An Empty(ing) Nest

Recently, I was talking with a friend who just finished her first year as an official empty nester. In our conversation, I was questioning her about how the year had passed: How did you handle it emotionally? What did you do to fill the time? Were you bored? She explained some of the activities that filled her hours each day, and I nodded along, inserting an "Oh, I would enjoy that" or "I could do that!" as she spoke. Finally, she looked at me quizzically and asked, "Don't you still have kids at home?"

Yes. Yes, I do. My oldest daughter is away for college. But my other college student is local and thus still lives with us; he works fulltime during the day and attends college at night. My oldest son is a senior at the local public school, and my youngest just began high school there as well.

So technically, I am not an empty nester.

However, for the last 20 years, I have had at least one child here at home with me 24/7. Now I don't homeschool.

I most certainly feel like an empty nester this year!

And I dreaded that first day of school - the first day I would sit in my house all by myself, not knowing what to do - for days, weeks even, before it actually happened. And I grieved for what I was losing.

But then the day came.

And it was OK.

The day came, and I began to realize the biggest gift I had been given was sitting right there for me to unwrap. That gift has been almost unlimited time for me to spend getting to know God - studying the Bible and praying. What a difference this has made in the life of someone who always heard about but never experienced a hunger for God's Word, who has never been able to concentrate to pray longer than five minutes.

Now I sit down after everyone has left, in the silence of the house, just me. And before I know it, an hour, two hours, have gone by. This is a time I look forward to, long for, every morning.

And I know this is where God wants me for now. I know this because I have pursued two opportunities for Things to Do, and the people on the other end of both options have not even contacted me.

So I am here for a reason. To learn. To grow.

I am so grateful to my husband for allowing me this time. For not pressuring me to get out there and pound the pavement. For just letting me be for now.

Certainly this is a season because I know God wants me to get out and do something tangible for Him, and He is just getting me ready. And I am ready...whenever that may be. As for now, I relish my empty(ing) nest, the quiet of each morning, and the time I get to spend, just God and me.

Stuck

I’m stuck. I’ll be 46 in three days, and I don’t know who I am anymore. Not really, anyway. Sometimes it’s a lonely feeling. Other times, rationality slaps me in the face and tells me there are likely – very likely – other middle-aged moms out there who also don’t know what they want to be when they grow up.

I haven’t always lacked career aspirations. I mean, when I was four, no one could tell me I wasn’t going to be a vet someday. Surprisingly, this vet phase lasted until I was 12. That was the year I had Miss Hall for 7th grade English. She sparked in me a love for literature as we tackled an abridged version of Les Miserables, and her preposition song led me to a love of grammar…and the dire need to police it. At the end of the year, we submitted a “novel” for our final project, and just like that, I was hooked on writing.

Mr. Roper solidified my love of English and teaching my junior and senior years, and so in the fall of 1990 when I began college, I declared my major loudly and definitively: English Education. I was going to change the world through Macbeth and gerund phrases. Really, I was. I wanted to teach inner city, and I was going to teach a la Louanne Johnson from Dangerous Minds. Yes, I would transform my own “Gangsta’s Paradise.”

The problem was I was 21 when I secured my first teaching job at Meadowcreek High School. I guess the 21 years weren’t so much the issue as the fact that I looked 12 and didn’t really know at the time how to command the authority I needed to handle the rough and tough halls and classrooms of what many still affectionately call Ghettocreek High School. I didn’t change the world. I didn’t even change five overcrowded classrooms of teenagers. I just prayed for sanity and strength and clung desperately to that prayer for two long years.

It wasn’t hard to get a job in the business world after my teaching stint. Good communication skills go a long way. I thrived in the business environment and enjoyed it. But then I held my first baby in my arms, and though I tried to go back to work, depositing my daughter at my cousin’s daycare every day gutted me.

With my sweet baby in my arms, I bid the office farewell and began the “career” I have enjoyed so much for the last 19 years: Mom. Sure, this path has been varied. I have been Homeschool Mom, Chef Mom, Taxi Mom, Banker Mom, Nurse Mom, Party Planner Mom, Psychologist Mom. And I’ve had a few detours: I taught second grade for a disastrous year, and if there were any direct sales opportunities, I took them or at least considered them seriously. Those also all ended disastrously. Direct Saleswoman I am not. But Mom – especially Homeschool Mom – has been my title, my identity. And it’s not like I’m ever going to stop being Mom; the title will be the same, the role very different. Kind of like taking an ER doctor from Manhattan and plopping him in a country hospital in the middle of Kansas.

You see, they – my kids, the ones who have been my job, my life for the past 19 years – are starting to leave. Alex, my oldest is in her second semester at college in Florida. Michael will graduate from homeschool this year. Jacob went to public school this year for 11th grade, so next year will end in Pomp and Circumstance for him as well. My “baby” Audrey is finishing up her last year of homeschool and will begin high school at public school next year.

When I think about being at home every day next year for seven hours with only a height challenged Corgi and a grouchy, geriatric cat for company, my heart starts palpitating, and I break out in a sweat. What in the world am I going to do with myself? Eat bon bons and watch soap operas? Honestly? I’m not entirely sure what bon bons are. And I haven’t watched a soap since I was four, and I sat on the couch keeping my grandmother company. Unless you count my Melrose Place phase…
I’ve thrown around the idea of getting a job, but that brings me full circle to the fact that I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

So…I’ve decided to take next year off. Take the 12 months to figure out who I am outside of Mom. Discover my interests, my passions, my talents. Get out there and explore a little, try new things, maybe learn how to be something other than a mediocre cook. (Dare I even admit that 19 years of being Mom never elevated me beyond mediocre cook status?)

Who knows? Maybe by the time my 47th birthday rolls around, I’ll have a renewed identity and a clear path before me.

Or not.

But hopefully I will at least have enjoyed some amazing adventures along the way. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll encourage some other folks to take the journey with me.