We're past the halfway mark in January, but Christmas break just ended yesterday for me. My oldest daughter loaded up her car to return to college, and I'm slowly moving all my stuff back into her bedroom/my office. It's a bittersweet endeavor that symbolizes the emotional adventure of sending and receiving college-age children ... in my house, out of my house, in my house, and back out again. Over and over.
Have I mentioned that transitions are hard for me? I really have to work at them. And yet my family is in a perpetual state of transition, with no end in sight for the next decade. OK, God, I'm in. Teach me and grow through all of these changes.
One of our family's transitions snuck up on me over Thanksgiving break. The six of us met up in San Antonio to do something different, explore a new city, and eat great Mexican food. While I knew I was going to learn more about the Alamo and fresh salsa, what I didn't expect to learn was how our family dynamics have changed.
Kevin and I have always been the hub of our family. We made the plans. We set the schedule. We did the driving. We made the food. We led the discussions. We did the instructing. We solved the problems. We negotiated the peace. (That last one felt like a full-time job sometimes.) Our kids' schedules and interests drove the majority of our decisions, plans, and conversations, but everyone knew Mom and Dad were the hub.
Beginning with San Antonio and then while having everyone home over Christmas break, I'm realizing that Kevin and I have moved to the periphery. The hub is now this bursting-with-energy force arising out of two young adults and two teenagers. The hub is loud, raucous, and a little disorderly. It's unpredictable. It's laughing, singing, whistling, teasing, pushing, wrestling. It stays up into the early-morning hours and eats at odd times of day. And the two 50-somethings on the periphery of it all just pay the bills and try to keep up.
This is an astounding, tremendous thing! It seems to me that this is the way it should be. We parents want to work ourselves out of a job. We don't want to spend our entire lives holding everything together. We want our kids to hold themselves, and each other, together. We want them to choose to be friends, and we've got to step out of the way a bit to allow that to happen. We want our families to grow and evolve in the best possible ways, and it seems to me that the best way for that to happen is for Kevin and me to settle into our new place on the periphery and enjoy the ride.
I'm not ready to be old and boring. I don't want to be the old lady in the flowered dress who no one wants to sit next to at Christmas dinner because she can't follow the conversation. As long as my mind is intact, I will work to stay as relevant, clued in, and connected as I can. I hope my grown children will continue to seek my advice and counsel, be it on God, life, or the difference between a hyphen and an en-dash.
But I don't need to be the hub anymore. I'm happy to relinquish the hub. Someone else can pack the sandwiches and start the conversations. (Even if it's all about memes and I'm still not totally sure why memes exist.) I am happy to sit back and marvel at how these four fascinating human beings feed off each other's energy, creativity, and wit in the best possible ways.
(Well, until it goes south and someone ends up with claw marks on their arm, which also happened over Christmas break. Turns out there's still some negotiating the peace to do from the periphery.)
