You may have noticed that there is a rather large gap between my last two posts. I can’t believe I haven’t written in so long. So what’s been going on in the last three years? Not writing. Literally none! Except maybe post-its reminding my kids to do their chores. It’s time to fire up that portion of my brain again.

The oldest four kids have all moved out. They’re living all over the place so we don’t see them as much as we’d like. India (and her husband Ethan) both graduated from college last year. They’re living in Arizona where they have grown-up jobs and two cat-children. York and Arabella are in Utah. York thinks he wants to come back to Austin where people are “normal”. He hasn’t finished college, nor does he plan to. Despite what we tell him constantly, he doesn’t see it as a necessity. Oy. Finn lives the closest; he’s in downtown Austin. He goes to school and works and is also in the military so we only see him every few weeks.

Ada and Jasper are our only kids at home. It’s so, so strange to only have two kids around. After making meals for what seemed like a million people, I almost feel like only cooking for four is barely worth my time! Jasper is finishing up 9th grade which was almost entirely on-line. He went back for a week after Christmas but kids in his class kept testing positive for Covid so he’d have to stay home and quarantine, and after a while it was like, “meh, might as well just stay home permanently”. Ada is in 10th grade and has been going to school in person since September. (She and Jasper go to different schools.) Almost nobody in her grade has tested positive, so she hasn’t had to quarantine a single day. That’s pretty miraculous since our Texas schools have been very strict about quarantining all year. Ada turned 16 last month and got her driver’s license on her birthday. It’s been wonderful, except for a couple of fender benders she got in during her first two weeks of driving. Whoopsie!

And what about me? Well, with most of our kids moving out, we decided that having a 4600 square foot house was a little absurd. So we moved into a rental and fixed our old house up to sell. Let me tell you, after having eight crazy people living in that house for twelve years, it was BEAT UP!

I also decided to go back to work. I currently work as a closet designer, which I really enjoy. I get to help people but not in an emotionally draining way. If you’ve never remodeled your closet so that you finally have room for everything, it’s thrilling. Is thrilling too strong of a word? Not according to my clients.

There is a lot I’m not saying about the last three years. In some ways it’s been incredibly tough. There have been some very hard things. It’s also difficult to blog about older children. They pretty much don’t want me to talk about them at all. That has to be respected, even though I would really love to hash some things out with y’all and get your advice. Alas, that’s not how it works anymore. Fellow parents of teens and young adult children, I see you! I acknowledge the mess that you can’t really talk about. Hopefully you’ve got a friend to confide in. The worst is having to die inside because your child has got some issues that they have requested you not share with anyone but you really, really need to talk to someone about but you just can’t. If you’re in that boat, I feel for you. I truly do. Try to hang on and don’t start sobbing at Walgreen’s when the pharmacist asks if there’s anything else you need help with. Like, an ugly cry where you have to cover your face and you don’t know what’s happening because you’ve never broken down like that in public but that’s where life is at these days. Not that that has ever happened to me. Ahem.

Some of the bad things have helped Mister and I become stronger as a couple. Our marriage is pretty much the best it’s been, so that’s good. I’m very independent and for the most part like to do what I like to do, without having to take anyone else’s opinion into account. Becoming part of a team has been a hard one for me; it’s just not how I work. But when hard times come, if you try to keep being a lone wolf, marriage becomes even harder. Being a team makes everything so much easier, and that’s a lesson I still have to remind myself of regularly.

Getting the pointy and sharp edges of one’s personality smoothed out is really unpleasant, but it’s the only way to become a better person. The process is yuck, but the results are yay!

So there you go! My whole life in a nutshell. I’ll expand in the future and promise to write more often.