CHANGE AND ACCEPTANCE

Ever feel like life is getting away from you.  I know I do, and many times at that.  Things happen in our lives and we don't always know how to deal with them or how to make them right.  We are not always sure how to slow down the momentum to a speed that we can deal with.

I've written here before how I suffer with depression and I think this is a lot to do with why I feel like life is getting away with me.  

I like to look for the good in my life.  I like to look for the things that make me happy and help me to get on a more positive footing.  To look for the things that give me joy and help me to feel there is hope in this world.

CHANGE ... now there's something.  Some of us deal with change well, and others not so well.  I mostly deal with change relatively well and yet there are times in my life when change is not so easy to deal with.   At the moment I'm not dealing with the changes in my life so well.  The third of my 5 children has just moved back to Melbourne.  We come from Melbourne originally and moved to Adelaide roughly 10 years ago.  My son has moved with his girlfriend to a new chapter in his life.  I'm happy for him I truly am, but there is a little part of me that is feeling very out of sorts and not really sure how to deal with what has happened.

I didn't expect to feel the way that I am now.  I knew that it was coming and I tried with all my heart to prepare myself, but even so, you never really know how you will feel until it actually happens.  Even then you can't know how you will feel or react.  I'm missing my son, and I'm sad that he has moved away.  Yet, I realise that this would happen eventually and rightly so.  This is what happens when you have children.  Eventually they grow up and move away and that's as it should be.  After all you don't want them living at home forever.  If you know that it's the right thing and you know that it's as it should be, then how is it that you can feel so sad?

I've never really been a mum that stresses and worries over what her kids do.  I've always had the ability to allow my children to grow and not hold them back or stop them from doing the things that they want to.  I have always trusted my kids to make good decisions and mostly they have.  I think I've taught them enough about right and wrong, good and bad, to make their way with confidence in the world.  So I know that my son is doing the right thing for himself.  I know that despite the way I am feeling and what I am going through, one day I won't feel the way I do now. Sure, I may miss my son and will be happy when I get to see him, but the feeling of sadness at his moving on will settle down with time.

ACCEPTANCE is such an important thing.  I'm learning to accept that this is his decision and I am happy for him.  I'm happy that he is confident enough and independent enough to start out on a life of his own, with someone that he loves and cares about.  I'm learning to accept the way I am feeling and am realising that for now, this is how I feel and that one day in the not to distant future I will become accustomed to the way things are.  Yes, I feel sad, but do I think he shouldn't move away and move on with his life, no.

Your children come into your life and you love them so much, you think that you couldn't love anything more.  You protect them and try to keep them safe and see that nothing bad happens to them.  Slowly they grow up and often so slowly that you don't notice it happening, until one day you realise that they are now adults and no longer children.  They have lives of their own and make their own decisions and this is what you want for them.  

I knew my son was moving away, but in the end, circumstances meant that he moved more quickly than he was meant to.  So in the end it seemed like a sudden move.  He rang me on the phone to tell me that a job had come up in Melbourne and that he would be going sooner than originally planned .... and then he said to me "The good news is mum, that I will always be your son and I will always love you."

That is the good news for sure ..... I am his mum and I will always love him too.  Looks like for now I just have to accept the roller coaster ride that is and go with the flow, one day at a time.