Left Behind

Ever feel like you're being left behind .....

Kids are moving on, friends are emigrating, retiring, starting new adventures?

I have been feeling a little lost the past few months. My four adult kids are all working or studying, have lives of their own and businesses and interests. Sometimes it's even difficult to get us all together at the same time.

Family time for me is so important. It is so rich and rewarding. I love to have the house full of my family, their wives, fiances, boyfriends, girlfriends, grandchildren. It is loud and busy and overwhelming but it is a privilege to love and be loved by so many amazing people.

Its scary though when you have spent your life involved with and doing things for all the little people in your life, that suddenly you feel as if they possibly don't need you anymore. Here is when I have to sit and take a reality check. They don't need you as they did when they were little but they need you for different, sometimes more difficult things.

My children need me. I'm a mom and a grandmother, a driver, a doctor, a psychologist, a career guidance counselor and so much more. This does not go away over the years. It may lessen in some instances and become greater in others. There is an ebb and flow but it is always there. I thank God that even though I don't see my children as often as I would like to, we still do make an effort to have family dinners, braais, games evenings and getaways. And we always make time for birthdays, Mother's Days, Christmas and Easter. I babysit, I give advice, I get angry, we argue, we make up. We are family.

I have recently however started panicking about my friends.

People have reached certain stages in their lives and feel that it's time for a change. I have two friends emigrating, one leaving for the Cape, one just moving to another area and I am unreasonably afraid. You build a lifetime cultivating a circle of friends and then it seems to be disintegrating! This is a very dramatic statement and not entirely true. The friendship group is as good as ever but, when you are the one left behind, it can be quite distressing. Life is so hectic and busy as it is to get together very often but how do you continue to do so when half of you are in another country?  This is something I have to think about.....

If anyone has similar anxieties or experiences or any advice to share, please leave a comment.

Ps. I will start including pictures soon, just have to ask my kids how 😌.