Women Over Fifty—Winging It
Women over fifty experience significant change in their lives, not the least of which is seeing beloved children leave the nest and head out to pursue goals and dreams of their own. In my last post, I suggested that recently displaced mothers “feather their nests” with new interests and linked to my TV appearance where a therapist and I discussed that very topic.
Now I’d like to introduce you to a wonderful book by Catherine Goldhammer entitled, Winging It: Dispatches from an (Almost) Empty Nest. Catherine shares her very personal story of seeing her daughter, her only child, spread her wings and fly off to follow her newly claimed independence. Here’s what Catherine had to say about her experience:
What made you want to write this book?
When I had the realization that my daughter was really getting ready to go off on her own, I wanted to talk about how that felt and what it meant to me as a mother and as a person. I thought that the book would be about independence and separation, but it ended up being about connection, between me and her, but also between me and my past and the thoughts of the future.
Did writing it help you deal with the “empty nest?”
It did. I really expected to have a very hard time when my daughter went off to college, but it was easier than I thought it would be. Part of that came from writing the book, but I was also surprised to discover how really ready we were to be away from each other, in the best of possible ways.
How else did writing the book affect you?
The book surprised me by becoming a way of looking at other parts of my life: my childhood, my family of origin, my “wild” youth! It became a way of seeing my life, not just as a series of disconnected parts, but as a whole story. It also became a way of thinking about my relationship with my mother, and in doing so I came to realize and be grateful for the impact she has had on the way I see the world.
What would you like to see people take away from this book?
It’s not an easy thing to allow our relationships with our children to change and grow, and to allow ourselves to change and grow, too. In writing the book I was able to have a few laughs at parts of that journey, and to come to see it as a good and necessary experience. My hope is that readers will join me in that adventure.
Catherine was also kind enough to share an excerpt from Winging It:
The summer she was fifteen my daughter left for a college program in philosophy. It was the longest she’d ever been away from home, and she, of course, did fine.
And so did I, mostly. Just one lost weekend and a few weekdays given to wandering around clueless. But once I got into the swing of it, I got a lot done. I made phone calls, moved my office, made a Web site, and mailed the publication announcements for my first book. I had a certain kind of energy that comes with time and the ability to concentrate. I felt virtuous and productive. I had that reaching-out sort of feeling. The anything could happen now feeling. I was vital. I was on the upswing.
Then, in the back and forth of the text messages and phones calls my daughter and I exchanged, I began to understand what the next seismic shift in my life was going to be. You have your children and you can’t possibly imagine that one day they will walk off toward their own future without you. And then it happens and you have to let them go. It wasn’t that I didn’t know this. Not to get all Kahlil Gibran about it, but our children really are the arrows we send out into the future, and I knew that my daughter was walking toward the moment with intent, and that she was way ahead of me in readiness. According to my friends who had been there before me, knowing it didn’t necessarily help.
“We pour everything into them,” an uncommonly gentle friend said with uncharacteristically bitter humor. “And then they leave us, the little bastards.”
And so, after years and years—of scraping oatmeal off the floor with a spatula, retrieving plastic octopi from the mouths of toddlers, navigating the shoals of kindergarten and friendships and boyfriends, driver’s licenses, the specters of sex, drugs, and alcohol, the bands with their poetic lyrics, the brain-sucking nightmare of Facebook, the iPod with its thousands of songs, the singing lessons, the art classes, the heart-stopping riding lessons with their massive horses and five-foot jumps, the ambitions and passions and dreams —you finally see it on the horizon. There you are. You. About to be returned to yourself.
For more information about Winging It, or to order the book, check out Catherine’s website at www.catherinegoldhammer.com.
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November 19th, 2008 at 9:34 am
While I don’t want those challenging teenage years back, I miss my 31 year old and 28 year old sons so very much. They have both moved 1600 miles away to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I have found myself visiting them for Labor Day, I’m flying for Thanksgiving and Christmas and I am now wondering if I am becoming one of those smothering empty nesters. I don’t want to become like “Everyone Loves Raymond’s Mother”, but it is so hard to resist, so hard to just stop loving and stop taking care of them, so hard to stop being a Mom and I had my nest emptied well over 10 years ago. I need to morph into a loving grandmother that loves her grandson and her adult sons, and stops mothering. This is a hard one for me, my nest is empty and I try to fill with so many other things that don’t fill it.
Thanks for sharing.