Diary of an empty-nester - curtain raiser!

The secret behind my cheerful, stress free outlook towards life?!
The politically correct answer is eating wisely, working out regularly & drinking lots of water …
Confession – BS!!!
As the mother of a helpless & hapless 19 year old, let me tell you, its all about releasing your toxins – a 24x7 routine of nagging, threatening, cajoling, warning & screaming at your kids, helps get rid of all the excess poison in your system, brings a healthy glow to your skin, keeps your jaw muscles well lubricated & bonus is that its all legitimate – I mean, I wouldn’t be a good parent, would I, if I was calm, composed & took everything in my stride???!!!

C’mon gals, we have our reputations to protect – crabby, ill tempered, hyper … I chose to believe that my family wouldn’t have it any other way. One rare morning, I got up on the wrong side of the bed, with the resolution to be serene, peaceful & non-violent! Mahatma Gandhi would have been proud of me! But my ungrateful husband and daughter worried that I was burdened by some deep, dark secret or was majorly unwell & therefore subdued. When they repeatedly pestered me to tell them what the problem was, I exploded, screamed at them for not realizing that I was trying to shrug off the shackles of being a wife/mom & attempting to find inner peace & balance! When they had stopped laughing hysterically at me attempting a “Buddha’ act, relief was expressed that I was back to doing what I was good at – being “mean mom’!
So they say, you can’t buy respect, you’ve gotta earn it – ‘mean mom’, like Rome, didn’t happen in a day!
From rewind mode, let’s cut to the present – a new worry irks me! With daughter dearest, all set to fly the nest & head to the Queen’s land for university, (the anticipated bliss at the prospect of a parent-less universe, has to be seen to be believed!) I need to get my act together & earnestly search for a new stress buster! For Shiksha, we will be those eager, shiny faces that will haunt her on skype & who need to be kept reasonably happy, to facilitate unlimited use of that shiny plastic thingy called a credit card!
“And then there were two”!