Do I miss my children when they go out of town?
Yes, but not terribly. I know that I will see them again,
and when they return it will be “life as usual”. The time that they are gone
provides rare moments of peace and quiet, and free time. It is one of the rare
times that I can do something I enjoy, like sewing or knitting, playing the piano, doing crafts or going out
with friends, and not feel pressured to “get
it done” because I need to cook dinner, go grocery shopping or do the laundry,
etc.
When the children were younger, we lived in Utah. They would go to
California every summer to spend time with their dad. They would be gone 4 or 5
weeks. I would send them during the season in Utah when it was the hottest
because our house did not have air conditioning and they could miss being
horribly hot in a house without AC and could be at their dad’s air conditioned house.
They were with me all of the time except for those weeks
during the summer. During their childhood, I never felt ok leaving them at home while I went out with friends, it just didn't feel right to go out in the evening and leave them with a babysitter, so I didn't. I packed my social life into the 4-5 weeks every summer while the kids were
with their dad. When they were really little, like 3 and 4, I could not leave
overnight without missing them so bad that I could not enjoy the trip, so we
would take them with us when we traveled. But by the time they were flying to
CA to be with dad, the youngest was 6.
For several years, every summer while they were visiting California, one or two of them would call me every
night in tears telling me that she misses me and just can’t “do it”. So, I
would buy airline tickets (at a premium, of course because the travel date was
so close to the purchase date) so that I could fly down on the weekends to
soother her sad little soul. It broke my heart to have her be so far away
trying to cope with what was to her a stressful situation. It really hurt to
hear to her sad little voice pleading with me to fly down because she missed me
so much. So I would go to CA on the weekend, then, on Sunday night before I
would fly back to Utah, she would identify an article of clothing or a stuffed
animal that I would have to “fill with love” so that she could cuddle with it
during the week and be filled with “mom’s love” until I returned.
So the point is that usually I am so
busy that I don’t have time to think about it and I know that they will be back
really soon, so I want to enjoy the “down” time as much as possible.
