I love watching “The Girls”, but as with anything there are parts that I don’t like.  Two of my least favorite episodes, Love Under the Big Top and Empty Nest, had me thinking about my own life.

In Love Under the Big Top, Dorothy falls for a very successful lawyer that wants to quit and join the circus as a full-time clown.  He asks her to go with him. Although she likes him a lot, she finds out that she doesn’t love him and chooses to play it safe and stay in Miami.

The Empty Nest episode isn’t about the girls at all. It’s about a neighbor that finds herself alone after her daughter leaves for college and her husbands’ job consumes most of his time.

Watching these episodes yesterday, I found some similarities to my own life that I’d like to share.  My husband is not a circus clown, but he did ask me to leave my job and my family to go with him wherever his job takes him. Unlike Dorothy, I said yes.

It has been hard at times. I left my hometown when my only grandson was just a couple of months old. I miss seeing him as often as I’d like, but do like the fact that when I do see him its a big deal (it is to me anyway). The song “Over the river and through the woods” now has personal meaning to me. He is visiting this coming weekend. It will be his first visit without mom or dad. They will be three hours away so I hope that I can do the grandma thing good enough that he wants to stay.  I am sure that all will go well.

Since leaving the comforts of my hometown, I find myself having the “empty nest” feeling. My kids have long grown up and moved out, but they were always close by. At about the same time that I moved from “home” my youngest moved three hours away in the opposite direction.  I know that for most, that is not too far, but I have always lived near most of my family and moving away was about as painful as natural childbirth. Okay, I don’t know how painful that is because I had my babies, in the words of Blanche Devereaux , “The way God intended, strapped to a table and numb from the neck down”. but I digress… the point is that it was hard to leave the only town in which I have ever lived.  That brings me to the meat of my empty nest feeling.

Much like the neighbors husband, mine works a lot. Not complaining ( okay, maybe a little) but I am alone most of the time. The first year of our marriage was living in apartments or hotels not even in my home state…hated it, but loved my new husband so much that it was worth it. I have now been in my own house for nearly two years. One would think that being in the same place for two years would, by now, be comfortable and I would have new friends, places to go and people to see. Well, yes and no. This is where my Dorothy/Bea personality comes in. I like to just be home. I like to curl up with a good book or grab my coffee and sit down to an afternoon of The Girls. Although Dorothy is my least favorite of the four, I see a lot myself in her personality both the character and the actress, but that’s another story for another day.

I have met a few people in my small town, but not anyone to really do things with. Shopping? We have a grocery store, Wal-Mart, a Dollar General and a Pharmacy. I make purchases at all of these, but it’s not really shopping, more like, “what do we need this week?”

In the Empty Nest episode the neighbor asks her husband to stop working so much and pay more attention to her. She doesn’t seem pushy or needy, she just doesn’t have anyone that needs her. I, fortunately, don’t have that feeling. Yes, my husband works 60+ hours a week, but I know that he needs me and I need him. We compliment each other and have a very traditional marriage. We both work, it’s just that I work at home.

I suppose that I said all of that to say this, I love my husband and would follow him anywhere. I know that my children are grown and the fact that they don’t need me tells me that I have done a good job to raise hard-working, productive citizens.  There are days that I wish they needed me and if they ever do, I will drop everything and be there.

Life isn’t always a circus and at times we all feel unwanted or unneeded. It’s during those times that we need to look at the things/people that we truly love. Is the person you are with worth joining the circus? Are you stuck in your comfort zone or are you outside of it just enough to make everyday things seem special?

Until Next Time….Thank You for Being a Friend

MLG