The Park

It's a beautiful February Friday here in Gold River. A blue-sky, sunshiney, 63-degree kinda day.

As I went by the park this morning and saw all the cute kids with their moms/caregivers, I thought back to the glory days (although I didn't appreciate fully the glory at the time) of taking my daughters to that very same park. Ahhhhh, such memories...

~ ~ Cue the harp music ~ ~

My girlies would (im)patiently wait their turn in line to go down the slide. I'd push our mellow (well, then she was mellow) Cassidy on the swings, while Julia, the wild child, would enthusiastically throw sand (too often in some other child's face). They would both shriek in delight as they jumped onto the merry-go-round. They would laugh together as they played on the teeter-totter (after arguing over who got which end of said teeter-totter). And we would all three leave the park being contented, relaxed and ever-so-happy.

Life couldn't get much better than hanging with my daughters, in the sunshine, at the park! The simple joy and sweet pleasures of everyday life....

The more mature, Empty-Nester "park," however, is vastly different than the park of yesteryear. Not better (necessarily) or not worse (certainly), just...different.

My internal "park" these days consists of hormones running amok, emotions gone wild, living life on a teeter-totter, and dealing with extreme mood swings (my poor husband) while mourning the loss of a once-semi-buoyant derriere that is slip-sliding down my legs.

My parallel "park" nowadays is dinner out with fellow EN's (Empty-Nesters), a weekend in Napa or Pebble Beach with friends, and girls-only getaways to Carmel or Tahoe. The park now is more geographically expansive; I'm hangin' with a waaay older demographic; and instead of drinking JuicyJuice from a sippy-cup while building sandcastles, I'm enjoying wine (disguised in a coffee cup) while strolling the beach.

And at this time of life, that's exactly the way it should be.