For me, when I cannot settle into myself, when there have been so many changes around me and I am not certain what to do, I often try to use food to calm me down. Sound at all familiar?!
Over the past few weeks I have been saying goodbye to our boys for the summer. The first goodbye was early June when the eldest left for a summer in Israel. Although he has not lived at home for years, he was at least always somewhere on this continent. Israel is a long way, and I am truly excited for him and the adventures that he will have working on a kibbutz.
The boys will meet up occasionally at camp.
A week later another son left. This one to work at a summer camp that he has been attending for the past 10 years. He is on this continent, but he will be in the bush and unavailable to us (10 hours away from home). Once again, I am excited for him. He has wanted to do this for a couple of years, and it will be his last summer at camp.
Graduation!
Last night was Middle School graduation for our youngest. He will leave in a few days, off to summer camp for a month. Once once again, I am excited for him. He loves camp, the outdoors, the social, the activities, and he will be 10 hours away.
I have known that this would happen – who doesn’t? Harriet Lerner in her book ” The Dance of Anger” awakened me to the notion that motherhood was a relationship, not a career. That perspective just socked me, even back then. From that moment I wanted to find something that was a career so that I would not be a mother who was dependent upon her children to fill her life.
Well Harriet Lerner, I never was a career woman. I love the work that I do outside the home – mothering Mother in her various computations, from nutrition to bags to teaching yoga to teaching meditation… but I cannot come to see them as my career. Too much of what I learned in the home, the raising of a family, the living with a sensitivity to eating well and living green, all of this forms the foundation of my career. That is my career, and the rest is an offshoot!
A friend called for some advice and counsel on eating. Once again I am working my career/living my passions!
Shanthi