We had dinner at the table tonight, my husband and I, for the first time in months. As we sat down for that “real meal,” the empty-nesting hit home. We have long been a dinner-at-the-table family but it seems like ages since we’ve found ourselves there. We spent the summer chasing schedules with two young adults rarely home for dinner, let alone home for dinner at the same time. For the past three months, the only consistent action our dinner table saw was as host to Amazon deliveries. As my husband and I dug into that “real meal” this evening, we both had the same thought: Was our dinner table always this big!?!?
Empty nesting hasn’t gone exactly as planned.
For days our brains have tricked us into believing that the kids were at work, visiting friends, at the gym…all temporary activities that would eventually deposit them back home. We then remember that, yes, they will be home eventually…if eventually means Thanksgiving break and even that is up in the air as whispers of a visit to Biomom’s out-of-state family float around. This is without a doubt the longest eventually we have experienced as parents.
Dorm dropoffs are not new to us as our eldest heads into that final year of college. We thought we had the process memorized: Drive a few hours with a packed car…pull up to chaos…find something that passes as a parking spot…throw all the doors and truck open, grab everything possible, and sprint to the dorm while praying that campus police doesn’t slap a ticket on the windshield. Chaos. I assume this method encourages the quick goodbye completed with a sweaty hug while cars circle hoping for your parking spot.
Our eldest child is our independent child–born to leave and explore the world, no need for dramatics, thank you. Perhaps we were spoiled by those easy goodbyes.
Dropping off our youngest for the first time was different in every way. With a staggered first-year student arrival, there was no chaos. Parking spots were plentiful. Student volunteers carried everything into oddly quiet halls. An RA stopped by for a millisecond just to say hello and introduce himself. We lingered (probably too long). We took a trip to Walmart (for all those things that didn’t make the trip). We finally said our goodbyes, hugged, and…I was not expecting the tears.
I thought for sure I was going to be fine.
Evidently, I’d had my head planted firmly in the sand for months, a coping method typically reserved for my husband (Editor’s Note: Nah . . . I’m just naturally positive :-]). For months, I’d told anyone who asked how excited we were to begin the second half of parenting–the one where responsibilities were officially shifted to our baby adults and we could run wild. Rather than pay close attention to the college packing, I focused on items needed for our coming empty-nesting cruise–booked early in 2024 so that my husband would have a place to mope while I had a place to celebrate.
I even took a quick girls’ trip during prime college-packing week leaving my husband in charge of the nagging. My arrival home was less than twenty-four hours before our eldest would drive herself to start that senior year and less than forty-eight hours before we’d drive our youngest west to his first year. The moment my plane touched down back in Richmond, the first wave of sadness hit me. Oh shit. I have been avoiding these feelings by looking the other way. Oh shit. I spent the next almost forty-eight hours continuing to look the other way lest the kids notice I was about to collapse into a puddle but that last hug in front of my son’s dorm did me in.
The dining table feels so big with only two of us sitting at it. The house feels too big. My inbox is too big with no emails by the minute from the schools. We have no schedules to juggle. We have no grades to chase. We have no appointments to add to the family calendar. We have no one asking us if we’re doing anything tonight because they’d rather go out with friends. We have only two people at the dining room table.
I never knew that a quiet house could be so loud.
Empty nesting hasn’t gone exactly as planned.
Less than 24 hours after officially emptying our nest, we opted for a Saturday tour of the local emergency room. After our usual Saturday morning errands and while emptying all goods collected from the car, I dropped a 40 lb water jug on my foot. Did it hurt? Yes. Did those tears also contain a whole lot of other emotions? Also yes. I put the blame for the mishap squarely on my son’s shoulders. If that six-foot man-child hadn’t opted for college instead of staying my little boy forever–let’s just say it would have been him grabbing that jug from the car, my emotions would have remained intact and, well, and my toes would be less…flat.
Are you an empty nester? Tell me how it’s going!