empty nesting

I can sort of maybe imagine that people, especially those who have been stay at home parents, might feel at a loss when their last kid leaves home.  But on the other hand I can’t really imagine what it might be like because I have been at this parenting gig for almost 27 years now and there is no end in sight.

I sat on my hands, the internet equivalent of biting your tongue, when people sighed and moaned about their big empty houses.  I felt like shouting, imagine what it would be like to have a special needs child (or grown up child who is still a child) who isn’t going to start spending less and less time at home, who isn’t going to get a job or move away in any foreseeable future if ever.  So I come here to whisper or shout or scream my words and thoughts out into the dark, or light or data stream where it won’t bother anybody I know IRL. 

And then I go back to the daily work of taking care of that teenaged girl because it isn’t her fault how she is and there is no current magic fix either, and it certainly isn’t her fault that her father’s asthma has been so bad either (he is a little better just now).  But sometimes I wonder just what it would be like to know that one day I would have spare time or energy (or maybe even just enough money?)  to make life just that little bit easier, you know?

And so I walk and walk for miles each week trying to soothe my body and ease my mind and then when it’s too dark or cold or wintry out I sit in the hallways outside dance studios and knit so that I don’t cry and remind myself that comparisons are indeed odious, and I smile and pretend that I am just another dance mom. 

(but now that she has turned 16 and is legal school leaving age I am starting to be more aggressive in terms of disability activism and am trying to be more accepting and trying to do what works best for her in more situations.)

In knitting terms, several different designers and studios were having birthdays or anniversaries and offered codes for free patterns.  I don’t know just when I’ll get to them but I downloaded for free recently the following things:

http://tossingthestash.blogspot.ca/ (I got the ebook: cream tea:))

http://www.versaciknits.com/  (looks like this deal is still on)

I think I got a free sock pattern too.