That sounds dramatic. I know. What about them not living under your roof, you ask? Yes, that's hard. What about not hearing their voices, the witty banter betwixt the two brothers, or the malodorous smells coming from their rooms?
Yes, yes, and yes. Those are all huge changes. My husband and I notice how clean our house smells after we've been out and returned home. It's alarming. That's how foreign a clean-house smell is to us.
But back to the food.
Not being near my two boys makes me feel like a part of me is missing now. But a part that's missing - that I really don't miss - is the feeding of them.
If you haven't raised boys, then it's hard to put into words how much food they consume. Boys are like the rapacious locust to the wheat fields, the ants to a picnic, the vultures of the air, and the squirrels to my parent's bird feeders. Boys are living, walking, and talking human food processors. They consume everywhere, and they consume all the time, without any need for a "closed" sign unless they're sleeping.
And even then, I'm not sure if they aren't eating.
I remember a year ago, I bought some shoes at Costco hoping I could use them to start running again. Turns out, that was a mistake. They hurt my feet so badly that I couldn't even keep them as walking shoes. So, I returned them only to use that refund to purchase more food... for them.
The shoes I bought for myself had turned into food for the foraging bears under my roof.
Such is the life of a mom, I must say. Everything of mine is theirs, and none of their things are remotely mine. And since the boys left, our Costco bill has been cut in half, our regular grocery bill has been cut more than in half, and the time I spend preparing food and cleaning up food is pretty much nil.
My husband is a great cook, so those decades I've spent in the kitchen have come to a screeching halt while he and I take turns cooking for each other, but more him than me these days.
Of course, I like cooking. And I like eating. I like making food for my family and I miss our sit-down dinners we had at least four nights a week. But, I also like having leftovers in the fridge. I like the coffee pot still half full by mid-morning. I also like the silence in my loft when I'm writing.
Yet, it's all very jarring and mish-mashed, these small things. What's nice one day, I miss the next day. What I've gained one day, means it's missing somewhere else. To have and to have not. To give and to take. To own and to let go. Life is one giant balancing act of ebbing and flowing.
When I go to the grocery store to buy food for myself and my husband, it's like I've had to pick up a foreign language just to function. Do you mean I only need one reusable bag for my groceries, not six? I only have to buy enough coffee for the two of us every month, rather than the four of us? The grocery list is five items long rather than twenty-five?
Everything has changed and everything is a trade-off, I suppose. I gain more of the "stuff" of life, but I've lost a limb or two - which is what it feels like when your kids move away.
While I may not be trading running shoes for food anymore, which is rather pleasant, nothing has been more rewarding than taking care of those bequeathed to me.
And I hope my two boys, my boys who have eaten us out of our house and home many times over, know this. ♥
-Heather
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