What's in a Name?

While a website called It's All About Us Now! makes us sound rather self absorbed,  there's a story behind the name.

For the two and a half decades that we spent rearing kids together,  it was all about them. Those who have raised children can attest to the fact that it's a 24/7-365 job requiring you to put their needs and wants above your own. Their priorities are your priorities. Their activities are your activities. Their schedule is your schedule. Then, in what seems like the blink of an eye, everything changes. The individuals that have been at the center of your life for 18 years suddenly have priorities, activities, and schedules apart from yours.

Old habits being what they are, our shift from kidcentric to "it's all about us" didn't happen overnight. While on the one hand we had looked forward to the freedom that this time in our lives would surely bring,  on the other hand we had to ask ourselves what we were going to do with all that freedom.

As we worked our way through the process of detachment, we dealt with a wide range of feelings, including nostalgia. In the mundane actives of life we found ourselves reminiscing about days gone by. We would half-jokingly say to one another, Well ... this is it ... this is our life now. That statement ultimately became the big question: Is this it, is this our life now? 

Eventually "light dawns ova  Mahblehead" (see The Wicked Good Guide to Boston English for this and other New Englandisms) and it becomes clear that while the past twenty-five years had been all about our kids, it was now all about us.  Frequent repetition of this mantra (in jest of self-absorbed teens) served to lighten the mood and prompted us to anticipate our future as empty nesters with a bit more gusto, but we hadn't fully embraced the mindset. Until ... 
 
In April of 2007, we took a trip that jump started the "it's all about us now" phase of our lives (click here to read about it). Since then, it's been full steam ahead. We took great pleasure and satisfaction in our parenting years; now that both kids have flown the coop, we take great pleasure and satisfaction in the freedom that comes with being empty nesters.  Oh, and we've figured out exactly what to do with all that freedom--whatevah  we want!

The It's All About Us Now! website was launched in March of 2008. We encourage those visiting our site to sign the Guestbook.