These Times are not Made for the Tender Hearted
Empty Nests and Threads of Hope
Hello, Friend,
I promised you a bullet pointed list. I’m not following through on that promise this afternoon. I will try later this week.
Promises, promises…
It is grey and cloudy and weird here today. It’s been a grey and cloudy and weird spring. A few weeks back a cardinal pair built a nest in our lilac bush. They’ve been tending to it since and we’ve all been giddy with anticipation. The chicks were born just a few days ago. We came home yesterday to find the nest destroyed and the babies and their parents gone. I suspect it was one of my SIL’s barn cats, which might also explain the MIA pond frogs.
Life is so tenuous and fragile. In an instant everything can change. Calm turns to chaos. Joy turns to sorrow. Abundance turns to loss. Hope turns to despair.
My vagus nerve and tinnitus have been acting up again, pulsating with a steady intensity. That unsettled feeling is permeating my waking and sleeping moments, making the sleeping moments more elusive. The world is on fire. Little bits of joy help, like a nest of baby cardinals, feeding cookies to Cowbert, and the slow emergence of flowers in our garden beds. We’ve been playing a game in the experimental garden I call ‘Flower or Weed?’ Small distractions. Chaos is always looming. I cannot control everything. I know this intellectually, but my heart does what my heart does.
I have a tender heart.
Our daughter came home to visit for a few days. I tried to savor every delicious moment. Moments are just moments, though, and they’re never perfect. It always goes too fast. I keep trying to get a photo of the three of us, some evidence of our trio being briefly reunited and once again it eluded me. I forget to do or say the things I intended to do or say. I do or say the things I never intended to do or say. Before I can do or say all the things, she’s gone. I cry every time she leaves. My unsettledness made it hard to be fully present without my thoughts drifting to the undercurrent of concerns about the state of things, the physical distance between us which will be greater soon, and the future she’s worked so hard to manifest as she heads off to graduate school at Kellogg this fall to pursue her MBA. I’m so happy and excited for her. What a wonder she is. How lucky am I to be her mother? I don’t want to burden her with my concerns, but they leak out around the edges when I’m with her. I want to protect her, but I cannot protect her. She’s an adult living her adult life. I cannot control the world and the world, in this moment, is spinning out of control.
I need more time with her. I need more sunshine. It feels like the colors are fading and hope is elusive and the bad guys are winning the imaginary war they’re waging against the good in the world. All I can do is love her from a distance and hang on to the bits of joy and threads of hope that we will find our way to the other side of this storm.
I have a tender heart and these times are not made for the tender hearted.
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Your tender heart is what makes you an inspiration! My partner and I were reminiscing about all the nests that were destroyed over the years. There was one that I kept yelling at the robin that it wasn't safe, and sure enough, a big wind came and blew it and the eggs away. I cried. I also have a tender heart.
I am in your camp. And no one explains the true effect of the empty nest syndrome.
We will always miss our babies.
And sadly, the war against the good is not imaginary.