A time of transition

I woke up this morning  (Monday) just before my alarm. As I snuggled under the covers my mind drifted to what my plans for the day were. All of a sudden my eyes flew open as the realization dawned on me….I had absolutely nothing planned!! My Monday morning Personal Training client had cancelled the night prior, my husband was away on a business trip and worst of all my daughter had finished school on Friday and was now on a weeks study break before her IB exams.

My normal morning routine consists of getting up and taking my husband a cup of tea in bed (yes, im a very good wife). I then get breakfast for my husband and daughter before they head off to school and work. They are both out of the door by 7am. I have organized my work around their early starts, so after doing a few emails, I usually leave about 30 minutes after them.

Today however, I didn’t have to get up. It was a very unsettling feeling, and one that didn’t sit well with me. Being the Mum of my three gorgeous girls, and my life has revolved around school for the past 17 years. How can it all be over? Im not ready! Yes, I have definitely had enough of making school lunches, and I have been whining about parent/teacher conferences for a few years now, but the end seems to have come too quickly. Life as I have known it for the past 17yrs is finished.

The worst part about not having to get up for anything in particular was that I had time to think about what comes next. My little girl will be finished exams at the end of May, and then will only have a few months with me before she heads to University. One of the hard parts of being an expat is that your children generally go back to their home country to study. However, In Australia it is common for children live at home while they go to University. Most don’t leave home until they are around 23-24. I feel like I have been ripped off. My older two girls left home at 18, and my youngest will do the same.

While I was lying there contemplating a world without school holidays, homework and exams, my alarm finally went off. What a relief. I bounced out of bed away from my unsettling thoughts, jumped into my exercise clothes and headed up the Peak for a  hike. As I reached the summit of High West, a little out of breath, my natural optimism started to reassert itself (or was that the exercise induced endorphins!). You know what they say, when one door closes…. A world of possibilities is opening up in front of me, a freedom I haven’t experienced since I first had children 22 yrs ago.  (Perhaps I will even learn to stay in bed past 6am!)
Time to reframe my perspective, focus on the positives and let my youngest child test her wings.

The next few months will be a time of transition for all of us, but we will deal with it together, one day at a time.