I used to be a real scaredy pants.  Scaredy Pants is the moment of fear that makes you feel like your bum and bladder are in complete agreement that they should let everything loose at the same time, while your heart leaps to your throat and your heart pounds through your chest.  Then you sweat.  I get this feeling now when I turn on the news.  After about 5 minutes, I realize I'm not watching a reality show about the end of times.

Back to Scaredy Pants.  I believe I can blame being afraid of everything on my big sister.  She was a clever one, she was.

Terry and I shared a room until she started high school.  My brother was at the end of the hall.  One night she flattened herself way down into the bed and put her pillow over her head.  She started booing like a ghost.   “Woooooooo  --- Debi…. This is the voice of Jeeeeeee—sus.    My ghosts are in Randy’s room and they are wringing his neck.”  I started to cry even though I had no idea what "wringing his neck" meant.  I envisioned her set of bangle bracelets being put over his head one at a time.  Why that scared the pee out of me, I don’t know, but she was one scary Jesus and I wasn’t going to second guess the fact that He had His ghosts in Randy’s room.  I hadn’t learned about them in Sunday school yet.  Terry’s five-year head start on Sunday school made her an expert.  I wouldn’t question her.  Of course, I never really questioned anything she said, especially when she was scaring the pee out of me.  Finally, after letting me sob it out and I was literally begging for mercy, she shoots up from the bed, pillow flying out from her head, and cheerfully whisper-yells, “I’m just kidding.  There are no ghosts!  It’s me.”  I’d be so relieved (not literally) I considered her my hero for saving my life.  I’d calm down and go to sleep.  All was well until the very next night when she’d do it all over again.  I don’t really know how many times this happened.  It was more than twice and I still can’t figure out why the heck I was so gullible.  Good thing I continued my Biblical studies.  I found out she was lying about the ghosts.

When I was little I was prone to nightmares.  I ran down our upstairs hallway more than once.  One time I was being chased by bulls – another time it was spiders. 

My worst nightmare was an interactive fiasco.  It happened not long after I received my fake Patty Playpal doll.  Her name was Roberta.  That Christmas, everyone asked for the 3 foot tall, life-like Patty Playpal doll that walked when you took her hand.  My folks could not afford Patty.  Roberta was found at the local Tradewell grocery store in boxes on top of the ice cream freezer.  I am sure they were ¼ the price of a Patty Playpal, and for most kids, getting a Roberta doll was like getting Carob chips in your chocolate chip cookies.  Yuck.  Roberta was okay by me -- although she was crippled.  I took her hand to walk and she fell over while I dragged her through the house.  She didn’t mind and neither did I.  Instead of long silky hair with a headband, Roberta had short kinky hair that smelled like a new vinyl couch.  She did have beautiful blue eyes that moved and shut and had eyelashes so thick and lush.  They looked like the brush attachment on the vacuum cleaner. I loved to ruffle them with my fingers.  Roberta stood in my bedroom when I was not dragging her around, and after the first few rapturous months with her, she stood there a lot.

Not long after she started her stand-up routine, my real friend Patti (who had a REAL Patty Playpal as well as a Chatty Cathy) invited me to go to a movie with her.  Now, real Patti’s parents were much older than my parents and for some odd reason thought it was okay to take children to horror movies.  Many times they took us to the drive-in where I had to endure a double feature.  At least it was easier to close my eyes without being found out.  But this particular invitation was for the matinee where we viewed, “Village of the Damned.”  This was a black and white film that took place in England somewhere, making it just as scary to me as the Transylvanian and Frankenstein crap.  I about lost my stuff over those old movies.  I don’t really remember anything about the Village but I do remember that the children all had the power to make anything happen and they were only into doing evil things.  The most memorable scene to me was when an old car passed by the group of children and their eyes all lit up with a wicked eeriness causing the car to crash roll over and burst into flames.  I don’t know what the passengers in the car had done to cause their own demise, but it was clear to me that one did not piss off these kids.  Woe-is-me to the parent who bought them a Roberta doll instead of a Patty Playpal!!!  I know I have blocked out the rest of the movie.  I stayed over night at Patty’s and did not have a nightmare over that movie – at least that night.  I’m assuming it’s because real Patti’s mom fed us every kind of sweet and soda that was invented at that time.  I’d do anything to eat at her house and play with her real dolls, her Presto paints, silly putty, and Colorforms.  But the next night, snug in my own bed with the streetlight coming through my window, it was a different story.  Something awakened me during the night.  When I sat up, that streetlight was glowing in Roberta’s eyes.  Roberta was from “The Village!”  I screamed loud enough to wake the neighborhood and scare the ghosts out of my sister, Jesus.  I didn’t learn my lesson that night.  It was many horror movies later, the last entitled, “The FIesh Eaters” that caused another Richter-scaled nightmare that made me finally confess to my parents about my movie viewing habits at Patti’s house.  My overnights at Patti’s stopped.  My relationship with Roberta was revived.  In fact, I kept her until one Halloween in 1991 when I came home from shopping to see my children’s pumpkins lit up on the porch and Roberta was hanging naked from the tree with nail-polish blood dripping down her eyes.  I wonder what the Goodwill people thought when they opened that box…

Movies continued to feed my fear throughout the years.  In 1974 when the commercials for “The Exorcist” first appeared on TV, I was scared spitless.  I had a horrible time getting the mysterious, haunting ads out of my head when I went to bed.  I gave in and went to the movie, only to find the movie was less frightening than the commercial.  Later, the same year, it took a bottle of Strawberry Fields to get me through “Jaws.”  I didn’t normally imbibe in spirits.  We were double dating with a couple that brought some beer and wine to the Drive-in.  Every time the now infamous shark music started, I took a gulp of that nasty stuff.  This movie made me a believer in the medicinal qualities of a cheap 99-cent bottle of wine.

Not much has changed.  I’m not so afraid of the super-natural horror films. I’m more terrified from anything that could really happen.  The 1974 film, Earthquake, was scary. War films are horrendous and anything bloody and gory like Gladiator is enough to make me drink Strawberry Fields again.  Gladiator was particularly awful for me.  My husband and son sat with eyes and ears glued to the screen.  Normally, my tee shirt trick gets me through the visual abuse of a gory movie.  I simply pull my tee shirt up over my eyes and filter the picture.  It works so well, I’ve often wondered if I couldn’t sell a theater novelty – Tee Shirt Glasses.  Instead of 3-D lenses, I could replace the lens with Tee shirt material…In fact; I could offer a set of 3 for $20.  Your choice of colors!  But as I sat filtering The Gladiator, I realized I’d need to sell matching earplugs.  The sound effects of metal prickly balls hitting a skull were just too much.  So there I sat with my Tee Shirt over my face and my ears plugged as I softly hummed Amazing Grace and The Barney Song. Mercifully, I fell asleep and did not have to endure the torture. 

It seems I stayed fairly fearful for years.  But somewhere along the line I decided to face some of my fears starting with the man looking in the window while I was in the second floor bathroom using the toilet.  In my childhood home, we had a bathroom with a window right by the toilet.  I often sat there in the daylight and watched the tall Douglas fir trees down the street sway in the winter wind.  It was much more satisfying than doing my mom’s crossword’s while doing my business.  But come the darkness, doing my business became a matter of life and death.  The minute my bum hit the commode, my heart started pounding, I broke out in a sweat and constipation was immediate.  I knew that someone was on the kitchen roof, standing right out side my bathroom window.  I’d hide my eyes, force the “issue” and get out of there as fast as I could.  Running down the stairs, I’d hear my mother yell, Debi, slow down, already, you’re going to fall.  Are you kidding?”  Would she rather I be caught and bound with my pants around my legs by a poop loving peeping Tom?”  Crimaninny!  I was pretty proud of myself one night when I’d finally had enough of poop-peeping Tom.  Focused as never before, I did my duty, washed my hands and with great bravery (and no tee-shirt glasses) ripped open the curtains so I could scare the bajeebuds out of Tom.  Surprise!  No one was there.  I wasn’t easily convinced, though.  It took many more times before I finally realized Tom must have moved on (no pun intended.)

Now, I’m pretty much not afraid of anything.  I’ve come to understand that fear is not a productive feeling.  I believe that God is Love.  Love is the opposite of fear, so where Love exists, fear cannot.  God conquers all fear.  But, what the hay?  It still wouldn’t hurt to carry my Tee shirt glasses around.

It’s been a pretty depressing week for reading Facebook.  Moms from every aspect of my life and friends of friends are posting their heartache as their babes are leaving for college, getting married or simply moving out on their own.  It is tough and although there are jokes about bolting the doors and making sure you don’t let them back in (they might stay) or being cautioned about the “boomerang effect,” it isn’t really a laughing matter at the time.

I was feeling sad myself this week as our summer inhabitant/Office administrator left to go back to school.  Gabe, #6 and baby of the clan came home for the first time since he left for college three years ago, to work a “real” job for our business.  It was a win-win for us because we hadn’t accomplished much in the line of paperwork organization since our beloved Hannah had to stay in California when we moved.

Yes, three years ago we watched #6 fly the coop and we flew shortly after.  Son #1 is now the master of the home we raised our children in so he is the one that gets the returning siblings for holidays, events and a warm place to land, making our empty nest syndrome a different challenge altogether.

Moms and Dads all over the world are saying goodbye to their kids as they start out on journeys of their own.  The empty nest syndrome is alive and flourishing, and like other syndromes, until you come down with a big case of your own, you may not understand the effect it has on you today, and in the future.  It really never goes away.  But it can be managed.

The definition of a syndrome is this: A group of identifying signs and symptoms…

Empty nest syndrome according to Wikipedia is: a feeling of grief and loneliness parents or guardians may feel when their children leave home for the first time, such as to live on their own or to attend a college or university.

As I’m writing this, Hannah, our fore mentioned Office Manager, is celebrating the birth of her second son.  It was announced in a mass text. I ended up in a conversation with her aunt, a recipient of the same announcement. She was in a bittersweet place; celebrating the birth of her newest nephew at the same time her only child is off to college. The bitter-sweetness was not lost on me.

One only says so much in a text, especially a group text, but I was thinking how much I’d love to wrap my arms around Hannah and tell her to savor the moment; remember back to when she was holding her little cousin for the very first time.  Have not the years between then and the day of this son’s birth gone by far too quickly?  Is there any way to help new mothers understand the preciousness of every single moment of their children’s lives?

They go away - yet they don’t.  Most of the time they come home with laundry in hand and find their way to the fridge before making chaos of their old bedroom within seconds.  Heaven forbid if we try to make the room into Dad’s man-cave, a craft room or a guest room. 

For the weekend or holiday break, things seem back to normal.  I catch myself prompting my returnees with their schedule, asking if they’ve done their laundry, and other little automatic “Mommy must do’s.  In other words, I comfortably fall into my old routine of mothering.  Then as they pack to leave, I’m hit smack over the head with a 2x4 with the knowledge that when they are away from me, they don’t need the mothering.  That may not be 100% true.  Let’s just say, if they need the mothering, I don’t know about it and the kid is still breathing and their socks may be rigid with dirt, but it’s a matter of “out of sight out of mind” at that point.

I try to remember that the formative years are just that.  My job is to prepare the children for independent living and success.  I’ve tried to keep in mind that “mothering” isn’t always the best thing to do while the kids are with me.  Letting a kid fail at the small things in order to suffer some minor consequences enables the child to change their behaviors and learn responsibility.  I know, I know, if you are a helicopter Mom, you must think I’m a loser.  Let’s put it this way.  Part of that training was not just for the child.  It was for me too.  Without the small increments of letting go, I could be the mom that the College Football coach is banning from the games because I didn’t get the memo that at the age of 18 my son is considered an adult and the coach is now his mentor, teacher, dad and god (little “g” intended.)  Smothering a child while they are home is bad enough, but hovering when they are 18 or over says little about them and “TOO MUCH” about the parent.

Letting go of your child is a show of respect for the adult you helped to raise.  Holding on is not about their inability to be that adult but the parents lack of confidence in the job they have done as teachers.   That doesn’t mean you haven’t done your very best.  It just means you have to believe you have and trust your child to the rest of the world.  How easy is that?  NOT!

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_nest_syndrome) says it pretty simply:
Symptoms of empty nest syndrome can include depression, a sense of loss of purpose, feelings of rejection, or worry, stress, and anxiety over the child's welfare. Parents who experience empty nest syndrome often question whether or not they have adequately prepared their child to live independently.
  
I find  it interesting that stay at home moms are said to experience the empty nest syndrome more than others.  I guess that could be true as that has been our job and somewhat our identity.  (I’ll touch on this in my “Stay at home Mom article later.)  I don’t think it’s fair to categorize the effect of Empty Nest quite so specifically.  I know plenty of Mom’s who were full-time workers that feel the effects as much if not more than I.  There can be a feeling that they now have to grieve the time they could have had with their child if they had stayed at home; an extreme feeling, not balanced by the reality of the needed income in this society and the truth that they worked two jobs while raising their children.  Raising children, despite the actions of many parents, is not a competition.  You enter the life-cycle by bearing the children, feeding them, clothing them and setting life standards and values by your own actions, your words and for me a lot of prayer.  Raising children is as individual as the parent and their own life story.

So is letting go.  So is experiencing the heartbreak and sadness of packing up the room and setting up the dorm, apartment, or waving goodbye to the soldier.  I congratulate Target, Wal-Mart and other big box stores for making the adventure a little fun.  Buying matchy-matchy bedding and plastic drawers more than makes up for the stab of sadness as you hug your kid good-bye and drive back home to the empty nest, right?

It’s real.  Its’ different for everyone and until you go through it, you haven’t a clue.  Wiki says some people never experience it and feel a sense of relief and freedom.  The key piece of information there is – they don’t feel it. Just because they don’t feel it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.  Good for you for feeling it.  Recognizing it means you are a step closer to doing something with it.  And just because you don’t feel relief and freedom at this moment doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

It’s time now to prepare the nest for the return visits of your adult.  It’s time to do what your heart has always wanted you to do.  Guilt is non-productive so move that out with the kids and say goodbye to it forever.  The relationship between you and your kids is ongoing.  They will always be a part of your life.  They are not gone – it’s just different.

Remember to remember.  When I left home, I would come back and spend more time visiting others than my parents.  Holidays and family gatherings and the joy of being with my folks brought me home.  I wanted to be in my old room and I wanted to base myself from that home.  But I didn’t return to the child that preceded my independence – ever!   Remember how important your friends were before you left home. Your children’s are too and they have had to disband most of their life-long circles of friends and it hurts.  It will be a few years before those circles are diluted with new friends, spouses and children. When that happens, the family circle starts to reunite.  Remember, you are the constant in their life, but they don’t need you to remain the same.  Remember how you felt about your parents after you left.  Watching my parents “having a life” after I left was important to me.  Seeing active parents with lives of their own is a gift.  It keeps the responsibility of your happiness off the shoulders and heart of your kids.  Gift them with that.

And lastly, remember the image of holding sand in one’s palm. You can hold a lot more sand in an open palm than if you squeeze the sand with all your might.  Hold your family in the palm of your hand.  It is a gentle, freeing feeling.  Grieve the loss, but celebrate the job you have done.  

Today is still the first day of the rest of YOUR life as well as their’s.