Empty Nest, Full Cup

It feels incredibly daunting and a bit terrifying to finally begin something I have been planning for so long. I have wanted to write my entire adult life but busyness and lack of confidence has kept me from stepping out in a public way. I have written and journaled over the years but seldom if ever have I truly allowed myself to express my inner thoughts and opinions in a tangible way. Today, I am keeping a promise to myself to open up, expose my fears to the light and allow my personal failures and victories to possibly encourage others. On the cusp of turning 49, I can say my greatest achievement thus far  are, the last 30 years of marriage to my husband Brandon and our whole-hearted investment  in raising three wonderful, now grown and married children. We have poured out everything we could of ourselves to love and nurture these three complex, diverse and deeply loving human beings ,who in turn have each found their perfect spouse to share their lives with.

I will never regret the sacrifices we made so our children would be equipped to pursue their dreams; it has been my heart’s joy to see them stretch their wings and fly high in their own unique endeavors. Their needs required me to suppress the deep desire of living the farm life and keep that dream safely nestled deep in my heart for a very long season. In the last year that chapter of my life came to a wonderful close when we purchased 5 acres in rural western Washington and my baby girl walked down the aisle to marry her love. I may have an empty nest but it is on a farm! It is a new place  so full of potential and promise that it makes my lonely mother’s heart overflow with gratitude and hopefulness.

So,  I  begin this literary adventure with an experiment: What happens when you finally begin to live out what you have only dreamed of for years? My hypothesis is that I will find something new to discover each day and I will learn to live a deeper, fuller and more abundant life because I do. Today, October 1, 2017, Day 1 of the “Smith Farmhouse Experiment”, I am sharing this specifically poignant new find of an empty bird’s nest. I found it in a young Alder tree as I was pulling down the overgrown blackberries vines from it’s branches. As I sit here with my full cup of coffee and the beauty of fall settling in, this empty nest compels me to consider this truth: in life we often experience the highs, lows, the beautiful and the ugly at the same time and that contrast is so richly poetic. Nature is an artistic grace, an ever alluring promise of hope which inspires my determination to find something new tomorrow and we all need something to look forward to, don’t we?