Our nest is officially empty. We dropped our daughter off at her dorm in Florida more than a week ago. After we hugged her goodbye, I sobbed in my husband’s arms under an eave while rain poured all around us. It was like a sad movie. A few days later, our son drove back to his apartment in Charlottesville for his third year of college.
After his departure, the house felt hollow. With both of the kids gone, it felt barren in a way it did not feel when they were just out for a few hours to hang out with friends. The energy was different and flat, like all of the life had been sucked out of all the rooms. The house felt vacant. Echoey.
That night as I pulled back the covers to get in bed, I thought, this is the final chapter of my life. I didn’t feel sad about it. Maybe a little scared. We got them through to adulthood. This was the last big thing. Now what’s left?
After the initial waves of sadness, after the first times walking through their empty rooms, after the stark confrontation with where I am on the continuum of life, I’ve felt surprisingly okay. We’re in close communication with our daughter in her first days away from home, and we know she’s doing well, which helps a lot. We’ve also been anticipating her departure for so long, I think we’d done a lot of pre-mourning. By the time both kids actually left, we’d already shed most of our tears.
In our new lives in our empty house, we have no obligations. We don’t need to be home at a certain time to cook, so we go for bike rides after work. We don’t need to make meals to suit multiple peoples’ tastes, and in fact, we don’t have to make meals at all if we don’t want to! I ate a smoothie bowl one night for dinner this week because that’s what I craved. I didn’t have to think about what anyone else might want. My first trip to the grocery store was weird. I cried in the aisles as I passed by the kids’ favorite snacks and fruits and cereals and ice creams I no longer needed to buy. After that first trip, though, I’ve been pleased with how simple grocery shopping is now.
This is our first weekend as empty nesters. We had work to distract us during the week. Hopefully the okay feeling lasts. I’m blogging, I see that as a good sign. I’d like to continue with that, even if my blog posts end up just being journal entries. A friend recommended filling the emptiness with music, and to light candles to make our spaces cozy. We want to change out some rugs, add some curtains instead of blinds, and maybe paint to make the house feel different and full. I recently read Get the Picture, an immersion in the world of the art-obsessed by Bianca Bosker, and now I want more art as well.
I read a book earlier this year, Learning to Love Midlife. I feel cheesy even admitting that I read this book, but I loved it. It’s all about how life gets better as you age, and especially in middle age. You don’t care as much about what people think, you start to realize what’s really important, you can shed all the bullshit. I think it was this book that referenced middle age as the third chapter of life, not the final chapter. This is where I am now. The third chapter. Not the final one. I miss our children, and I also have a lot of living I’m excited to savor.
Butterfly Mind 