Baby Jell-O Legs Old Lady

Transitions & Change and Old & New Again

I’m staring at a blank, white screen again.

This isn’t new. I’ve been doing it since the 90s.

And yet, it took me forever to figure out how to make new paragraphs on this page.

And I need new paragraphs because I am used to the short, choppy blog-type writing that we are all accustomed to now, because who has time to sit and read a whole thing?!

Here’s what’s funny - I do.

I have time.

After 20 years of parenting, and 17 years of homeschooling, I have time, and yet I don’t know how to use it.

I’m a little toddler, who needs a Daily Routine. I’d like someone to bring me some graham crackers every day at 2 p.m., please.

I took care of people for 20 years and now, those people are in college, and fairly self-sufficient and I am not.

I’m just a Baby Jell-O Legs Old Lady.

And can I tell you that that’s been, at times, terrifying?

For a bit now, it’s felt like I’m in a snake pit of indecision.

(There is no way to get it “right” in a snake pit, ahem.)

So finally I asked my friend Kortney - do I start a Substack or what and she said yes - start a Substack, and I said how do you do that?

I meant how do you make decisions?

How do you confidently go in the direction of your dreams or pick a direction at all?

She is magic to me. Always has been.

I was waiting, see?

I was waiting to know what I should do before I did it.

I had people ask, do you think you could write about all the transition and change and the kids growing up and moving out, and how all of that feels?

And I said no. Not right now.

It would be like giving you a bunch of carrot and celery sticks.

Raw.

And you’d be hungry 10 minutes later.

Let me make you some slow-cooked, nourishing soup, I thought to myself.

And then I stewed.

What I know for sure about transitions …

For I don’t know how long now, I’ve been telling people I’m 47.

I’m not. I’m 46.

But this is where I am - I can’t tell you without counting it out with jelly beans which year my son started college away from home.

I know my daughter started community college here at 15, because she had to take some extra tests and such, because she couldn’t wait.

She was like a butterfly popping out of the chrysalis - all elbows and wings.

I’m here. Let me out. Move aside.

She was just ready, and we knew.

But I’m not sure I was.

Dabbling …

I work for myself now, doing all kinds of fun stuff.

I have hobbies.

I journal a lot.

I’m in a relationship with my sticker collection.

I paint for hours - because it’s a meditation. That’s it.

That’s the only purpose.

(It’s weird doing things that don’t have a bigger purpose. That aren’t FOR anybody. Just me … I guess …?)

I feed birds and squirrels now, and chipmunks. This is the most OLD LADY of my new interests.

Ask me why and I’ll tell you that I like having them around.

I’m also used to taking care of things.

What else?

I made friends with the moon. She gets me.

It’s not a problem to be solved …

I tried to read my way through the past few years. I looked for signs.

I was doing all the things I did before.

I decided that this Change was a problem, and it needed fixing.

But it isn’t. It’s not.

I do think it’s something we need to talk about, though -

What the world looks like from your front porch … when you know that inside the house, it’s quiet. No one else is home.

So for now …

So for now, I scribble in my notebooks and I have great creative bursts, and then I sit and sort and sift, and finally I know my job right now isn’t to figure this all out at once.

I think it might be … to show you the messy truth?

What do you think?