Fall transitions; putting kids on the bus for the first day of school, packing away the summer things, and for some, closing up the cabin. For us, this year meant sending our youngest child, Katie, off to college.
Like most parents we like to talk about how we give our children “roots and wings”. We say it with a smile during the early root-giving years, mention it with some sadness when we put them on that bus for the first day of school. As they approach high school graduation, we bring it up only if we see a box of Kleenex nearby.
While I suppose there are many “wing events” along the journey, for me, none can equal that moment when you give our children a goodbye hug in a college campus parking lot and wave to the out the window as we drive down the freeway heading for home. After that moment, things are never quite the same. Their bedroom, while still filled with their childhood treasures, starts to feel more like a quaint museum.
Yet, for all of the sadness that can come at this time; ushering children through their college years and beyond, has been, for me, the most rewarding years of parenting. It feels like a time when we can open up that package that has been sitting under our tree for 18 years, and observe the person that we are turning turned loose on the world.
We begin to have real conversations with our children, sometimes lasting for hours, and we realize that they have ideas, opinions and personality traits that are uniquely their own. After awhile, it becomes easier to focus on the dreams and adventures that lie ahead for them and it begins to rekindle a feeling of rebirth in us, almost as if we get to be young again ourselves.
In working with divorce clients, we talk a lot about new beginnings and of the challenge of grieving the past to make room for the next adventure. I admire people who can absorb the pain of loss with dignity and courage and prepare themselves for the next great chapter.
Labor Day weekend feels like a brief pause that gives us just a moment to reflect on things that just happened, before we gear up for the next chapter. Hope your fall is filled with memories, peace and anticipation.
About This Blog (and this Blogger)
- Ron Ousky
- Edina, Minnesota, United States
- I have been a divorce lawyer since 1983. Believe it or not, I like my job very much. It's not that I like divorce. I have been married since 1979. I like that even better. I don’t like divorce any more than a doctor likes disease. But, I realize that it happens, often to good people. And I know that divorces, like many crisis in life, create opportunities for new beginnings. I like new beginnings and I am humbled by the opportunity to often work with people who find strength in these trying times. Over the past three decades, I have observed more than a thousand divorces and watched hundreds of marriages that have thrived. I have learned a lot, but there is much more to be learned. This blog is dedicated to discussions of the things I have learned, and to the things that I hope to learn more about. Hope you will get something out of sharing this journey with me.
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