18 years ago in a month minus one day... I posted a photo of my baby and I.
This baby is gone off to college now, we're officially empty-nesters. 😱😮
I think I'm handling it well. In a way, it was harder when two years ago we left his older brother in college, on the very day my husband's grandmother died (of COVID, BTW, but she was 94 and declining).
(long digression below)
I wrote elsewhere that on the day she left us, her oldest grandchild, born in her own house of her firstborn daughter, left her very first great-grandchild in college.
So many kinds of grieving in one short day, with more to come -- in the funeral the next day, we were blindsided watching on Zoom when my father-in-law's ashes (he died in 2016) were placed to rest next to his mother-in-law (they were really close). When my MIL bought the cemetery plot a couple of days before her mom's death, this had been arranged and planned, but she forgot to tell us, so when we saw it happen without any warning, it was quite devastating and my husband cried and grieved for his dad all over again. It was a painful, but meaningful closure for my MIL. In a few days my husband flew to Brazil to spend 3 weeks with his mom while he taught his online
A month later my mom's oldest brother, as old as K's grandma, died suddenly and, since my mom was turning 80 (and my dad 83), I decided to go spend three weeks with them as well, as I continued to teach online.
Blessings in disguise, silver linings, if you will, of the global pandemic. And I was never so thankful for my American passport as in that moment! I could board an empty plane, walk out into an empty airport in the country of my first nationality, spend three weeks with my parents, and come back home on another empty aircraft, land in empty airports, with all their stores locked up with no problem.
The home of the free, the land of the brave. Never was that more clear to me than during the pandemic. Unlike my Canadian brother- and sister-in-law who were stuck and couldn't even see friends, I was free to go because I was an American. (and life was pretty normal here in the rural area where we live, at least in the second half of 2020. Our kids' private school and private university were also in person -- although the college experience of my older son was not being great, but I shall not blog about that).
It took a global pandemic to reconcile me to my new nationality and -- perhaps? -- identity.
The "in-betweeness" of this blog's still valid masthead is still my life.
(end digression, I think it wasn't too bad, was it?)
I started blogging in the days of early motherhood. I had a baby and a toddler and blogging changed my life. I met new people, I was exposed to so many new ideas, I came out of my "bubble" so to speak.
I all but abandoned it in the past 10 years, never even blogged when I perhaps most needed it (the pandemic), but maybe being an empty-nester, who goes every school year day to teach "kids that could be my own kids" (this will end in 4 years and I am TERRIFIED of that -- how will I be able to teach when all my students will be younger than my kids, and I'll keep getting older and older and them younger and younger??
The past 18 years were pretty incredible. I have nothing to complain about. I do have a charmed, privileged life and I am thankful for every single thing in it. Even for this abandoned blog. It was such a great and important part of the past years. Maybe I'll come back and blog more? Especially when I have a pile of grading that I'm trying to avoid! 😆
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