yes Jeanine! Shifting gears or adjusting to the changing seasons. We all go through seasons of life, just like nature does. Life is much easier if we embrace the changes rather than fighting against it.

Embracing change allows us to grow and find joy in the new season rather than going around in misery all day long.

Shifting gears is a great way to put it! I like the speed I'm going at right now just fine, thank you. But it's been almost ten years since I've had a kid live fulltime at home, so I'm pretty used to it.

Jeannine, I love your attitude. It's great having you here. I pray I feel as you did once your nest emptied. Mine empties in August. I have two high school seniors. Both have been accepted to out of state schools. I also have a junior in college out of state. I am tickled for all of them.

I look forward to the empty nest because fortunately I have a great marriage and look so forward to us having time to do as we please.

But I have to tell you, recently I am getting teary eyed when I picture their graduations. It's the end of a season I have totally enjoyed and will always cherish.

Onward to another season.

Dotsie, I have the feeling you'll adjust to that empty nest with little difficulty. As you said in your post, 'It's the end of a season', merely an end to but one chapter in your life. And yes, there is that feeling of expectation, that you and your life-partner will have the luxury of being able to more or less, do as you please.

I allowed myself to mark the end of the child-rearing phase, with a few tears, as well. How could I not? Performing the feat of raising, nurturing, teaching, a human being, seeing that human being grown to adulthood, well, once achieved, there should be some ceremony, some ritual observed, to mark so great an accomplishment!

What really amazes me, is that season of child rearing seemed to go by so very quickly, for me.

I recall a particular afternoon, when my daughters were in elementary school. It had been their last day, before summer vacation. I see myself frozen in time, placing their little lunchboxes in an upper kitchen cabinet. I then have a flash of myself retrieving those lunchboxes, a few months later, on their first day of the new school year. It struck me, at that moment...hadn't I just put those lunchboxes away?

The memory of that little moment in time, ever remained with me, and seems to sum up how quickly flew the years, with my children.

http://www.intouchwithjeannine.com

Dotsie--go ahead and have those 'mommy moments' those tears are part of the process. With each passing season there is a mourning period, just as there is a birthing period.

In spring the plants 'birth'--bring forth fresh new growth and color, in fall there is death as everything dies back and we mourn in a way through the winter...but Spring is always just around the corner!

We can rejoice that each painful season eventually comes to an end and new life springs forth. Embrace where you are at and anticipate new beginnings!