Empty nest
The last “little” birdie leaves the nest.
By Lisa Sealey, Founder, AfterShock
At first I was really sad when my last kid left the house and we were empty nesters. Honestly, it felt a bit like a death – of what was, of what could have been, of all of the things that we could have done/should have done. Quite unexpectedly, the last massive gasp of parental guilt unleashed its soul-crushing weight on both my husband and me as we sat in the car after dropping him off. First, we cried quietly and then, slowly, on the car ride home, started talking about why. Why didn’t we enjoy the little moments more? Why did we worry so much that this moment would ever arrive (the occasional report card “D” notwithstanding)? Why does it feel like someone just placed my newborn son in that dorm room and slammed the door, cutting the umbilical cord right there in Storr Hall, Room 348?
We walked around in a bit of a teary haze in our quiet house for a week or so with me entering his room and straightening the covers on his bed and opening/closing the window blinds even though no one had been there to disrupt anything. I hung a sweet, grade-school picture of him -- a school project -- from the light switch and gazed at his smiling cherub face in the black and white photo that he’d glued tiny seashells on the edges. Every time I looked at it I’d think about how I’d loved that age, when he was small enough and wanted to crawl into my lap and he talked non-stop about everything and anything that entered his brain because he was so excited to share it with me.
And then, slowly, there’s a shift. First, just into low gear: the grocery shopping. Despite crying in front of the cereal aisle one Sunday night after realizing that the two remaining humans in our house don’t eat cereal, I started to notice cracks in my sadness that let the light in.
We pretty quickly (no reflection on you darling son!) moved into the new speed of our household, one where we weren’t listening at 6:30AM for the sound of his car leaving the driveway for school. I wasn’t thinking about just how much food he would need after rugby practice and realized I didn’t have a running list of questions in my head about whether he’d seen his guidance counselor that week or submitted a summer job application.
The shifts are small at first and then they pick up speed. I think about how we have so little of my older son’s stuff in the house now that he’s been living at school or (now) in his own apartment for five years. The clothes he has here he no longer really wants and all of his posters, gear and other belongings travel with him. Bonus: his room is now a guest room.
So, we continue to adjust, to shift the way we live in the house that was once full with boys and a dog. The natural flow to how kids grow up, gradually – in height and skills and maturity – and start to pull away from us. In minute ways when they’re really little and in monumental (jaw clenching) ways in their teen years. Each step, big or small, prepares us for their leaving. Even if we don’t want to see it or cling to otherwise. Looking back over our first year of empty nesting, it’s reassuring to know that we’re flexible and adaptable to even the most bittersweet changes life continues to bring.