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CLOSING IN ON THE EMPTY NEST SYNDROME

What you are about to read is a progressive journey that defies time and place. It will tangle with your emotions like a sticky spider web that remains stuck on your fingers even after you think that you have shaken off all the threads. This journey is about jutting your chin up and out further than you ever have before. You are an individual that has just been plunged into the Empty Nest Syndrome.

Allow me to give you a few quick scenarios just so that we are on the same page. One minute I am brushing my daughter's hair and the next minute she is on her cell phone. I take a moment to reflect upon carefree days filled with mother/daughter gossip sessions. I shake my head to clear out the cobwebs. "That is better!" I say to myself, "Now, I am thinking more clearly!" It was five years ago that I was brushing my daughter's hair and get ready because here comes the nightmare sequence - the person on the other end of my daughter's cell phone is none other than - He's Not Right For My Daughter. Oh my God! I am crying for no apparent reason (except that my hair brushing skills are no longer needed and that the person on the other end of my darling girl's cell phone is He's Not Right For My Daughter). Another example of how time and place can play tricks on us was when my daughter made plans to go the mall with me and 20 minutes later said she was meeting one of her girlfriends there. "Oh, you can come along if you like," she said. What was I to call this? Could it be a woman's prerogative to change her mind? Well, we can look at the facts. They are: a) She is still a teenager; and b) In the case of two teenage girls and a mom - two is company and three is a crowd.

O.K., I can be supportive. For instance, let us examine the situation where He's Not Right for My Daughter has called. I can ask my daughter how her 'friend' is doing. I use the word friend because it is easier to formulate that word with my mouth versus the term that she and all of her girlfriends have coined for him, which is by now I'm sure you've guessed - 'boyfriend'. The mantra that my husband and I say to one another is "we must show acceptance towards the boyfriend." What is the alternative? Well, according to my sister, who has raised two daughters of her own, we can have our daughter and her boyfriend turn into "Romeo and Juliet." For my second example concerning the mall, I simply told my daughter that a little more notice would have been nice so that I could

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