How to Make These Days the Good Old Days.

My wife and I recently moved into some prime life-cycle real-estate.  At the intersection of “Launched Kids,” and “Pretty Good Health” you’ll find Lisa and me occupying a life together on the Empty Nest side of the street.  The grass is pretty green over here!  We just got back from our first solo vacation.  

So how would you imagine spending your very first kids-free holiday in twenty-nine years?  After decades of weekends spent in noisy gymnasiums and out-of-town soccer and baseball tournaments, where would your unrequited weekend fantasies take you?  Back in the booming, banging, buzzing days of schlepping, scrimping, and scrubbing, to what distant shores would you have cast your imagination?  Maybe back then (or now?), you would have paused and fantasized about sleeping in, and coming to consciousness with full-throated…condo-doors-wide-opened…non-rushed…coitus…with no interruptus?  Conversely, you may have looked down into a future when all that Dave Matthew’s “Crashing into Me” business was behind the both of you and real pleasure could involve comfy PJ’s and second desserts?

So, how do you think Lisa and I chose to live out our long-awaited marital fantasies?  What new and exotic horizons did we explore together last week?  Answer:  we returned to the Orlando, Florida time-share, where we’ve spent nearly every Spring-break vacation with our kids for twenty-five years, and basically did all the same things we’ve always done!  At least at first.

It started off bittersweet when confronting favorite old landmarks, like this, 

Tom:  “Remember Lizzie at the sunset hoola-hoop contest?”  

Lisa:  Ya, she had that cute little hair wrap!”  

Tom:  “I thought that was Annalise?  

Lisa:  “She had one too!”

The next grief phase of the vacation involved pretending to make the best of it, as in, 

Tom:  “At least John Harry won’t be getting us up at six-in-the-morning to shoot hoops before anybody wakes up!”

Mom:  “We get to sleep in!”

Finally, we ended up using a kind of reverse-psychology technique where we feigned relief at being rid of our pesky kids, like this, 

Tom:  “Remember how awful that was, when we’d wrap their little swimsuit-bodies in layers of towels, for their naps, and we’d be stuck sitting next to them, reading a novel in the sun while they slept?”

Lisa:  “Ya!  That was terrible!  And remember when they’d wake up, and you’d pretend to be asleep and they’d paint your toe nails pink and giggle the whole time?

Tom:  “I hated that!”  I’m so glad that won’t happen this week!”

Lisa:  “Me too!”

Have you ever noticed how every new beginning starts with an ending?  Even a long awaited, welcomed transition brings with it a certain amount of “letting go.”  As time goes on, an awful lot of happiness is predicated on how you carry the inevitable grief that will unavoidably insinuate itself into your days.

Just to be clear, adjusting to a kid-free vacation represents a kind of “lower case” grief at best.  It could never be confused with the capital, “G,” Grief that accompanies death, relationship termination, or a health crisis.  Nonetheless, the skill set for dealing with it, is worthy of some reflection.  Knowing how to cope with small, “g,” grief can mark the difference between an “A+” vacation, and a “C-“ one.  It’s the difference between accepting reality just the way it is, or railing against it.  Anyone worthy of a license in my profession will tell you about the happiness paradox.  Acknowledging and accepting unhappiness has a way of making room for more happiness!  Grief is like that too.  Accepting it, and allowing it to flow through you makes it smaller.  It also frees up energy to mobilize action that fits the current moment.

It seems to me that grief is best considered as an artifact of attachment.  Saint Paul asked the question, “Oh Death, where is your sting” (1 Cor 15: 55)?  The answer?  It’s right there, next to the love!  The skill set for dealing with that sting, large or small, is not found in the memorization of steps or phases, or complicated intellectual modeling.  It involves the same skills that build healthy attachments as in intimacy with self, others, or the Transcendent.  It involves taking the time to notice the movements going on inside.  It requires finding some way to name those movements.  Ideally, it would include sharing what you’re naming with a trusted friend and allowing that friend to warm you with a little care and understanding.  

On our vacation, Lisa and I were lucky enough to have brought precisely that kind of trusted friend along with us:  each other!  We found what my clients have found over the years.  The noticing, naming and sharing of it all has a way of organically resolving into the doing of the next right thing.  We eventually came to the conclusion that we needed to make some new memories.  We discovered a previously unknown nature reserve nearby.  A long hike through swampland featured a twelve-foot alligator and several of her eight-foot kids.  The bulging jaw muscles of that ancient denizen were large enough to feed a party of seventy-five (Only if cooked low and slow, of course!).  During a toddler’s worst grocery store tantrum, you might think of taking him on that walk, but you’d never really do it….  At this phase of life, on the other side of our grief, we found that we get to be badass adventurers again!  And as befits our new station in life, we downloaded a birding app!  Could this be the advent of a new hobby?  Empty nest voyeurs spying on actual nesters?  Only the next vacation will tell!  I’ll keep you posted.

Dialogue

• Can you tell the story of a grief experience (great or small) and the wisdom you accumulated from it?  • Do you engage in a regular practice of sitting still and noticing what’s going on in your heart?  Describe your characteristic ways of doing that?

• What is your palette for naming your inner movements of the heart?  For example, do you tend to use sensory metaphors, or do you apply the standard counseling terms for emotions (e.g. variations on mad, sad, glad, scared)? 

• Who is (or are) your “go to” person (or people ) for sharing what’s going on inside of you?  How frequently do you share with them?

• Can you a name a time, when your process of noticing, naming, and sharing led to an organic doing of the next right thing?

• Are you grieving anything at this time in your life?