A New Season

 I’m usually one who views a new year with excitement and optimism. I love thinking of it as a blank page or canvas on which we can create something special.

But right now I’m not “feeling it.”

The coming year represents one of big changes at “Casa Calloway.” Come fall, Bond and I will be empty nesters.

While I usually welcome change, thinking of it as new opportunity, this is one “opportunity” that I’d just as soon pass me by.

I raised my kids so that they would be strong, independent people who wouldsuccessfully leave the nest. Tripp is thriving at UGA and there’s no reason to think C.C. won’t do the same when she heads to college.

It’s all good...really. (Do I sound convincing?) Frankly, it’s not the young adults I’m worried about. It’s me!

Here’s the rub: I love being a mom. I loved waiting in carpool line and being the first person they saw after a busy day at school. I loved having them sit at the kitchen table after school while they did their homework. I loved it when they were babies, toddlers, young children, middle schoolers and teenagers. There are just so many things I’ve enjoyed about being a hands-on mom to growing kids.

As I approach 2012, I’m trying to view the coming change as a new chapter that’s yet to unfold. (That’s exciting, right?) I’m trying to come up with a new hobby to pursue, trying to look forward to not keeping “teenager” hours on the weekends, trying to embrace the change.

I’ve often quoted Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, which explains that there’s a time and an appointed season for everything. I think I’ll print out the verses and keep them in my pocket while I’m navigating this next season of my life as a mom.

Until February,

Karin Calloway

Karin Calloway is a wife and mother of two young adults. She’s also a journalist and recipe developer who writes the Wednesday cooking column for The Augusta Chronicle and prepares her recipes in “Cooking with Karin” segments airing Tuesdays and Wednesdays on WJBF. You can follow Karin at twitter.com/KarinCalloway.