When I found out that my daughter-in-law was pregnant with what was to be my first grandchild, I was elated and terrified.  What was it about this event that made me feel so happy  and yet so disturbed at the same time?  Friends would ask me “Are you excited?” and I would mumble the obligatory “I can’t wait”, but inside there was a gnawing undercurrent that I just couldn’t put my finger on.  Then I remembered that book we all read way back when called Passages. That was it… I was facing another life passage, and from my experience with life passages, I knew that there was  likely to be some tough times ahead. “Here we go again”, my inner voice was telling me.  After a divorce from a 28 year marriage, the marriage of two kids in two years, moving into a cozy, but very tiny apartment, changing my teaching appointment from elementary to high school, I had finally become comfortable knowing how and where I fit in my relationships with my job, my social life and my family, especially my children.  The shift in the status quo of my life that would be required by this impending passage was going to mean poking around through the emotions and frankly, I wasn’t sure I was up for it.  

            When I went through the passage of new parenthood,  I had been fortunate enough to find a group of 6 dynamite, new moms to meet with once a week.  We would sip cups of tea between chasing after the kids and search together to find answers to those important global issues, only important to new moms, like “Binky or no Binky?”, “Is the coal stove (remember the energy crisis in the 80’s) causing the chronic ear infections or is it just someone’s faulty genes?”(Not my side of the family, of course), “To Nurse or not to Nurse, and will it really make you sag later on in life?” and  the biggie, “To go back to work or not to go back to work?, Can I survive the guilt is the question?”.  We dubbed it Mother’s Group and for a few hours a week we felt comfort in knowing that we were not alone in trying to figure out how to have an “Aviance Night” when we could barely get out of our bathrobes until 4:00 in the afternoon. The members have stayed together (although meeting far less frequently) for the past thirty years.  Problem is, I was the first of the group to have a child and now I am the first to have a grandchild, so my cohorts in parenting haven’t quite caught up to me yet.  Besides, some of us who decided to be  “stay at home moms” are still working towards retirement while others who returned to work after maternity leaves are alternating between here and retirement homes down south.  It’s been tough to find a time that we are all available.

            So here I am, sags and all, floundering around in the unsettled waters of First Grand parenthood with no safe harbor in sight in which to drop anchor. Enter the blog…technology’s answer to the support group.  Surely there are those of you out there who long to share your way through the joys and bumps of this latest life passage.  So… grab a cup of tea, man your keyboard and join me here in Nona Nita’s Blog.