Parents Need Alone Time Too

Bye bye Summer, hope you guys all had a terrific summer one and while I’m sad to pack up the bathing suits, sunscreen, flip-flops and daily hysteria, I am very much ready for the structure of the school year. We dropped them off yesterday and I literally skipped home to ‘Walking on Sunshine’.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids, but adults need time away from kids more than just once in a while. It needs to be structured and it needs to be a regular occurrence. The last few weeks of this summer vacation really helped me understand this concept.

So, for the fall, I am setting up a few workshops just for myself - yup, I’m carving out time in my schedule, heading to the shop and working on my own art (or just stare at a blank wall for a while).

I remember when I was a kid, my dad went bowling every Thursday night - Bowling! My mom never went bowling, never went for a night out with the ladies, she was always there for us - always! I love her for that and thanked her for it too, but in her last few years, she would say things like “I should have done more for me”.

Last night, we went to my dad’s and I cooked a meat sauce (first-day-of-school ritual). After dinner, we were rumaging through the closet looking for his old bowling ball to show Lochlan. All Lochlan’s talking about last few days is going bowling (happy birthday Jeremy!)

We didn’t find the ball, but stumbled on a box of old film reels and a projector that has to be from the late 1960's. I tried to get it to work, but no go. It did lead to a nice discussion about how capturing moments has changed over the years. In the middle of this lovely conversation about memories and technology, Lochlan abruptly stops me and says “Dad, look out the window, can I have your iphone to take a picture of the sunset - Look how pink the sky is - I want to go captch it the moment”. He didn’t get my iphone, but we did go out to see the sky - if you were lucky enough to be outside or near a window last night, the entirety of the sky was a beautiful pink/purple for a few moments - it was amazing!

While I have no intention of starting a bowling team, if anyone is interested in getting out of the house on a weekday evening to create some art at the shop amongst adults, let me know - I’m thinking once a month through the fall - perhaps on a Thursday night.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back to my weekly email/posts now that I am (re)gaining my sanity.

-Frank