Sunday ReVerb

Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why? (Author: Alice Bradley)

Oh my! What a question for one who is still coming to terms with the strange new world of the empty nest.

This year my third and youngest child turned 18 and followed his siblings to university.

Suddenly I was faced with the need to redefine myself.

50 - nothing like young. A bit of self image to let go of there, then.

Still (always) a mum - but not a hands-on, essential day to day kind any longer.

My own parents died just before I was ready to go to university, so I have no experience of flying the nest to draw on...so the processing of detaching myself from my own children as they launch out into adult life has been both demanding and completely new territory.

Right now I am struggling with the concept of preparing for Christmas without a constant tide of young people coming and going, filling the house with music and leaving a trail of mugs in every room...I'm wondering who I'll be once I've come out the far side of this less than comfortable transition...and I'm hoping that in my struggles to let go, I haven't left claw marks all over those whom I love!

Day 2 - the madness continues

Writing.
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

(Author: Leo Babauta)

Since writing is, for me, one of the best tools for reflection, pretty much all my daily activity could and should contribute to my writing (though of course there is often so much activity that the reflection barely happens).

Since the regularity with which I update here is a pretty good indicator of the amount of writing I am doing anywhere, clearly not enough reflection is going on.

But this is not news...not news at all.

So here I am, reflecting on my lack of reflection...and I think the root cause is probably my overwhelming desire for community, which drives me to twitter whether hats are dropping or not. From there, of course, I set out on a wild rampage across the internet, during which the lovely clear half hour I had to blog in somehow vanishes.

Elimination would involve a personality transplant - as infinite divertability is absolutely written into my DNA - so I think realistically (see, I'm using the word for next year!) all I can do is to be aware of the dangers and try to manage some writing every day...but knowing that this is pretty unlikely.

Ho hum.

At least I'm trying...

I must be mad

But I'm fond of this blog and would like something to keep me blogging through Advent, if I can...so inspired by my dear friends Songbird and MaryBeth, I'm going to attempt the seemingly impossible and write every day - launched by Reverb

We'll be furnished with a daily prompt - and I'll try my best to respond to it

Day 1 was Wednesday, when the prompt ran thus

Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
(Author: Gwen Bell)

 So much happens in the course of a year, and this one has been no exception...but I think my word may just be "realisation".

2010 has been the year in which my youngest child left home for university, and in which my first-born completed her MA and joined the world's workers....

The year in which I turned 50, becoming suddenly eligible for all those "special offers" for older people that I feel so unready to embrace...

But with not one child left at school, and the responsibility for not one but two curates there came a moment in the course of the year when I realised that actually, this was as "grown up" as it gets.

And with that realisation came a delicious freedom. I'm in no way a finished product, of course - I'd not expect to be this side of eternity ...and I hope and pray and plan to go on learning and growing, but the anxiety around my identity has slipped away without my even noticing its passing.

Here is a good place, and now is a good time.

And with the wonderful surprise party that those newly adult children arranged for me came the wonderful realisation of just how much love has been heaped upon me in those five decades.

For 2011 I'd like to rearrange my letters just a little, but stick to the same root...REALISM about what I can do, as one finite human being, with infinite hopes but limited capacity, about what I might hope to accomplish in ministry here, about what God really dreams of for these communities.

I suspect that the route there may be an interesting journey - but it's surely one worth taking.