We’ve been here eight months!
A lot of healing and changes have taken place.
Six months ago I didn’t know if I would ever be able to sell the final foothold in the country of my birth.
Now I am looking forward to starting a new life in my adopted country reconciled to the fact that I will have to leave home again, this time not in a fit of love and adventure, but in acknowledgement that my home is now where my children are, not where my parents were, on the other side of the pond.
The romance of coming home wore off quite quickly once I realised that family and friends had managed very well without me for twenty some odd years.
I felt like someone who had been released from prison and no-one really cared or noticed.
I’d been done without, forgotten, worked around, replaced.
I almost felt a need to be re-habilitated back into the swing of things, my portion of English life, but everyone had grown up and away, or passed on.
Unless I kept up the nudges reminding them I was back they quickly forgot, used to my brief three week visits of yore and regular long letters filled with news. They never answered those either.
As my sage youngest daughter advised,
“If you want to keep up the relationship then you’ll have to do the work!” So true and quite humbling.
Their lives did not revolve around me, not even for a year, hardly for three weeks, or even the length of a letter if I’m really honest.
Relationships are complex.
I wondered if I would behave the same way in their wellies?
As my youngest pointed out…clever daughter this one,
“You’ll have to do what will make you feel all right when you eventually leave. Then you won’t be able to do any more. It will be they who missed out. The End!”
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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