Spring-cleaning is just around the corner! And part of my springtime cleaning routine is to clean out cabinets. Feathering my nest is so easy and enjoyable! But when it comes to organizing my domain, that is when it gets a bit more difficult. I hate to clean out cabinets and believe this is because I am hopelessly sentimental. Clean and tidy cupboards I adore, but it is oh-so-painful to part with all the “memories”. Cleaning out the bathroom cabinet used to be my daughter’s chore…until she left home. I think the reality of her permanent departure from my nest and launch into the world hit me on the day I decided it was time to clean the bathroom cabinet. It was then I saw her numerous hair ribbons in a jumbled heap that I realized that she gone, never again to live in my home as a permanent resident.
As I untangled and sorted the pile I found the blue bow, the white fluffy one, the Kelly-green polka dot bow hmmm, I mused, why didn’t she take them with her ? Random snapshots, snippets of memories flashed before my mind’s eye of her scurrying around the house getting ready for church, AWANA, or one of her numerous babysitting jobs, her long brown braid hanging down her back anchored with one of her bows. That was when she was fourteen and she was now eighteen and wore a more mature and sophisticated bob.
Where did the time go?
The little girl who wore ribbons, bows, and braids was only transient, like a butterfly that stays but a summer, like the little bird that rests on your sill before migrating south for the duration of winter.
Today, she is in a nest of her own with two little ones.
Mothers, take it from this empty nester, make the most of the time you have with your daughters! In the time you spend training her to be a homemaker, you can give her skills and share moments that create life long memories. The moments you spend teaching your daughter are the “forever moments”. These are the instances that will influence her and give her the skills she will use someday in her own home. Don’t let this precious time of her life fly away without experiencing it with her. I look back on this time and wish I would have strived a little less and enjoyed a lot more. Make it a point to this week to savor this season when your nest is full!
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