I’m transitioning back to living alone.  It’s not my first time.  I’ve done it several times over the past several years.  Every time I say goodbye to one kid, it seems like another bounces back or someone needs a place to stay.

I just said goodbye to my oldest daughter, her eight-year-old daughter and her three-year-old son.  I was only too glad to have a place for her to stay while she saved for a new house after her divorce. I was glad, but it was also hard.  She, her husband and baby had lived with me for three years two years before, after selling their home in another state and moving here with their new six-week-old daughter.  It was a better place to raise a kid.  Good decision.  But, what with one thing and another, it took a bit longer for them to move into their own home than anticipated.  Once they moved out, I did a totally renovation of my home, top to bottom.  New furniture, everything painted, tile work, shelves built, you name it, I did it.  I chose the things I’d always wanted but that weren’t practical if you had kids.  I was alone, all my girls had graduated from college or were off in school, so this could be exactly and precisely what I wanted.

Two years later, she was back. This time with two kids.  I don’t want it to sound like she’s a flake.  She’s about as far from a flake as you can get.  But, sometimes like just goes in a direction you hadn’t anticipated.  Again I was glad to be there for her.

But I would have chosen totally different things for my home had I known I have young children around.  I love my grands unmercifully.  But the home of a 60-year old without kids is not the same as that of a 34 year old with two.  Adjustments had to be made.  A lot of stuff went into the basement.  Things had to be kid-proofed.  I thought i was well past that stage of life, what with all mine being grown and off on their own.

After two years of being alone and having total control over my space, my time, my funds, myself, I had a full house again.  With young children.  And my daughter, while truly glad for the resource, will be the first to tell you that her Mama did not raise her to live with her Mama at age 33.  It was a constant source of irritation and frustration for her.  But, after three years of saving, she had her new house.  She is incredible.

It took some adjusting.  For all of us.  But, we did it.  We made it work.  Thank God I have a house that can take it.  At one point, when one of my daughter’s colleagues who has three kids, ages 6 months, 11 and 16, was evicted from her apartment over a dispute (the landlord was totally wrong–and that is my legal opinion as a lawyer), my household expanded to include her family for two months.  I saw her recently, and she marveled at how there were three entire families living in my house while she was there and they still were all able to have their own space instead of being on top of each other.

That is a blessing.  I do not, for one second, take for granted the fact that my basement is a full apartment, complete with its own separate entrance.  That is always mine.  They can have the rest of the house (two more floors), but in order to make this work, I have to have a space I can call my own.

So, here we are again.  My entire home, with just me in it.  It’s the first time I’ve been able to enjoy the home I love since I paid off the mortgage nearly two years ago.  After a small army of cleaning people, upholstery cleaners, handymen, reupholsters, I see my home again.  The one I’ve loved for 26 years.  The one that brings me such peace each and every time I walk into it and it envelopes me.  It is not called Contentment Cottage for nothing. The one that has seen me through births, deaths, school beginnings, graduations, joys, disappointments, marriages, heartbreaks, celebrations and tragedies.  The one that everyone who comes into it to visit remarks upon how incredibly comfortable they feel there.  It just happened over the Thanksgiving holiday last week, when I had a house full of family and first-visit company.

It is mine once again.  To sit alone by the fire and feel myself once again be rejuvenated, reenergized, and fueled to go out and carry on the business of living for another day.  To put something down and know it will be right there when I return.  To know that the time I resentfully spend cleaning up when I want to do something I consider more productive will be worth it because there is no one there to quickly undo my ministrations.  To know that my preference for subdued lighting does not annoy someone else who prefers to have things brighter.  To not worry about being out of an herb, spice or other grocery that I keep in stock and did not know had been depleted.  To have my glass, 4-season sunroom/conservatory be just that instead of a playroom I dare not enter because the transition from one to the other was such a testament to no longer being in exclusive control of my space. To look out at the gardens, with their graceful meandering paths and arches and know that I will once again have the will and energy to bring them back to life because I will be in a position to enjoy them, something that means so, so much to me, once again.

I missed my home.  It has belonged to others for three years.  Like a shy kid wanting to know an object of her affection, I had to approach it again, slowly.  It wasn’t simply that my daughter moved out and I moved back in all over my house.  I had to take it a bit at a time.  I had to get used to it again.  I had to make it mine again.  I had to go out and come in and go out and come in and go out and come in from the day a few times and see how it felt.

The first thing i had to do when everyone finally left was to go to the movies.  It is one of the things my daughter and I do when we have been in stressful situations and want to truly immerse ourselves in something that completely takes our mind away.  So, I did.  I went to the movies that night and saw the Hunger Games, Mockingjay Part I.

It accomplished its purpose.  But I still needed to deal with how my home felt to me.

The first thing I did when I felt my home, strangely clean, orderly and peaceful-looking, was almost mine once again, was to pick my favorite quilting spot, grab a quilt I’d been working on ages ago, and sit in that spot and quilt.  I lit the fireplace, turned on the TV, found an old Bette Davis movie, settled myself in my favorite quilting spot, and proceeded to see how it felt.

Quilting is important to me.  I can only truly do it as I wish to do it, in peace, contentment, and centeredness.  I believe that what I am feeling is transferred piece by piece, stitch by stitch (I quilt by hand rather than machine) into my quilts.  I want it to be only good things.  People truly feel those good feelings when they are under my quilts.

Don’t even bother to argue with me about it.  I know my truth.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

If I could sit in my favorite quilting spot in this place that did not quite yet feel like my old home, and quilt contentedly, I knew it was once again mine.

It was.

I am still in the process of getting to know it in ways that can only come with time, but I could not be more pleased to discover that despite its transition to a home expanded to include so many others, it is now once more the calm, peaceful, beautiful, home of renewing energy that I have loved.

Lest you think she doesn’t, you should know that my daughter who moved out gets all of this too.  Not only does she feel the same way about now having her own space, but she knows me so well that without my saying a word, she understood precisely what her being in mine meant for me.  Her two-page letter to me last Mother’s Day fully demonstrated that.  Knowing what she knew I was giving up for her was part of her turmoil, even though at the very same time, knowing I loved her enough that I would do such a thing for her was something she appreciated with all her heart.

So, we are both transitioning.  We miss each other very much after spending so much time together for so long, as we really love, value and appreciate each other.  But, she was right: I didn’t raise my daughters to live with their Mama.  I am as ecstatic for her to be in her new home as I am to be back in my own.  And I know she feels the same way.

The grandkids came over for a sleepover last night and having them here in my home as visitors is an entirely different dynamic.  We appreciate each other and value our time together in a new way.  What fun it was to bake cookies with them last night, make them hot cocoa, and sit by the fire reading Christmas stories, then wake up and make them blueberry pancakes this morning.  Especially since this first week of separation resulted in phone calls of convulsive tears of missing Nana, face-time calls, and a visit to read them a story in their new home.

Come to think of it, the grandkids may be the biggest beneficiaries of all this transitioning.  🙂

Transitioning back to being alone is a process I am loving more and more each and every day.  Contentment Cottage is bringing me contentment once more.