August 27, 2000 sizzled!
Dusk was falling as I turned east toward home and my nineteen year old daughter turned west toward college. I was frustrated and exhausted after a Sunday spent dealing with a car breakdown far from home, repacking cars, doing a "dump and run" in my daughter's dorm room and traveling for hours on the interstate. All the "mothering effort" ended with a wave as we parted ways in the middle of nowhere.
Three hours of solitude in my newly repaired car offered time to examine my life. Driving east into the deepening darkness, I knew at home I would be greeted by two cats and a hamster. One daughter was north in college and the second was west in her dorm room ~ and I was all alone.
Alone ~ Solitude ~ Quiet ~ Emptiness
Alone, alone, alone ~~ the word echoed in my mind and my eyes filled with tears. I saw a parade of days stretching before my eyes; days filled with loneliness, quietness, emptiness. Tears overflowed and drifted down my face ... more tears ... and I grieved over an ending in my life.
As the odometer clicked off the miles, I contemplated the incredible change that had occurred that Sunday in August. By the time I turned into my driveway, I saw opportunties in aloneness, possibilities in emptiness and privilege in solitude!!
Thus began my journey into my second adulthood ...
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