The Empty Nest

It’s a beautiful Labor Day, sunny and breezy, after a full day of drenching rain. I’m not sure I’m ready to confront this demon, but since it’s inevitable, I might as well give it some airtime.

My son, Cam, left for college last weekend. He’s only an hour away (and he’s already been home twice), but nevertheless, I’m finding myself a lot more lost than I expected to be.

You see, I had my kids at a relatively young age — by today’s standards, at least. I was 27 when Hannah was born, and 31 when I had Cam. I divorced in 2007, single parented for a while, then got remarried in 2011. The joys of parenting, coupled with the challenges of a blended family, apparently didn’t prepare me for where I now find myself — the head-of-household for a now-empty nest. I was warned — by friends and strangers alike, that it would feel at times like losing a limb, but I honestly didn’t think it would affect me on such a grand scale.

I wasn’t the mom who cried at the bus stop on the first day of kindergarten, or dreaded moving my daughter into her dorm room at the state college just two hours from home. It’s not that I’m not sentimental, but I’m someone who prefers to celebrate milestones, rather than mourn the past. When my daughter left for college, it was a big change, to be sure, but it didn’t really impact my day-to-day. I still had to grocery shop and cook. I had to make sure the homework was done and the dog had been walked.

Now that I think about it, it’s kind of like the reverse of having kids — the first child changes your life exponentially; the second, not so much. Yes, life changed a bit around here when Hannah went off to college, but now that Cam is gone, too, things have shifted inexorably in another direction. If you look at the second half of life as the reverse of the first half, it makes sense. You are born helpless, without hair, without teeth, without bladder control. You go forth, you make something of yourself, then you quietly recede into the woodwork in the reverse order in which you arrived on this Earth.

It’s been literally nine days since Cam left. I’ve been alone for approximately half of those days, as my wife travels for work. I thought I would enjoy what I used to call “oyster days” — those days where the world is your oyster, when no one has expectations for you and you can do whatever the hell you want. Once in a while, it’s a wonderful thing. But even something you love gets old after a while.

I guess it’s partly that I don’t know who I am anymore. Outside of being a mother, which is the ruler by which I have measured myself these past 23 years, I don’t feel that I have much definition. I don’t really have hobbies, and have very few friends. I don’t feel like I missed out on much during my child-rearing years, except for travel, but even that has been put indefinitely on hold by virtue of work and pets. I find myself now with little more than time, but with little energy to channel it in a particular direction.

Hobbies? Not really. I like to cook, and read, and watch movies. I sometimes garden, but I’m not crafty. I don’t enjoy exercise, although I took up running four years ago and am glad I made it part of my life. I know I should run more; I should write that novel, or at least that blog. I have a list of to-dos for the house, many of which don’t cost a lot, yet I spend hours lying on the bed, fiddling with my phone, waiting for someone to post something interesting or amusing on Facebook or Instagram. It’s become almost obsessive — checking, refreshing, re-checking. I’m not sure what I expect to happen, but I do know that it hasn’t, yet.

I’m lonely. I’m bored. I’m lost. There isn’t really anyone I can talk to who can relate, as many of my contemporaries find themselves in various positions along this parenthood track. It almost feels like a death to me, although I know that’s not fair to those who have lost a child.

I guess what’s the hardest is that I feel like, at 50, I should finally know who I am — what I’m about, where I’m going — but instead, I’m more lost than ever. At least in college I had hopes and dreams. I wanted a career, I wanted to get married, to have kids, to buy a house and get a cat. So now what? What if I don’t want to redefine and reinvent myself? What if I just want to float on? What if I’m tired and sad and don’t want to make new friends? What if the new friends turn out to be like the old ones? Fair-weather friends who disappear when you need them the most?

Part of me just wants to up and move away, but I know that’s cheating. It’s trying to outrun that thing which cannot be outrun. It’s in you, not on you. So what now? Throw myself into my work? Finish painting the goddamn ceiling in the bathroom? Learn how to make cheese? I feel like a ball bearing rolling around in a shoebox, pinging against this wall, then that wall, then this wall again. I feel like I could do this all day, in between checking Facebook and Instagram. Is that any kind of life?