Kathleen Gemmell: Who Am I?

[Years ago.] “Mom, I’ve really gotta leave now,” pleaded my college-bound son. My only child, Jay, and my ex-husband stood at the side of Jay’s Jeep. Realizing that his seven-hour trip to the university meant he would be much too far away, I felt a pang of angst like no other.

I had read about the ‘Empty Nest Syndrome’ and I thought I was prepared to see Jay’s room striped and his parking spot vacant. After all, there were phones and emails and the outdated snail mail letters. I could jump on a train and visit from time to time. Yes, this would not be difficult in the least.

Still coming to terms with my divorce, I knew that I was no longer a “wife.” I had not planned or expected this life-changing event. Thinking that all was well in a marriage where I adored my spouse, found me devastated when he announced that union was over. Was he experiencing a midlife crisis, had he found another or were my idiosyncrasies/dysfunctions just too much to bear? (Decades later, I feel that I haven’t closure and I still miss the man that I so loved.)

“I am totally alone,” I whispered to myself as Jay and his full truck left the yard. Ignorantly, I had put all my eggs in one basket. Jay and my ex were my life, I had no true friends and few acquaintances. My parents had passed away, and my one sibling and I had little in common. As I shut the front door, I sobbed. I cried for my losses and I wept for my many oversights. “Hindsight” is truly twenty, twenty.

Jay is an awesome young man and I consistently reminded myself that he was journeying on a healthy pathway. As much as my lonely mind craved for him to be a “momma’s boy,” I tried to give myself a few kudos in the child rearing department.

No longer a wife or a child, and feeling as if I was no longer a mother, well… who am I? My life had engaged these roles. I hadn’t a career, nor a passion to follow. As my weeping continued and I felt a migraine coming on, I knew that this self-pity party could only last so long. I popped an aspirin, made a pot of fresh coffee and grabbed a blank notebook and a pen.

“Dear self,” I began, “What in the world are you going to do now? How can you right all these traumas you have created? Where will you go from here?”

And I wrote…for hours. I purged my pain on those pages and I vomited out my regrets and my foibles. My heartache and my tears began to dissipate and I surprised myself. This journaling was therapeutic I learned. Aspirin on board, I eventually slept and was blessed to awaken with my headache at bay.

I journaled daily. I took long walks. I decided to focus on my conflicts by using my intellect and not my emotions. By the end of that month, I had filled a large notebook and I had met a neighbor while out on my walks.

We talked…for hours. She also was going through major changes in her life and I felt less alone, less pathological. Granted our struggles were different, yet we agreed that we were finding solace in our budding friendship.

[Currently.] Jay is now married and has just completed his Master’s degree. I am a writer and a dear friend to several ladies. I have my Phoebe cat to keep me company. I relish my new lifestyle and awake with a smile on my face most days.

“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.” –Maya Angelou

I love my dance.

Kathleen Gemmell loves playing with written words. Currently penning for 6 online sites and magazines, Kathy is also a story teller, an animal welfare proponent and a psychology buff.