I have not been able to get here for a while, which kind of ties in with my title today. Life has kind of taken over lately and my free time on the computer is a bit more limited lately.
Changing plans.
When you renest, you find that plans you thought were set in cemet, are suddenly changing. Instead of just thinking of what you want, you are helping with grandkids and having to adjust your day to day with thier needs.
Our youngest moved out months after our daughter and her kids moved in and instead of being empty nesters with plans all figured out, we find we are a full nest again and in total limbo.
We had plannned on finishing up the things on this house that needed to be done and by the end of the year renting out our home and moving to a small apartment up by my husbands work to save him the 50 mile drive each way and us the gas money expense . We would make a few hundred profit a month on the rental and be spending quite a few hundred less on rent and utilities and be able to save the gas money as well and finish paying off our last few debts and start funding our savings and emergeny accounts in earnest. We were very excited about this upcoming adventure in our lives.
Wel……, not gonna happen any time soon !! Our daughter came to live with us with her kids and now we have to change those plans . The hardest thing is not really knowing when we can make plans again.
She is planning to becoming an RN and we are very proud of her, but this goal is about a four to five year one. She has to wait a year from the date she started working, which was three months ago, or she is not considered a state resident and tuition is high. That said, she can start school in spring of 2011. So, she will not be through school until the end of at least 2016.
It is a hard thing to have plans you are very emotionally invested in fall through and on top of that not k now when you can even make them again, but, the pay off is worth it to us.
We have missed our daughter for the entire eight years we were apart from her. We barely knew our nine year old grand daughter and were virtual strangers to our two year old grandson when they moved in. Since then we have forged close relationships with both of them and seeing our daughter every day has been such a blessing.
At times it is hard to know what could have been, but , you really have to learn to adapt when you decide to bring a grown child with kids back into your home to help them. Concentrate on the blessings, not that what could have been and just work to find the balance you need to make the enitre situation work for everyone.
It is hard work for everyone, you the kids and the grandkids, but is well worth it and you just have to learn to change plans.
I am not just talking about big plans either, it could be as simple as our daughter being called in to work on her day off ,and a day we thought we would have to ourselves, we don’t. I think sometimes those are the harder changes honestly.
Life is an adventure, and you just do not know where it will take you, so plan carefully, but understand that you may find you have to make some major changes and you can get through it by just being flexable and sometimes just letting go of that emotional investment in those plans and be willing to make new plans on a moments notice when you decide to renest !!!
Last but not least, remember that is well worth it, and you will never regret helping your child get through whatever it is they need to get through. You just have to be willing to change plans on a whim sometimes.
