Boarding Abroad

Cute abode of my absent chicas.

It is a day that you never think will never come. When they are toddlers and wrapped in your arms you never imagine they will grow and want to lead independent lives.

Subconsciously you remember how you too felt as a teenager; that need to flee the coop but you think you will be a different mother. Of course your babes will always want to be with you.

With little ones snuggled on your lap you must have had a temporary amnesia or suppressed those thoughts of what will become of me and them in years to come.

Two of my girls are at home but abroad. Well away from where we now make our home. Is the UK home to them having never really spent more than holidays there? I wonder if they feel an affinity to it only because that is where we have family. Or is it the fact that this will be a constant for them through out high school.

Missing them some days so much, others fleetingly as I try to fill the hours of a day, occupying my mind with thoughts to suppress the urge to call and smother them. Knowing they need space to explore and grow.

I had often heard the expression "empty nest syndrome" and never realised how it would feel. I assumed it was a cute label given to explain a house without teenagers, being free to pursue your own interests now your responsibilities are few. I suppose for me it has come a little earlier than most parents and now I feel callous for brushing it off as a mere title for freedom from chores and youths.

It is so much more than that. I console myself with the fact they are to all intenst and purposes happy and settled and I look forward to the school holidays now in a way I never did before.

Our time together after being apart becomes ever more precious in a bid to create good times.