More of Day 12
Sept 8, 2009

I spent part of the day in bed or wandering around this big, lonely house. To recover from the tragedy of Brianne leaving, I took myself out to a movie. I’ve never actually gone to a movie alone before, but I did it. It was great. I finally saw Julie and Julia. I really liked the part about a blog being a completely narcissistic activity. Lollie is a Narssy!!!!!
The book was better.

Day 13
September 9, 2009

Ominous Date. 09/09/09. Cool.
You have to wonder if sending kids off to college for us earthly folk is a bit like what it was like for Heavenly Father to send us to earth. Did we start to get restless because we had learned all we could? Did we drive Heavenly Mother nuts making messes in the kitchen? Does He worry that we won’t be able to handle it but knows we have to do some things on our own? Does he wait for the phone to ring and when it does, all we do is ask for stuff? Did He ache for me like I ache for my baby girl?
How am I supposed to handle this? No one tells you how difficult it is to have children.
…and they REALLY keep you in the dark when it comes to the trauma level of letting them go!
Empty nest? Right. Try…BROKEN HEART!!!
An empty nest sounds more like a few twigs scattered. Try shards of broken glass gouging at you from the inside. The pain of wondering if you taught her everything she will need to know. From experience I know that she in fact, doesn’t. Her older sister used fabric softener in place of detergent to do her laundry her first year of college. The agony of knowing I lost my temper with her during those too-much-estrogen-having-chemical-reactions-in-the-kitchen and actually said things my mother said to me that I swore I would never repeat to my kids. Heck, I said things my mom never even said!!!
It is physically painful.
I sit on the bed in her room and look around at photo albums lying on dust covered shelves with scents of her still wafting through the room urged on by the breeze that billows through the sheer panels she picked for the window and empty hangers, posters, books she loved, shoes, lamp, quilts and doodads.
I know she didn’t die, but BYUI is SSSOOOOOOOOOOOO far away.
These were actually the thought process I had going yesterday. Today I actually am doing swell. I re-decorated her bathroom and spent time doing things I couldn’t when I was helping her with all of her stuff and staying out of her way so she could do her teenaged thing.
Again, TV would have helped me through this. Instead, I have stretched myself to grow and it is good.
Today my alternate activities consisted of many many things,too numerous to mention. But I will mention one. I talked to a real live person about grad school!!!
How’s that for an alternate activity.
I’m going in for an interview tomorrow. Not sure I would be doing this if I wasn’t completely bored by lack of entertainment. The only dvd my portable tv would play for me today was Sense and Sensibility. I hate to admit it but I’m actually getting sick of Jane Austen. It mildly bothers me that the authority on romance never actually wed.
Of course, being married doesn’t necessarily mean you have a clue about romance.

Day 14

September 10

Today is Joseph’s b-day. He is ten.