Finding the motivation to write again

It has been a long time since I have felt the urge to write. For the last two years, I have been maintaining, sometimes barely surviving. One of my older brothers died in November two years ago and my closest sister followed less than four months later. My oldest son who had severed ties with me years before reappeared briefly during the haze of my brother’s funeral, then disappeared again from whence he came. I haven’t heard from nor seen him since. Additionally, I experienced three job changes, a work-related trauma, and two housing relocations.

I flip-flopped between not wanting to make even the smallest decision to wanting to make major life changes and through it all, I didn’t want to get close to anyone, thinking that if I did, they’d die too. I know that’s not reasonable, but grief seldom is. The two people that kept me going (though they didn’t know it) were my daughter and my nineteen-year-old son, though my daughter was 2,000 miles away. So having my son at home helped me to appear “normal” and the simplest routines that came from being “Mom” helped me get through the losses and changes I experienced.

Then he moved out, but we were still tight. This week he informed me that he is now twenty-one and needs to take care of his own life-matters, not needing my help.

I knew there was going to be a day when this would happen but truth, I did not expect it and now am feeling a sense of lost identity. I know I’m still a mom, a sister, and an aunt, but am once again feeling as if I’ve lost someone close to me. So where to go from here? I know my kids will still call, will still need Mom, but this is just not the same. It’s almost like the end of an era. What do I do now? Throw myself into my work? Quit my job and retire? Buy a house? Do nothing? Right now I don’t have the answers. So at this very minute, I am writing, and doing little else.