non choices

I was walking yesterday and a thought occurred to me.

Now it was not a new thought and for sure I did not invent the thought or even the train of thought.

But it went something like this: We will spend more time in our life as an empty nester than we might think. When your kids are about 10 or 12 it seems like this parenthood thing will never end. But it does. 

Well OK, it doesn’t really end, but it does change. We raise our kids to be independent thinkers and they do it.

There was a 2nd thought that came to me. It was one I had heard before, but it rang into the same area: Even if you are happily married the chances are statistically good that you will spend a lot of time living alone.

Unless, of course, you are the first to go, and then it does not matter I guess.

Sometimes that aloneness is an all at once thing and sometimes it comes on slowly. Neither one is what we would choose.

But we don’t always get to choose.