seen a lifetime of experiences, the wider hips that have carried strong babies, the age-spotted hands that have dried tears and prayed for peace, and the soft lap that has rocked precious grandchildren.
- Pull your sweetheart close, tousle his gray hair, and whisper a silly joke. Then laugh together until you snort.
- Repeat 1 through 4.
The undisputable fact about growing older is that it happens or else we die young. Given those choices, I’ll take the unknown opportunities of another year. I’ll complete regular maintenance checkups, exercise, eat well, and laugh with intention. And I’ll toast the memory of friends and relatives who didn’t have the chance to live another season.
It’s time to put away the swimsuits, sandals, and silly insecurities, and bring out the comfortable sweaters and jeans. Then order pizza and beer for dinner, and there could be donuts for breakfast. After all, you have several months to prepare for next summer.
Today’s blog is fueled by a 2009 Paradiso red wine from V. Sattui Winery in Napa Valley. The wine is bold and vibrant, as any middle-aged woman should be. The winery’s delicious wines are only available on location or from web site orders – www.vsattui.com.
