Lunch at Le Caleche Restaurant with a friend

Yesterday I got to have lunch with a friend of mine who had taken an impromptu trip over from the U.K. Alain and I decided to take her to La Caleche - one of our favorite French Restaurants here in Toulon.

I've blogged about this restaurant before - the food is fabulous and the prices can't be beat! (More about the restaurant in another post.)

While we were talking and catching up on each other's families and what we've been doing, we started talking about life at this stage of our lives. Marjelaine is a few years older than I am, and although she is technically retired, she works as a home care nurse in the U.K. both to keep her skills up-to-date, but also to give herself something to do during the day.

As she says, she does a little gardening, sweeps the floors, does the dishes - but after that, what is there to do?

She also enjoys traveling, and comes to France frequently, as both her sister and one of her sons lives here.

She also has been experiencing the "what am I going to do next" phase in her life, and for her, there are still as many questions as there are answers. We connected when I told her how I was feeling too - the impatience with wasting time on people and activities that I don't enjoy, the general unsettledness and feelings of loss and a sort of fear that I've been experiencing, now that my kids are growing up. (I told her that over the last few months, I've started thinking for the first time about life without my kids being the major focus, and she nodded her head sagely - her boys are all adults, and it was incredibly comforting to be able to talk to someone who understood exactly what I was feeling and going through and had been through it too.) Her advice was to just take it one day at a time, and enjoy figuring out what I want to do, and what I like.

"It will come" she said. I think she's right.

Life Changing Questions...

Well, actually it's not as much about asking questions as finding the answers as the questions happen, I guess.

I just got off the phone with my mom, and we were talking about how it feels to watch as your children begin growing up and stepping away from you - both figuratively and literally.

Today has been a busy day, because we're packing and getting ready to leave for Austria. My oldest son came home twice today - once after spending the early morning with his girlfriend - so he could eat - and the second time, just in time for dinner.

And while we were talking about how fast the last ten years have gone - it's amazing - a decade has passed - I mentioned to her that part of me is feeling very happy - it's fun to get to take these little grownup getaways with my husband - and part of me is feeling very guilty. Because while my sons are beginning to step away from me and have started building the foundation of their lives as adults, I'm also stepping away from them a little bit. And that's something that I hadn't ever even thought about - not really, I mean. That part of my life seemed really far into the future - far enough away that I couldn't really imagine a life that didn't center around them, or their needs and wants.

Being the mother, the nurturer, the caregiver has been the central focus of my life for nearly 18 years now - and I knew what to expect, what being in that role meant, I understood the rules of the game.

And in some ways, it seems as though I have been in that role for a very, very long time. And yet, if I measure time in terms of watching my sons grow up - their first smiles, their first steps, the first time I had to take them to the emergency room for stitches, their first bike rides...time flew by.

And now, suddenly, there is a new role, new rules. And I'm still learning what the rules are, and how to play this part. So I guess my mom was right - the important thing is to let go of any guilt - it's baggage that's too heavy to carry around, and instead, enjoy the next part of the journey...