Different Strokes

I’ve been a single mom for 19 years. My daughters are now 26 and 23 years old. You might be thinking that the mothering is over. The truth is that it’s never over. Their feelings, their wants, their needs are always on my mind whether I just got off of the phone with them or it’s been weeks since we talked.

“I just want you to know I’m happy for you,” Sarah, my youngest, told me today, through tear-filled eyes.

I am visiting her and her husband and my new 2-month-old grandson. My 11-day visit ends today, when I go back home, 3,180 miles away.

I’ve always dreamed of living in an off-grid cabin in Alaska. Ask anyone who’s known me for more than 10 minutes. My girls were raised with me telling them that, one day, they would have to bring the grandbabies by plane or 4-wheeler to visit me in my cabin in the wilds of Alaska.

“I’ll make sure to have plenty of sleeping bags for everyone to camp out on the floor,” I’d tell them.

Neither one of them can remember a time when I ever told them different. It was who I was going to be. It was more than a dream. It was a goal. It was a plan. It was my destiny.

That was never their dream; it was all mine. I never pressured them to follow in my footsteps. I never even suggested it. I always encouraged them to follow their own dreams, create their own paths, live their own lives.

The year that I turned 40, I put the plan in motion by taking a teaching job in Homer, Alaska. April spent her senior year of high school there, loved it, but was intent on moving back to Wisconsin to pursue her dream of being a teacher. She has done that and so much more. She’s now teaching 7^th grade English, happily married, and has spent several summers traveling the world. I am so very proud to call her my daughter!

Sarah was in the 8^th grade when we moved to Alaska. She, too, graduated from high school in Homer and then went on to attend the University of Alaska – Anchorage for one year before following her own path back to the lower 48. She now works for a dental office, is happily married, and gave me my first grandbaby two months ago. What an amazing woman she has turned into!

Still, despite it all, they have a hard time understanding why I continue to live my life in Alaska, why I don’t move closer to them, and how I can be happy living so far away, especially now that grandchildren are starting to arrive. It is difficult for me to hear this, in part because I feel guilty for all the obvious reasons, but also because I feel jealous that they receive my complete support and encouragement to follow their dreams, but I don’t receive that from them, not anymore.

It’s not that I wouldn’t love to live near them, but I’m not the one who moved away from Alaska. My sense of self is much different from theirs. I suffer from severe anxiety in crowds, need a lot of time to myself, and yearn to live in the quiet solitude of the wild. My daughters know all of this, of course, because they grew up with me.

I always imagined myself alone in my dream life; however, I was lucky enough to meet Gregg, a 32-year Alaskan from northern Minnesota, who followed his dream at age 30 to a riverside cabin that he built along the Unalakleet River, home of world-class salmon fishing as well as world record-size grizzly bears. The only person to live off-grid on that river year-round, he is my match. Together, we get to live out our common life goals and make our dreams a reality. Crazy amazing! 

Is it so wrong to revel in my good fortune at living my life-long dream? Do I have some sort of synaptic disconnect that keeps me from moving to the upper Midwest to live near my children and their families? Should I keep my happiness to myself so as not to make others feel bad?

As I reflect back honestly, I wasn’t always 100% supportive of their decisions. I questioned their motives. I questioned their sensibilities. I questioned them. I should expect the same. After all, I taught them to question.

Perhaps one day they’ll find the answers they’re searching for and be as happy for, and proud of, me as I am for them.

Your comments are welcome.