Empty Once Again

The baby birds were home, but I must say in some ways the nest felt even emptier.

I had kept myself so busy this fall it was hard to fully realize my new existence, but when they came home it made the reality starker.

Knowing the time was short I wanted to savor every minute of it, but alas I had to share -- with friends, family all who wanted pieces of them too. I wanted to just lock the door, bolt the windows and have them all to myself. Instead our house was a beehive of activity. Friends coming and going (mostly coming) family for the holidays and all of the intendent hustle and bustle that goes with holiday festivities.

I found myself especially sad when they got ready to leave, both packing up the car and heading out together and leaving me once again with my empty nest -- well not so empty there are the 4 cats.

That old saying you can't go home again is sadly true. They have changed, I have changed and our lives together are forever altered. Matt seems so grown up and Laura could not stop talking about when she moves out for good in a few months.

I do realize that all of this is as it should be. It is a rite of passage and a good one, but that makes it no less hard.

I can't imagine how birds actually push their babies out of the nest when all I want is to hold mine close.

All is well in the nest

As I have reached the one month mile stone of being an empty nester I realize that life is pretty darn good.

Both my children are productive and happy. My son has adjusted to the life of a student athlete with virtually no problems and my daughter seems to be making some decisions about her options for life after college.

As much as I approached this time in life with trepidation I realize that all is as it should be. My children are living happy and successful lives away from my daily supervision and isn't that after all what we raise them to do -- spread their wings and fly away.

I miss them, but I am content.

Some things really haven't changed

My daughter always told me that one day her brother would "become a teenager", our moniker for causing

trouble or at least annoying me more than she did. To her disappointment it did not happen while he was in High School, but I do realize, now that he has left for college, how much more I appreciate her.

She remains in my life everyday with a call, an email a text or a combination of all of these communiques. Even though she is many miles away I feel like I know her life and I am enjoying this new closeness we share. Today I went to see the movie Julie and Julia having heard about it from her among others and found myself immediately wanting to talk with her about it and even see it again with her.

She meanwhile found herself at a rugby game prompting me to wonder if a future son in law was on the field. With her I almost feel like I am there living her life along side her because she gives me so many details. and therein lies the fundamental difference between men and women those all important details.

My son has not really changed he still gives me the same one word answers he always did and Laura and I are not "newly" close we were always close I just did not fully appreciate it while he was physically nearby.

So the good news is things have not really changed. My kids are still the same great kids they were last year they are just not under my roof and that is as it should be.

on

ing

ET Phone Home

When my daughter left for college three years ago I hardly noticed she was gone. We saw each other a lot in the first few months and she called me everyday sometimes three times a day.

I use to joke with one of my colleagues who had a son entering his freshman year that I would forward one of my daughter's daily calls so she could hear about college life as she was limited to once a week at best from her son.

Once a week did not sound unreasonable at the time. After all I did not talk to my mother more than once a week, but that was long before the advent of cell phones, text messaging, email, facebook and skpe, all of those cheap to free means of communication which also offer the anonymity of not really having to "talk" at all.

What is so hard about sending an email? After all there is a lot of news. Classes have started I barely know what he is taking much less who is teachers are, how many kids in his classes (is it really an 11:1 student to faculty ratio for which I am paying dearly), who his new friends are, how the food is, what his roommate is like, how he likes his new baseball teammates?

Just a few short months ago I knew everything, or almost everything. Now I know nothing not what he is doing and not even who he is doing it with.

I find some comfort in bemoaning this condition with his sister. She too is left in the dark and missing the daily connections with her best friend and mine. But I find I am enjoying the regularity of her calls all the more so maybe his absence is to bring me closer to my daughter and that is certainly not a bad thing.

But ET, you can still phone home!

It really is empty

It is the end of August and for many that means returning to school, the beginning of fall, the end of summer.

I have always welcomed that. By Labor Day I was tired of the lack of routine the summer months bring, the plaintive sighs that "there's nothing to do, I am bored", nagging to get summer reading done, the sleepy mornings because I stayed up too late with my kids who did not have to get up. School starting was good.

But that was before school starting meant dropping your children off at some distant location to sleep in a strange room with strange new faces -- that was long before my youngest child left for college.

Confessions of an empty nester -- I am not so sure I like this school year.

But I am finding quiet comfort in talking to the many other Moms who are feeling the exact same way. Walking in their son or daughter's room and feeling the emptiness in the pit of your stomach. Knowing that even though they will come home it will be on a temporary pass, a visitor if not a guest and they will never again occupy the house in the same way. Childhood as we knew it and loved it, is over.

So because I am having so many feelings about this unique, bittersweet time of life what better way to move through it than to reflect on it in all of its many facets -- both the melancholy times and the fun ones.

Our sons and daughters will be growing up and isn't that what we always wanted for them? They will make new friends, share new experiences, learn new life lessons and value some of the old and through it all we can watch, listen, and maybe grow a little ourselves.

But come on Matt, is it really so hard to call home?