Resetting, Restarting and Remattering
Happy Chinese New Year!
I love New Year - January 1st, Chinese New Year & Matariki - all give us opportunities to reset and recreate who and what we are.
2026 is my first year with four grown-up adult children! Four incredible humans that are now out in the world making their own way and doing their own thing.
It's 2026 and I have been parenting for just over 26 years! That's a long time. It's a lot. Parenting kind of creeps up on you.
I went from an idealistic firm-bodied person into a chaotic frazzled mess. My life was the most magical crazy blend of meal prep, plastic cups, car seats and carefully cut snacks.
We then moved into school bags and Coverseal, after-school activities and messy bedrooms.
Then, came navigating the teenage years where everyone is trying something new and trying to be as old as possible!
And then it's over. It's both weird and wonderful. Wonderful to watch these fully formed humans doing their lives their way and weird because you have a weird redundancy to deal with. The loss of any role is hard. There is the loss of recognition, no longer being needed. The decisions that happen without you.
Your relationship moves from an incidental one to an intentional one. When you are no longer living at the same address, you need to make time to connect. You need to make an effort to catch up. You need to make an effort to do the things that you love together and make time for these new adult relationships. Your relationship has to stand alone when you are no longer the caterer, the bank and the driver!
As a parent, you are socialised to not have needs. I remember feeling so honoured and important when I was pregnant with my first child. The minute he was born, I no longer mattered. He mattered. Then, his siblings mattered.
It's very easy to fall head first into the parenting swamp where you can't see anything but your babies and their needs. It makes sense to put everything into your child (children). Your sleep, your money, your time and your mind and your body suffer!
But now, I have it all back! The space that is created as our nests empty is an excellent time to reset yourself. We need to be intentional. We need to realise that now it's time to rematter to ourselves. To rediscover what now matters to us.
Being proactive in using the time and energy we previously used on looking after little people is an amazing opportunity. You have time and space for friends. You have time and space for new hobbies. For all the things you haven't done for the past 20 years!
I love the saying that "grief is love with nowhere to go" and I have seen what happens to many parents when their children no longer need them. Some fight to stay in control - to keep the role that they loved for so many years and others completely withdraw. They withdraw from life. No longer sure who they are or who they matter to.
Here's how to 'rematter':
Find something that excites you. Make it your mission to fill your days and evenings with things that you love. Things that light you up.
If that's hard, go back and do some of the things that you used to enjoy. See if they still give you the levels of joy previously experienced.
Go hunting for some new friends. Join a group or a class or a community.
I'm dedicating this year to engaging in excitement, living intentionally. Doing what my soul loves…
Something my soul loves is writing - I am launching my new Substack this week - you can join me here if you would like to read more of my life musings!!!
