<p>I started packing school lunches in 1973. Last child hit the “submit” button on his college application last night. The countdown to empty nesting has begun.</p>
<p>Some days I feel giddy with exhiliration at the freedom coming my way next fall. Others, I comb through all my failures as a parent. And I try to restrain myself when tempted to reach into their lives in the areas where I realize I didn’t quite finish my work.</p>
<p>Am I the only one for whom this transition is not coming seamlessly together?</p>
<p>No, you aren’t.
About 25 years ago my mother, twisted into knots about my brother’s college career, asked her mother when she could quit worrying that she had done things wrong in bringing up the kids. Grandma fixed her with a look and said “I’ll let you know.”
Try your best to relax and enjoy and put the comb away.</p>
<p>as empty nesters this fall, one of our “couple friends” and we each separately planned empty nest parties (my invite had an adorable nest with a broken empty egg and two birds, one with a tear coming down its cheek) - anyway - the other couple had to cancel theirs - everyone was out of town (including us - hit the Missouri Wine trail) and we had to schedule ours on a Sunday evening to make sure anyone was here …so…it might not be so bad…tho Halloween was a little hard…sniff…</p>
<p>you can always come on cc and lecture the other kids about finishing their applications etc…</p>
<p>Dizzymom: You have a long career. I get it was fun. For me, just this year, there have been stages. First I was exhilarated by the freedom; then I became depressed when I realized it was for real. Now I’m coming out of that. I don’t know what’s next.</p>
<p>mythmom, I kinda followed your reactions. At first (after initial seeing the last one go sadness) I was happy and starting projects I had put off “until the kids are gone”. That lasted a short while and then the reality of retirement set in–I think I must feel like “career people” who live for their work, retire, and then think “what now?”. It was a full time job, that we loved and did for many, many years–it was our identity and now we are forced to form a new one. I am still happiest when one or more of the kids are home and luckily all call frequently, so I hear about their lives.</p>
<p>It hasn’t been hard at all on my husband as his day to day life hasn’t changed as much–he still has his work, his work friends, his guy golf buddies, and his remote,lol. However, I see people much less often than before because much of my social time previously was with parents of schoolmates. Now I seek out other empty-nesters, but it takes more planning.</p>
<p>I don’t want to bring anybody down but , for some of us, this is not a fun stage of life. I do O.K. some days, and maybe sometimes for a few days in a row, but the feeling of great loss is right there. It’s waiting for me to let my mind wander. I did a very poor job of preparing for this.</p>
<p>Me too. And as one of my aunts says, it’s the back and forth that kills you. Saw S over the weekend and coming home to the empty house was hard. But now D is home over election day, school’s out to vote, so she came to my college with me today.</p>
<p>I am happy I teach college students; the need to nurture gets met so my nest isn’t quite empty, but my kids are my best friends. Unfortunately for them, they say I am theirs too. They can’t find anyone as open minded and accepting. That’s the sixties for you.</p>
<p>S said there are many things he can only talk to me about, like the benefit for Patrick Doyle and how much he wanted to attend (it was in London on Sunday.) He said I’m the only one he knows who knows who Patrick Doyle is. He composes the music for Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson’s movies. We sing themes at each other. I’m the better singer, but he composes and can fix the pieces more easily. We warble to each other in what I am sure is the most eccentric manner.</p>
<p>D is going to London next semester and both will only be home for about ten days at Xmas because she is due there 1/3, and S is due back at school too for short winter term. I’ll be off until 1/22 so that will be a gloomy time.</p>
<p>Curm – I don’t think you can really prepare. We love as we should and that is what creates the emptiness. I wouldn’t have it another way.</p>
<p>I like a line from the old Leslie Caron movie Lili. She’s a wise orphan (wasn’t she always?) and someone asks her how she learned so much. She says, “We don’t learn. We get older and then we know.”</p>
<p>We grieve and then something changes and we change and Spring comes back. I have been teaching the myth of Demeter and Persephone in which Winter is Demeter’s reaction to Penelope’s time away from her. But Spring comes back.</p>
<p>That’s really all there is to it — yes, you miss your kid, but if your life is too full for you to have much time to think about it, then it’s an easy adjustment.</p>
<p>Earlier this week I called my son over something - when he called back I didn’t have time to talk because I was running out the door to go to a meeting. So I was very abrupt with him - “yes, no, gotta go!” kind of conversation. Well, my son hardly ever calls but the very next day during his lunch break he called and wanted to talk a LOT about what was going on at his work, lots of detail. So it reminded me that the best way to keep the kids on the hook is to play hard to get. :)</p>
<p>I think that it is hardest with the first kid – probably harder still with an only child like Cur’s situation – but I found I went through all the angst with kid #1, with kid #2 its more, been there, done that as far as all the college & life adjustment issues. I know that every setback at college is not a crisis; I know when I put the kid on the plane to go away that the kid will be coming home, on a day that will somehow arrive sooner than I ever thought and that as much as I miss the kid, it will be a huge mess & disruption to my routine when the kid(s) come back. (Fun, but hectic). I mean the older one has gone away, and come back, and gone away, and come back, and gone away, and come back… don’t think of it as an empty nest, think of it as the yo-yo years. </p>
<p>My d. had been talking about going abroad for winter break, but I realized it is November already and I didn’t know her plans, so I emailed her and asked if she was coming home or not. She replied that she would be home. So I sent her back an email, “drat! does that mean I have to move all the boxes out of your bedroom?” She sent me back a “LOL” … (but her empty bedroom really does serve me so well as a spacious walk-in closet!) –</p>
<p>Although we miss our D (an only child) and it has been quiet around the house, the one thing that we are really enjoying is finally cooking again with lots of spices and “green things”!</p>
<p>The exhileration is seening our kids beginning a new and exciting stage of their lives. The sad reality is that they will never be walking through that door every evening for dinner, being full time participants in our lives. But that is ultimately our responsiblity as parents, to teach them the skills and art of living fully independent adult lives.</p>
<p>And for those high achieving children who travelled hundreds of miles away to attend college and who consider the whole world as filled with opportunity, the prospect of them returning to their home town to start a career is also quite slim.</p>
<p>Our DS was home two weeks ago for fall break. Both DW and I, excited to see him, hit him up with 100 questions when he walked in the door. Poor guy barely had time to go to the bathroom. That’s when I realized how much we missed him.</p>
<p>Weenie, I’m with you! We only have one dog and he’s 12–but getting more annoying every year. I apologize to all doglovers out there if I sound heartless, but it’s how I feel. I promise I’m nice to him, because S & D love him madly–but S is working now away from home, and D is a hs senior. DH is quite fond of him as well, but has promised that when the dog goes to that big doggy park in the sky, that’s the end of pets for us.</p>
<p>DS is off at college. DD is a hs junior. Last week I told her there were only 22 months until she would be off at school and I was not looking forward to this transition.</p>
<p>Girls are really good at the eye-rolling, sighing thing…they can convey the complete insanity of a parent without a single word.</p>
<p>I had to go through this suddenly and early when, for two totally different reasons, both my daughter and son went to boarding school as a junior and freshman, respectively. To say it was a shock is an understatement. In some respects, I think the adjustment was easier than if it had not happened until college. The reason is that we were still invited and expected to be actively involved in the schools and in our kids’ lives. Daughter went to Interlochen, and Interlochen did the most amazing job of involving the parents- and these are parents from all over the world. We had our own message board, got a daily bulletin complete with menus etc. H and I met so many parent-friends, even before D started school! Her first day at Interlochen was 9/11, and the school made sure every student called home. Interlochen was such a magical place and my daughter was among the most incredibly talented kids and faculty, that H and I were able to look at it as a true gift to her and our family, and that eased our pain of sending her away and missing a lot of her high school experience. With the WildChild, we were only 3 hours away, but his first school did not do a good job of including out of town parents, and we missed seeing his friends, coaches and athletic events. We got down there as often as we could, but it wasn’t the same.
He still says I am too involved in his life and it is a big issue between us. I feel like I missed a lot, but we had to pick a path as a family that was best for the kids. I do think the pain eases as they turn into adults.</p>