Feathering My Empty Nest

I was officially empty-nested today.

Packed and ready to go

My baby moved out. She's moved before, to college, long trips, and even out west for a summer after graduation, but I knew she'd be coming home after those. This time -- with her girlfriend, post-college, during the work year -- she's setting up her own nest.  Good flight, my little smudgling.

One of the perks of keeping a blog is that, in the process of thinking through and writing about a day's events, I often come to a deeper understanding of their significance.  So what's the theme of this eminently bloggable occasion?  I'm teary now, I always get a bit verklempt when the girls leave. But, at least superficially, I'm usually fine by the next morning. I may not know what it's really all about until the emptiness of the nest sets in, its contents shift, or it gets filled with other, more metaphorical offspring.

I've been meditating on and growing into the idea since my older daughter first left to live with a friend for her "gap year" before college.  The house is quiet, empty, more predictable without the kids and their friends -- that's both terrific and, sometimes, deathly.  There are fewer towels to wash, I always know where my laptop is, and whether the leftovers are still in the fridge (though my daughter will say, with some sad validity, that I am the more frequent forager).  But I can also safely predict that there will be no excited voices bursting through the door, interrupting my sleepy pre-bed reverie with laughter, midway through an animated review of some hilarious evening's event, trailing crisp late-night air in their wake.

My husband and I can focus more on each other, without filtering every thought and impulse through the lens of parenthood. There's liberation, if adjustment, in that.  The kids provide a ready, heartfelt topic of conversation at all times, a consistent and passionate joint venture, occasion to kvell after a rich family chat, something to carp about in unison when the dishes go unwashed.  But he and I like each other, palled around pretty inseparably for five years together before the girls came along, and have even mastered the fine art of ignoring each other when need be.  We'll be playing artistas together in our little garret in Roma in a few weeks.  We're good.

I have a much richer social life since the girls have been inching out, something I've been consciously cultivating and having a blast with.  A few old friends and I recently took off rather spur-of-the-moment, booked a hotel room in D.C. for the Jon Stewart rally, something I would never have considered when the girls were home.  I linger after classes, have dinner and drinks with my college friends, rather than racing home to be Mommy.  And occasionally, when a friend has been aggravating or disappointing,  my adult children provide excellent counseling, warm empathy, good strong shoulders.

The question I still haven't quite answered -- and this is both not as grave as it sounds, but at the same time life's essential defining profundity -- is why I get up in the morning now.  What is my life's purpose, exactly?  When I was young, it was all about creating an adult life for myself, a mate and career, children. When the kids were young, the focus was entirely on them -- providing for them physically and spiritually.  There are days I love my job, and I certainly need it to put food on the table.  I'm enjoying and learning from my post-grad classes in Teaching English as a Second Language, and looking forward to putting it into practice when my sabbatical is over.  But I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the retirement tunnel, so work is fading fast as a central raison d'etre.  I could devote myself to a cause, give my time to those needier than I, or fight corporate hegemony.  My daughter once said, kindly, that I had done all of that through my career choice, and one child at a time, I feel I was able to make a difference.  But giving time to a "cause" -- especially as my cynicism about the possibility of real change accrues with age -- feels remote, abstract, not enough for self-definition.  And sure, I know, I can just enjoy my distantly encroaching golden years.  Snuggle up with hubby as we rest easy in the notion that we have raised two amazing, strong women of conscience-- who still need me as a mother (she's actually "sleeping home" tonight), who give generously, to me and others, more and more, as the tide turns.  I'm way too young for that good night, I'm not ready to let the tide turn.

Well, for once, I have not come to any resolution or deeper understanding through my jottings.  My daughter's girlfriend bought me some fabulous cupcakes as a thank-you and good-bye gift. I'm going to get myself a cup of Starbucks ginger latte, and sink my teeth into one of those babies.  Not enough to get me up in the morning (though the coffee may well keep me up all night!), but something nice to chew on while I chew on the rest.

Thanks, as always, for your ear, your heart. I really do imagine particular friends and loved ones listening, and it's good to know you're there.

(A friend's comments inspired me to add the wonderful Kahlil Gibran poem.  She'd like me to post some Kelly Clarkson break-up tunes for accompaniment, too, but I have some schmaltz limits.  Few, but some.)

On Children
 Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. 

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.