New shades of blue

How "the trip I booked when we were sad" became a lesson in color therapy.

I’ve had a case of the blues this year.

Not a depression, no. Not even a day-to-day unhappiness. But my family has been going through some changes that involve me starting the empty nest process earlier than I’d hoped. 

My oldest is now someone I see when we make time for it, which lately has been once or twice a week. I’m grateful for any time with him, but it’s been a hard transition. But he’s doing better than he was a year ago, and that’s all any mom wants. 

But transitioning to this new normal has involved a lot of shades of blue. 

In February and March, when this was all new, it was a darker blue.

Titanic blue, a shade that asks, “are we going to make it?” 

As the year progressed, I was able to see lighter water in the distance, but only occasionally. I hoped to see lighter shades of blue in my future. 

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I was still dealing with the shock of just how deep the sea can get. When I had young kids, I certainly felt the watery depths, but these eye-opening experiences with teenagers felt like seeing those giant squids and long-lost shipwrecks, the stuff of legends that turned out to be true.

Yes, it’s possible that your son will move out before he has graduated from high school. Yes, it’s possible that you’ll grow to be OK with it. 

When I was really facing this reality for the first time, I started dreaming up a trip that Avery and I could take later in the year that might help take our minds off this sudden change. Where the sun might shine on the water a little differently than it does here.

He’d expressed a slight interest in SCUBA diving. “Wanna go to Mexico for your birthday?”

In an hour, I found flights that I could buy on points to Cozumel in September.