Partners

This is an excerpt from the weekly News-Loveletter. If you would like it sent to your inbox directly (with all the other juicy bits, including a mini joy practice), you can add yourself to my mailing list here.

“Hey, Mom!”

I turn to look at the back fence line where my twenty-three-year-old son Trinidad perches in a tree. He poises to make his first cut with a chainsaw. The neighbor is uncomfortable with the lean of that cottonwood. It could fall on their home or shed at any time. They’ve hired him to take it down. My younger son, Sam, who is twenty, hangs over the fence and waves.

“Mom!” he calls. I wave back.

“Good to see you honey. What time are you two leaving tomorrow?”

“First thing in the morning,” he says. “I’m just helping Trin with the brush on this job.”

Sam and I discuss their readiness to make the long drive back to Alaska. It will take a few weeks to prepare their vans and team there for business before they launch. Northern Epics, the company Sam and Trinidad started last year with a friend, has booked over 925 hikes for this coming summer. (If you or folks you know are heading to Denali, check them out here.) I’m in awe at how fast they’ve built this business.

I’d always thought that Sam and Trin’s young adult years would be calmer than their toddler years, but it doesn’t feel that way now. Our roles are reversed. I’m learning from them more than they’re learning from me these days. As Seda prepares to launch her design business this June, her head is spinning, too, with what the kids have to teach us.

We stand on the porch the following morning collecting one, two, three goodbye hugs. We are excited for them and tearful. It’s been sweet these past seven months to share meals and throw the football with them. We will visit them in Alaska in August, and we look forward to that.

Today it is quiet. The whirlwind has subsided. It will be weeks before Leo and I stop listening for their step on the porch. My brain is adjusting to the drop in stimulation. My sparkle hangs askew. I’m grateful for Joy Together (formerly Joy Collective), who inspire and hold me accountable in a practice of joy. I’m integrating and looking for spaciousness within my breath and between my thoughts.

It’s a new day.

When has a goodbye restructured your world so that you worked to find yourself again? Did you appreciate community support?