Split Personality!

To my favorite Mommy and Daddy bloggers and readers and to all my friends. In the attempt to get a life, I have finished my very first novel. I wrote about this some time ago, but since then there have been many drafts, sleepless nights, thoughts about who do I think I'm kidding.

The publishing industry is going through growing pains, but I think this opens up opportunities. I just have to find them.

Without sounding too cryptic, please visit http://www.williamcastle.com/and you will come to understand my strange re-emergence. My father's death has given me a new life. Wow, that's weird. So much of what I am going through is wildly sinister and kinda' fun.

I want to have this forum to talk about my feelings, my children, my fear of separation...but then I have this other world to dable in. It is not as satisfying as talking to you each and every day.

What do I do?

I miss you all so much. I'm still here. And have to figure out a way to be two people at once.

Let me know your thoughts. And if you get a moment, stop by www.williamcastle.com and say hey to my Dad who made horror films and died 33-years-ago.

All my love,
The Gal who is now being called half Goth and Half Gidget!

They're not dead, they are just going off to college~

Too many friends dropping off their children at college this year. Too many stories of hugs and tears. Too much to digest.

I have literally avoided thinking about it all and projecting until I see a photo or hear a story and then those familiar pangs begin to pull at my heart.

"The most important job of my life is done," I heard one father say. But that's not it at all. Our kids will still need us, but just in a different way and I'm not ready for this different way.

They will call when they are sick, or hurt by a troubled love, or need money, or advice. It's the day to day, take for granted luxury of living under the same roof that will be gone. And if not gone forever, forever changed.

Since I began writing about this separation process I have begun to understand the magnitude of this simple event--dropping your child off to college. For our generation, the generation of ALWAYS being there, the separation feels like the great divide in the Grand Canyon. Why is it so much harder for us to let go?

For lots of us mommies, we happily gave up careers to raise our tiny tots. And those of us who figured out how to work and ALWAYS be there, we happily gave up sleep and any time for ouselves. And then they leave us. So quickly. And that's what is supposed to happen.

I have little to say to my friends who are just back home, walking past their son or daughter's empty room. I say stupid stuff like, "Your child is going to be so happy!"

Inside I know what I want to say, "Cling tightly to their ankles with all your force and don't let them step across the threshold. Hold on tight."

I'm selfish, I know. I have a year to learn how to put my child's need before mine. I thought I was doing this for the last 17-years...but was I? Are my needs and my kid's need inexplicably linked?

To all my brave friends, I applaud you. Wildly. And cry as much as you want. You deserve it for a job well done!