We are recently back from another one of those trips. The kind where after months of online research, I enthusiastically trek across the country with one of my kids to look at a college that she will surely fall in love with. It's a productive, satisfying kind of trip, but it always ends in the most bittersweet place.
I'm preparing another kid to move a thousand miles away from me. (To be accurate, my kid in Texas is only 787 miles away, but the one in Virginia is 1,568 from home, and the third, if she lands in Tennessee like I think she will, will be 1,316 miles away, so let's call it an average of a thousand.)
Nothing is more exciting to me than seeing my kids bravely step out in faith and start finding their own way in this world. It's what we, their parents, have been working toward since the day they were born. Come on, you can do it, learn to fall asleep on your own. Stand up on those two feet and move on your own. Learn to speak for yourself. Make your own choices. Pick your own friends. Manage your own schedule. Own your own faith. And when the time is right, choose your own path, even if takes you a thousand miles from home.
But in this case, tremendous joy, relief, and thankfulness coexist with gut-wrenching sadness.
After reading something my friend Megan wrote about her Empty Nest-obia (such a great term), I sat down and immediately cranked out a lengthy response. She hit a nerve. Much of what I write below comes from that response to Megan, along with a few new thoughts and, if you make it to the end, some questions for those of you who are further down the line on this one than I am.
I grew up wanting to be a famous journalist and nothing else. Marriage and children were not really part of my formula. All I wanted was a big career.
Twenty-six years later, I've logged only two years of full-time employment, and that was at The Navigators, not a place where famous journalists are made. While I'm exceedingly thankful for the meaningful work I've been able to do over the years (and the countless babysitters who made that possible), I have found that instead of a successful career, the most soul-satisfying part of my life has been raising four kids. (And how in the world did I end up with four? For someone like me, four might as well be twenty. The only answer I have is that I liked the person I was becoming more and more each time I had another baby to haul around. Self-sacrifice was so, so good for me.)
I can't say I loved the baby stage of life. I more endured it but really began to hit my parenting stride right about the time they turned 4. With no vision for homeschooling and a great charter-school option, I was happy to let them go off to school and do their thing while I worked. But I kept my schedule free enough to attend all their events, volunteer in their classrooms, sit at home and play games with them on snow days, lead Bible studies for them and their friends, and do hours upon hours of AWANA with them. I couldn't imagine life being any better than that.
Then one day in about 2015, at the height of my bliss, I was standing in line at the post office and heard Pomp and Circumstance, which brought me to tears. Lots of them. In the post office. I spent the next three years dreading my oldest child's graduation. In 2018, when we dropped him off at college 1,568 miles from home, I cried for three days, including the day of my 23rd wedding anniversary. I wasn't crying just about him. I was more crying over my season of life, the sending-off season. I was crying over my youngest leaving home, and she was 11 at the time. I was crying at the thought of having to watch them leave one by one, knowing that they would take a piece of me with them every time and that I might not have anything left by the time the whole ordeal was over.
Since then, God and I have done some deep work, and my perspective has shifted. My hands are less clenched, my focus is much less self-centered. I have vision and excitement for the good work He is doing in my kids. COVID helped. When my 2020 grad was actually able to go to college and wasn't stuck at home doing online homework in her bedroom, I was thrilled for her to go.
Now I find myself with yet another senior (they just keep coming!), and my new focus will be seriously tested. This one, since she was 4, has been talking about living outside the U.S. She wants to love on little kids around the world and tell them about Jesus. Ugh. The nerve.
Just kidding.
There's nothing more I want for her than to follow God's will for her life, wherever that takes her. After all of her dreaming about being a missionary, I think I would be more sad if she spent her life living next door to me. But still. Seeing her once every couple of years? Ouch!
Next year we'll be down to just one. One who plays multiple sports, is in the school musical and student council, and finds many other ways to give us good practice at living with an empty nest. In God's providence, she is three years younger than her sister, so we'll get to keep her for what seems like an extra year.
Even with nearly four years left, I have to fight hard nearly every day to keep Empty Nest-obia from stealing my joy. It's the quiet house that terrifies me. I like quiet when I'm trying to read or write or work, but I also love the noise of a busy house. I also happen to be married to a very quiet person. What will it be like to live in this quiet house? What will we do on a Tuesday night if we're not eating pizza in the car on the way to a basketball game? What will we do with ourselves? Who will we be?
I have to surrender my phobia to God over and over and over again. My identity is not in being a mom to these four kids. We were raising adults all along. We want them out of our house, living their own lives. We did our job reasonably well, and we can let them go. God has new assignments and adventures for us in our next stage of life. These are my mantras. They are the truths that help me fight off my fear and dread for another day.
If you've made it to the end of this and are a parent five, ten, or twenty years ahead of me, I'd love to hear from you. How did you transition to your empty nest life? How is it good? How is it hard? What advice do you have for those of us who are relutantly joining you?
