July for me was a month full of people and activity (and rain, but the less said about that the better!). My eldest son Dan was back from University, his girlfriend came to stay for a while, Sarah was here before moving to her new flat, my brothers, both of whom live abroad, and their families came over to stay, we all went camping for a fun-filled and wet week (and no, I’m not just being stoic here, it is possible for camping, fun and rain to go in the same sentence!) and then it was my dad’s 80th birthday party with what seemed like an endless round of meetings with long-lost relatives and family friends.

Now, today I am sitting feeling strangely lonely, in an empty quiet house. I say strangely because although it would seem obvious that the aftermath of all this frenzied and sociable activity would seem a bit flat, I know that that isn’t what this is about. In fact, it’s a bit of a relief that it’s over, - some of the time was lovely but some of it, well you know what families can be like, not so lovely! No, this feels like one of those moments in parenting life when you suddenly realize something’s shifted and has been shifting for a while but you’ve only just noticed!

For the last week Jamie (my youngest, 14, just in case you’ve forgotten) has been in Lyme Regis. He and a friend from school are staying with another school friend and his family as they have a house there (a fact of which I am extremely jealous!). I have rung him twice since he’s been away and both times the conversation has roughly gone: Hello, how are you? Fine. What have you been doing? Uh, dunno, lots of things but mum, I’ve got to go now because we’re about to……..Hmmm, not missing me then, that’s obvious. In fact, he’s now staying on for a bit longer.

I did manage to get a little more information out of him during our conversations….. they’ve been going for early evening swims in the sea every day even when it’s been raining, they’ve been sea-kayaking, roaming the cliffs, shrimping and fishing and in the evenings playing games. And so, despite the jealousy and feelings of abandonment, I think it’s absolutely bloody marvelous. For a boy, like many other boys his age, who spends inordinate amounts of time either watching TV or on his computer playing Counterstrike (which if you’ve not come across it think yourself lucky – it basically involves shooting, stabbing and generally ending the lives of ‘terrorists’!), to have the balance between virtual reality and natural reality shift so dramatically, even if only temporarily, can only be good.

Incidentally, I read an interesting article recently in a magazine1 about how computers and television are hijacking childhood and creating the ecological equivalent of an attachment disorder with nature. Not only that but research has linked children spending many hours in virtual space with an array of health problems, including obesity and sleep disorders, and many others which don’t develop until many years later. Screen viewing suppresses Melatonin which is our sleep-inducing hormone and is also a powerful antioxidant that can prevent cancer-causing mutations of cell DNA. I don’t want to scare you (or myself for that matter!), but I’m sure we all know instinctively that it’s not good for our kids, and it’s good to be reminded - I just thank God for friends with holiday homes!

Anyway, to get back to my lonely and abandoned state…..so, Jamie is in Lyme having mucho fun and Dan, who was going to be home for the whole summer, decided to go to Edinburgh to stay with his uncle who lives up there and get work at the Edinburgh Festival so that he can earn some money to travel with friends to Morocco in September, and then straight back to Uni at the beginning of October. Great for him, but for me it sucks - summer hols is the time I have to look forward to him being around.

Sarah, as you may know from my previous posting is now living, in her pregnant state, in a flat with her boyfriend 200 miles away. I went to visit them last week and well, what can I say? The flat is nice enough, clean, light, airy, they have begun to sort themselves out, shop, cook, feed themselves, but for me it’s really hard, she’s my little girl, still so young, having to take on so much responsibility – and doing brilliantly I have to say, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

And that leaves me (and Pudding, curled up in my lap purring as I type), sat here in this quiet and empty house knowing that all my children are out there in the world independently, doing their own thing, getting on with lives that don’t include me and don’t need me, and although that’s just as it should be, it’s, well, a little challenging to say the least.

So, as I said, I’ve suddenly realized that, although Jamie’s going to be back soon and will be around for a 2 or 3 years yet, something has shifted in all our relationships and that leaves me………

FREE!

I had to say that because I was beginning to feel a little sad and so an injection of positivity was needed I felt.

And as part of this new liberation and with Jamie being away, I went up to Yorkshire last week to a place called Learning to Listen run by a wonderfully inspiring woman called Sarah Kreutzer who works with troubled horses and children using ‘horse whispering’ techniques. She has just developed a 5 day course called the Warrior Programme which she runs for individuals and corporate groups and uses these same techniques, and includes work with the horses to look at personal, leadership, team-building and conflict-resolution skills. So I am now officially a Warrior and I have to say, it was absolutely brilliant, incredibly powerful stuff – the horses are great teachers and have this awe-inspiring ability to mirror back to you with absolute honesty and clarity where you’re at, which is not always a comfortable experience to say the least. I would definitely recommend it, – see www.learningtolisten.co.uk


So what’s to be done about my aloneness? I have to admit to being a little jealous of Half Mum, Half Biscuit (www.onespace.org.uk/blogs) when she talks about Alan, the new man in her life, so I think my first positive Warrior action is going to be getting on that internet dating malarkey……watch this space!


Notes

1. ‘Videophilia’, Aric Sigman, Resurgence magazine, No. 254, May/June 2009