Something is missing...

CHILDREN!!!
I have no more children...
The only thing remaining in her room now
is a lonely wrinkled used blue graduation gown
hung sideways on the hanger dangling from the open deserted closet door.
The room is empty now and echos with cold silence...

Life changes regardless if you are ready or not.
Remember that saying "Ready or not, Here I come!"
Well it is true.

Day 5
after the mass exit of all kids and grand parents.
The dust has settled here in the villa...
Graduation is over.
A vase of smelly water and six once beautiful wilted red roses
from Josh the boyfriend,
that I am trying not to throw out,
lingers in the kitchen...
and life for Ashlynn has only just begun...

Life for me, well, I am really not sure.
Is it the beginning, the end, or the beginning of the end?

Breakfast is lonely now.
Bella has a worried look on her face.
Chris and I can actually talk about something besides what time curfew is...
and disagree..
(He always let them stay out later)

Today is bittersweet.
Bitter because I don't think you are
ever really finished raising kids or being a mother.
But you wake up one day and they do not need you anymore.
To be honest, everything else that matters, it is really time for them to teach themselves.

Sweet because I have been worried and fretting and consumed with
grades, friendships, curfews, appropriate clothing, teenage issues, drama, boyfriends, girlfriends, what is right, what is not, driving, drinking,
where the role of parenting stops and where it doesn't...
and now I do not have to think about all that 24/7.
I'm FREE!
They are free too.
It's time...and I like that.
It feels good because I know we did the best we knew how.
I know they will always remember where home is,
who God is
and the love of family is instilled in their hearts.
I feel like a 3 ton heavy chain has been weighting down my shoulders
these past 13 years of raising four teenagers.
Hallelujah
Praise the Lord - we made it!!!
The Patrizi kids are all now young adults,
fending for themselves and living together
in a very small house in Austin Texas this summer.

A perfect reality sitcom...

One overgrown boy in black flannel robot shorts and no shirt, wearing cowboy boots,
sitting next to his 3 foot pile of laundry and three half grown sisters
waiting on him, rubbing his back and working part time at his sandwich rig
all wearing each others clothes, wondering who is paying for groceries,
who ate all the Owens sausage biscuits,
fighting over who's turn it is to clean the kitchen
and I am not there to referee!!!

It is a beautiful life.

It is time to celebrate
what we have accomplished
in all the hard work and endless time and energy
you put into making sure they wear clean underwear and study.

It is time to be proud of the people they have become.
It is time to realize
if they do not wear clean underwear
it is not your problem.

I am jealous when I hear them all laughing
and seeing the girls together on Skype lying in the same bed
cracking up and hugging and just generally loving each other.
What an awesome feeling in my bones.

There is a part of me that can't wait to get there and be a part of it,
and then knowing it is only for a short time.

One day in the next few months, I will drive away from that laughter
get on a plane and travel back to the other side of the universe alone
and only see and hear them through cyberspace.

I am not the only one in the world doing this.
But it doesn't make it any easier.

They will always be my children,
I will always be their Mother...

Our lives will be lived apart, on other sides of the world
only to reunite on occasion.
But,
It will be like Christmas every single time we are together.
I am excited about that.

It is the season for freedom...

Now that all the kids are gone,
I have to make sure
Chris is not serious about having a
naked room.

Smiles,
Sherry