Life After Kids!

You have devoted your life to your children and family. Your youngest child is a teenager and in just a few more short years will be off to college or out in the world living their own life. You’ll be all on your own for the first time since they were born. You wonder:

What am I going to do? How am I going to get through it? My whole life has been devoted to my children.

You're feeling lost. You’re unsure how you are going to get through the rest of your life when they aren’t there to care for.

Maybe they're grown and you don’t push them out to live their lives because you're afraid to stop caring for them. You think that if you do you won’t know what to do with yourself.

I know what you’re feeling and going through. I am facing these feelings. I thought long and hard about this. I even had long conversations with my therapist.

I know that at my age (44 years old) I wouldn’t want to start all over with the baby stage to raise another child of my own.

In fact, I was 30 when my youngest of 4 girls came along. I was divorced from my first husband and was not married to this one’s father.

Then during this same pregnancy, my doctor told me since I had a set of multiples (my second pregnancy was identical twins), my chances for multiples are now higher with each pregnancy I have.

So when my 4th daughter was born I asked the doctor to break me. No more. Pregnancies for me. My recurring nightmare during those 9 months was that it was triplets.

My oldest is now 22 years old and moved all the way to New York. She went to be with a boy and then enrolled in college to be a sign language interpreter.

My twins are now 19. Each one had a baby this year. One had a boy at the end of February. The other a girl on Easter Sunday. I am excited about this grandparent stage of my life.

Then we come to my youngest daughter. She turns 14 next Monday. There are only about 4 1/2 years left before she graduates high school and will want to get on with her own life.

So, after long thoughts and much therapy, I began to think:

OK, I can get through this. I will move a little farther South (I live in Michigan with a lot of snow and ice in the winter). Just far as it takes to get away from this kind of winters. I can transfer to another Walmart and start a new chapter in my life. I can even spend more of my time doing things I love like writing and maybe start my own business.

Then came the grandkids. There is no way in heck am I about to move away from them. Lol. So, then I began to think:

OK, I can still get through this. So, I am still stuck in the snow and ice. But all is not lost. There’s still my writing. And I can still work towards starting my own business.

The point I am trying to make is just because your children are going their own way your life is not over. In fact, try looking at it like it is just beginning. As if it is just a new chapter in your life.

Think about it, is there anything you have always wanted to do in your life but couldn’t because you had your darlings to care for? Well, now you can.

There are many new things you can do. Here’s a list of some of them:

• Take up bowling.

• Create a blog. It could be about your experience in raising your darlings or any other topic you might be passionate about.

• Write a book.

• Start your own online business.

• Travel around the country or even around the world.

• Learn a new skill. It could be a new language or a new musical instrument, as an example.

• Start a tutoring business part-time.

• Take some college courses. Or as a cheaper way to do this, you can find plenty of courses on just about any topic on the internet.

These are just a few ideas that you could maybe do to find a new meaning in your life now that your children are moving on in their lives.

Remember this too, just because they move out on their own or go off to college, they are still your babies. And they are still going to be a part of your life.

One other thing is that you don’t want to forget is one day your son or your daughter is going to fall in love and begin their own family.

Here come the beautiful grand-babies to love and spoil and just enjoy.

So, you see just because your children are no longer children to be cared for and taken care of 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Enjoy a new chapter in your life and have fun.