The Life I Want to Build Now
I don't want the next chapter of my life to be spent waiting.
Waiting for the phone.
Waiting for Sunday.
Waiting for Christmas.
Waiting for someone else's schedule to give my day meaning.
I want to keep becoming a person.
Not simply someone's mother.
Not simply someone's grandmother.
Me.
I want things that interest me.
People who know me.
Places I still want to see.
Books I haven't read.
Meals I haven't tasted.
Conversations I haven't had.
Mornings that belong entirely to me.
And then, when you come through my door, I want to have something to tell you too.
I don't want our conversations to consist only of me asking about your life because nothing has happened in mine.
Maybe I tried something new.
Maybe I met someone interesting.
Maybe I went somewhere.
Maybe I learned something.
Maybe I changed my mind about something at seventy-five that I was absolutely certain about at fifty.
Wouldn't that be something?
I want you to see that growing older can still mean growing.
Maybe This Is What Loving You Looks Like Now
When you were little, loving you often meant holding on.
Holding your hand across the street.
Holding you when you cried.
Holding you close when you were afraid.
But grandchildren grow up.
And perhaps eventually love changes shape.
Maybe loving you now means opening my hand.
Not disappearing from your life.
Not pretending I don't miss you.
Not becoming so independent that nobody feels needed.
Just loosening my grip enough for both of us to breathe.
I can love you deeply without asking you to fill every empty space.
I can miss you without making you feel guilty for being gone.
I can tell you I want to see you without making that invitation sound like an obligation.
And I can build a life worth living between the moments when you walk through my door.
Perhaps that is the lesson I needed most.
Because I used to think there were only two possibilities:
Hold tightly, or lose people.
Now I am beginning to understand there is another way.
Stay connected without clinging.
Keep the door open.
Keep your own life moving.
Say “I miss you” when you mean it.
Say “have a wonderful time” when they leave.
Call sometimes.
Let them call sometimes.
Find reasons to get up in the morning that have nothing to do with whether the phone rings.
And when the people you love return, welcome them with joy instead of presenting them with an accounting of how long they were gone.
That is the kind of grandmother I want to become.
So, my dear grandchildren, go live your lives.
I mean that.
Build them big.
Fill them with people, experiences, mistakes, adventures, responsibilities, laughter, and stories you will someday repeat to your own grandchildren.
You don't have to spend your life proving that you love me.
Just remember me sometimes while you are living it.
And I promise I will keep learning how to do the same thing from my side:
To miss you without believing I have been forgotten.
To love you without making that love heavy.
To leave enough space for you to build your own life...
while remembering that mine is still here, waiting to be lived too.