This week marks one of two between terms. I plan to work as much as possible, relax a bit, regroup a lot, and generally catch my breath after the maelstrom of the last semester.
I am coming off the emotional high of having my daughter home for a few days - she decided to surprise us and spent Easter weekend here. It was a birthday gift to her dad and me, and we are both absolutely delighted she decided to make the trek. We watched movies, we hung out and said a lot and sometimes absolutely nothing, we ate wonderful meals and basically basked in being together again.
She left very early this morning, and is almost home. She is, by now, on a train between Boston and Providence, and will be back in her apartment before the sun sets. She faces the final weeks of her college career, interviews with potential employers, final exams, and of course the nonstop celebration that Seniors enjoy as they face a very scary future - the unknown - and leave the relative safety of college life at a private school.
She is elated, afraid, and very determined to find gainful employment with international travel opportunities. It appears she has inherited the same gene as her brother in that regard, and so far companies she's spoken with are delighted that she'd entertain travel abroad on their behalf. This bodes well, yes?
I am in that space that develops when either of my progeny departs, a space where I feel a lack of motion, a stillness, an emptiness and an opportunity to reflect upon the days behind us where all of the love and sharing and reconnecting took place. This space leaves me with a sense of hope, a sense of happiness and fullness, while also creating a temporary vacuum into which my myriad emotions tend to cascade and from which I require some focused self-care, contemplation and distraction to emerge again.
In this brief respite between school terms I'd like to relax a little, and I'm finding that for so long now I've defined my days by what I can accomplish...when I don't have a case study due or an exam on the near horizon or chapters and chapters to ingest...I am a little lost.
Somewhere along the way my ability to relax has become secondary to a constant need to DO...and I think I need to work on that, don't you?
I am coming off the emotional high of having my daughter home for a few days - she decided to surprise us and spent Easter weekend here. It was a birthday gift to her dad and me, and we are both absolutely delighted she decided to make the trek. We watched movies, we hung out and said a lot and sometimes absolutely nothing, we ate wonderful meals and basically basked in being together again.
She left very early this morning, and is almost home. She is, by now, on a train between Boston and Providence, and will be back in her apartment before the sun sets. She faces the final weeks of her college career, interviews with potential employers, final exams, and of course the nonstop celebration that Seniors enjoy as they face a very scary future - the unknown - and leave the relative safety of college life at a private school.
She is elated, afraid, and very determined to find gainful employment with international travel opportunities. It appears she has inherited the same gene as her brother in that regard, and so far companies she's spoken with are delighted that she'd entertain travel abroad on their behalf. This bodes well, yes?
I am in that space that develops when either of my progeny departs, a space where I feel a lack of motion, a stillness, an emptiness and an opportunity to reflect upon the days behind us where all of the love and sharing and reconnecting took place. This space leaves me with a sense of hope, a sense of happiness and fullness, while also creating a temporary vacuum into which my myriad emotions tend to cascade and from which I require some focused self-care, contemplation and distraction to emerge again.
In this brief respite between school terms I'd like to relax a little, and I'm finding that for so long now I've defined my days by what I can accomplish...when I don't have a case study due or an exam on the near horizon or chapters and chapters to ingest...I am a little lost.
Somewhere along the way my ability to relax has become secondary to a constant need to DO...and I think I need to work on that, don't you?
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