My film maker son is really good at asking questions.
Alone with him in a car, train or kitchen, as a toddler or teen, a steady slew of phrases requiring answers would slip from his tongue keeping me on my toes and talking.
“What’s that man looking at?”
“Why is that dog carrying a paper bag in his mouth?”
What kind of bird is that?”
“Why are all those bricks stacked up there like that?”
“What’s your favourite meal?”
What was the best holdiay you’ve ever been on?”
And the latest, while we were hot gluing ribbons onto miniature chocolates for our Christmas trees,
“Of all the decades that you’ve lived, which one was your favourite?”
Once I’d got over the insinuation that I was old…I thought the question over.
“The thirties.”
“You weren’t alive in the thirties, Mum.” he said.
“I mean, my thirties.” I said.
“Oh, you’re talking about your decades not the decades that have spanned your life. That makes sense,” he said smiling.
I suppose I could have said the 80’s but I wasn’t thinking quickly enough!
That night while I was tossing and turning I considered the question.
Why had I jumped on my thirties so quickly for my answer? Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about it!
Insomnia threatened to lurk for a while so I analysed my response as a productive way to spend the next hour or so restlessly tossing back and forth under my 28 tog. down-comforter that was bent on smothering me!
This is what I came up with:
I married my blue-eyed cowboy when I was thirty.
I had all my children during this third decade of my life.
I enjoyed a lucrative job where I was the boss of 100 people and came home to be the boss of five!
I left my lucrative job when it began to take all the fun out of being a wife and mother.
I began my homeschooling adventure.
I had four children under six and always knew exactly where they were.
This was the most important item on my mental list.
Unconsciously I had chosen a period in my life when I did not have a moment to myself yet I could always sleep soundly, as long as hubs wasn’t snoring, safe in the knowledge that all my babies were at home safe and sound in their beds.
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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