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As a mom with grown kids, and as a grandma (or, “Amma” as I have been officially named by my then two year old granddaughter), one of my favorite things to do is to watch them explore as they move through life.
One day, my granddaughter, who was 2, began to walk through the halls in our home while only looking behind her, giggling all the way. How exciting to trust and test out what you’ve learned as you move forward in your journey!
I thought about how much time I have spent looking back as I move forward in life’s journey. With decades of life behind me, I have ample experience from the amazingly good to the unbearably hard moments of life. Each of those moments consists of a collection of memories.
In fact, I can get preoccupied not only with the past, but with the expectations and hopes I built that I thought would frame my future.
My Lifelong Dream
Before my kids graduated from high school, my lifelong dream was that they would graduate from college and move back to their home town.
They would start families here and we would have the amazing opportunity to visit face to face often. Both my husband and my side of the family grew up in this scenario so it certainly seemed possible!
In fact, our son was living just 20 minutes away at the time. When our daughter married, they purchased a house nearby, remodeled it, and started a family.
I truly was living my dream! At that time surviving my grandkids moving was certainly not on my radar.
What Could Have Been
When the conversation came that my daughter and her husband had decided to move, I experienced the loss of the dream I believed was necessary to have close relationship – proximity.
The nostalgic song ‘Over the River and through the woods to grandmothers house we go….” was certainly not a favorite that year!
Somehow, I survived packing boxes, loading a truck and waving goodbye to the sweetest one year old ever (and her parents too!).
I spent quite a bit of time that first year looking back and comparing the current moment to the expectations my heart had come up with years ago. Even during the fun times I would think “yes, this is good, but imagine if…” and fill in the blank with ‘what could have been’.
My expectations were definitely a leak in the bucket of life experiences with my family.
Recognizing this was not healthy, I began researching the topic of expectations, and the positive influence of grandparenting, even if from a distance. Maybe there is a way to make this distance seem not so great, while forming a really great relationship!
So How Did I Survive Exactly?
At some point I realized my expectations had been placed firmly on their shoulders, rather than on mine, and it was time for that to change. Because there was one thing I knew – my kids needed to be free to create their own version of family, not to live out mine.
A recent article, The Expectations vs Reality Trap by Elizabeth Scott, MS, reminds me to look for the positives in what I actually have, and that once I get over the disapointment of my expectations, I may discover something else I wasn’t looking for.
Applying this practice has definitely helped me discover some ways to cherish my role as a long distance grandparent.
You can read the entire article here.
My Rule Now
My rule now? Sure! Take a look back at all those memories and dreams, but do it with the expectation of a 2 year old little girl.
I must trust what I know to be true, and use that truth to move forward, even when there are obstacles ahead, because there is also unknown opportunity ahead!
We’re excited for the future! Excited to share this ‘Over the River’ life with you, to tackle all kinds of expectations, tough topics, and to discover wildly fun ways to be involved in the lives of grandkids in ways that may even exceed our expectations!
