Blogging Out Loud: Empty Nest

Barbara and Deb: Hello, everyone, and welcome to our first installation of Blogging Out Loud! We've wanted to do more video blogs for a while now (and many of you encouraged us too), but we are always at the mercy of our limited tech skills (or, rather, our perception thereof) and our lack of camera crew. Lo, our wonderful Luke has returned to the fold and sweetly agreed (we didn’t really ask him) to tape our convo. Thank you, Luke!

We put a few episodes in the can (so don’t wonder why our clothes are always the same), and we hope you enjoy! As always, we look forward to continuing the conversation in the comments section.

If you didn't read it, click here for the post Barbara refers to in the video. And this is the original set-up post.

The Low Down, Low Grade Blues

Barbara: After a wonderful whirlwind long weekend in Montreal last week, after seeing my daughter and reveling in family and friends, I am now back at home and officially navigating my new path of quietude. Because back at home there are no dinner parties or kids (or noise), back at home life “goes on”. And, yes, as we’d all anticipated, this new life of quietude is not without its challenges: namely, it also comes—at the moment—with an undercurrent of wistful, delicate sa-tigue (see how I made that up? “Sad” and “fatigue” together … because it feels remarkably like fatigue).

I swear I wasn’t even going to write about this as I don’t want you to worry about me or get all schlumpy yourselves (ever notice how moods are infectious?), but then … well, when you gotta write, you gotta write what you know, right? And right now, this is what I know.

I am doing my thing, by the way, and getting LOTS done (which is very satisfying and wonderful), but this satigue just follows me everywhere. Kinda like a puppy who’s forced to be with you on a long road trip and does so only because he loves you and the alternative of being left behind is much much worse but who is in great emotional distress the whole time because he HATES the car but he’d prefer you didn’t know this as his favourite purpose in life is to follow you around happily and adore you and so he suffers the dreaded 6-hour car ride in whimpering “silence”. (… Yes, this would be Chaplin on last week’s road trip to and from Montreal. Make sure you listen for his low down, low-grade whine...)

And do you ever find when you’re nursing the low down, low-grade blues that you kinda want to be left alone with them? That you don’t really want to chat and visit and be cheered? I know, for me, it’s all about letting it run its gentle course. And, in my experience, it is a gentle course. This is not the same feeling as true depression, or frustration, or angst, or grief. It is something else entirely. It feels almost like that dull ache you get when you’re a young teen and your bones are growing you into your next shape and size. Everything kinda throbs and hurts and your longer arms and legs make you all clumsy and awkward. But. BUT. You have this niggling, insistent, committed certainty that this new size and shape is going to be just swell in time and that it will all be worth it in the end.

So the truth is out: definitely feeling the blues right now. But the hope is there: definitely convinced it won’t last that long or be for naught.

Deb: Oh Barb. I have no words of wisdom. I hope you take solace in the fact that you know I have been where you are. I hope you see that we made the best of it and that we were rewarded with the return of our boy plus a girl. I also hope you see how very very fast that time went. We are reversed, aren’t we? We are reversed. I am feeling your satigue and I am phoning you...right now. Sending love. xo

The Quiet House

Barbara: I almost called this post The Empty Nest because that is the ubiquitous term for what my home now is. I have nothing against the expression. A nest is cozy, potentially nurturing, a little be-fuzzed cradle of warmth and protection. But it is also just an expression … and as a result, kinda devoid of substance and evocative meaning.

The real honest truth is that—after a summer of both kids home, with their attendant messes and noises and thrown-around stuff—the house is as lovely as ever, more lovely maybe (because it’s really clean), but now it is echoey quiet.

Two rooms just sitting there, doing nothing.

I knew this day was coming. Of course, I’ve talked about it here on these very pages many times. You’ve comforted me through a bunch of baby steps leading up to this moment—and this moment, in many ways, is just a baby step itself, as both girls still officially live at home while they have their adventures in other parts of the world.

The sweetest part in the “bittersweet” aspect of the girls leaving is that they are both off on grand adventures. Adventures of a lifetime. One at school in Montreal, one in Paris doing what she loves. Is there anything more wonderful than having an adventure? When you get older you begin to get a bit nostalgic for those days of “anything can happen”, “every possibility exists”. Many years of responsibility and living the hardened reality of the choices you made long ago sometimes gets you believing that “possibility” is just a possibility for the young. Of course, that is wrong. And kinda dumb.

So, in my newly quiet house, with my newly freed-up schedule (not that the girls took up a lot of my time, but it’s strange how our beloveds’ priorities so quickly become our own), I have decided to remind myself—daily—that life does have a bookend-ish symmetry to it. The baby/old person symmetry is familiar to all of us, right? But what of the symmetry between the fledgling adult, yes, “flying the nest” and the once-vigilant, protective, hatchling-free adult now able to “fly the nest” themselves? I’m not going to leave my home. No, I’m good here. But I am going to take my own needs into my hands and have my own adventures.

Between you and me, my number one priority will be to write. Write, write, write. This is the magic space for me. It is the one thing I do that consistently makes me feel goooooood. But I will also workout, do yoga, meditate. And I will also get all my “real” work done (because there’s still a lot of that to do). How am I going to make sure I do all of this? I have … get this … made myself a serious schedule. I mean, even breakfast, shower, and walking the dog is on that list. Why? Well, I’m a disciplined person, I’ve always gotten everything done that needs to get done, but I know myself well enough to remember that I will prioritize everything else first and leave my own magic, healing, and freeing activities until, very often, there’s no time for them at all.

So, yes, my house is super-quiet right now. But if you’re looking for me, I have a bit of an adventure to take. Me and my super-quiet house. I’ll touch base when my schedule frees up (I’m thinking between 10 and 12 and 3 and 4. Oh, and maybe in the evening…). I’ll, as always, let you know how it goes!

Deb: Barb, you have the greatest attitude and it will reward you, I promise. We were empty nesters four years ago, as you know, and it cut to the quick at the beginning, but as I wrote four years ago, it became something else, something sweet, something romantic, something different. We missed Luke every single day, but it started to feel right. It felt like the right time for him and for us. And now these four years later, he is coming home and he is bringing the girl. So I guess the biggest comfort I can be is to say to you, “It will hurt and it will be creative and it will be fixed and it will change and it will hurt you and it will be your saving grace.” Peace with it is what I wish you.

The Empty Room

Barbara: It’s not an “empty nest”. That’s a stupid innocuous metaphor that makes it all sound so mild and ordinary. So whatevs. I mean, come on! Birds have at least one empty nest a season; they’re used to it. It’s in their blood to nudge their fledglings out and at ‘em. But for me, for ME, it’s an empty empty EMPTY ROOM.

Or it will be next week.

As I write this, I am in full prep-mode for moving our youngest to her university town for her first year of school. As you read this, however, I will be in the middle of actually doing it. I figured that since I would have my hands full and maybe not great access to the internet, I should write and post this now. The thing is as I write this, I’m trying to stay in denial. I know this. My daughter knows it. It’s the only way I can cope. I am keeping myself busy, distracted, trying to avoid the conscious acknowledgement of the future “empty room”. But as I write this, the emotional truth is rising up, hitting me square in the chest.

Michele at 6. I could say something cheesy about the plane and "flying away", but I won't...

I am very very very very very close with both my daughters. We talk about everything, share most things, ask for advice, offer it up, and love each other in great big obvious swaths of colour. My older daughter—as much as she would have loved to study elsewhere—really only had one choice of schools for her major and that was here. My younger’s choice of schools was also obvious, but it meant she would have to leave home to attend it. So at 17, she’s packing her stuff and moving out. She is ready, “chomping at the bit” even. She loves us and loves home and all that, but she can’t wait to taste her true independence.

Because this one just makes us all laugh...

Just because...

Because when you start with one cute kid shot, it's hard to stop...

And because you've already seen her all grown up...

And I’m not saying we’re attached at the hip or anything—she is very independent already, hanging with friends and working hard first at school, then at her part-time jobs (yes, two of them)—but we talk A LOT. Ours are chat sessions that last hours as we catch up and discuss and analyze and pull out our imaginary crystal balls to predict the future. I love these sessions. I hardly know what I will do without them. I don’t care that I will have more time to write, to work and to think. I will miss these talks with ever fibre of my being.

I know fundamentally all will be well and good; I will get to reconnect with my husband, myself, my cleaner house; I’ll get used to it; it will be the new normal; there are phone calls and texting and skype. Blah blah blah.

But the truth is it is a heartbreaking and difficult transition, this one. My baby is leaving and her room will never be the same. Sure, it might be a lot cleaner. Sure, I might have greater access to my towels, my bathroom, my kitchen counter, my clothes. But that soon-to-be clutter-free, laundry-less bedroom across for my own will now loom like a portal­­––maybe to an old life, maybe to the new one––and it’s now-open door will be a daily reminder of who is gone.

This might all be overly dramatic or emotional or just plain wrong, but I’m telling you: this is exactly how it feels on this day. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Deb: Not too dramatic at all in my opinion, for you know I have been there and you know the whole sad wrenching tale. Thought I would die the day the boy left. I felt so empty I could not fathom how I was able to stand up with nothing inside to hold me together.

I will tell you though from my vantage point three years post leaving: it does get better. It becomes normal, it becomes just your life. As quickly as the hands-on Mum in grade school grade school was forced to become the hands-off Mum in high school, you will adapt.

But yeah, the room.

Fortunately the boy’s room is on the other side of our home so I don’t have to pass by it every day as you do. But it brings to mind one of the best parenting choices I ever made. When Luke was growing up we never ever fought about the state of chaos that was his room. Our only rule was: tidy it on Thursday nights for the cleaning lady coming. He did, and it never became an issue. I never wanted to rant about pop cans and dirty underwear on the floor and I didn’t. I knew that all too soon, it would be as neat as a pin and as empty as my heart.

Cut to three years later ... It’s a great place to keep the iron and ironing board.

But wow, do I ever look forward to that visiting carpet of dirty underwear when it appears, however brief. 

The Last Pair Of Shoes

Barbara: My younger daughter has her prom next week. Today we found the perfect pair of shoes to go with the beautiful dress her sister is making her. Next fall, Michele goes away to college. And so I notice it has become a year of lasts.

I’ve been known to wax melodramatic on many a subject (don’t get me started), but it’s hard not to go there when every other exchange between my daughter and I involves, “When you’re away next year…”

I can’t help but read heartbreaking finality into every gesture, every event, every moment.

Obviously the fact that this is my last child in her last days of high school going to a last prom is indisputable. I will never again drive a child to or from school, will never wander school halls to admire a child’s work or speak to a teacher, will never again meet and host all their various friends. I knew it was coming, but then––like everything with your kids––one can never fully prepare.

So today I bought what will undoubtedly be the last pair of high heels for my daughter.

The last size 8s, in the last store we had time to check, on our last shopping spree: the exact pair she'd imagined

You can reassure me all you want and say, “Shoes make an awesome present for a young woman of limited means, of course you will keep buying them shoes.” But the truth is, as any woman will tell you, dress shoes are the chocolate truffle of women’s wear: you discover them, your breath is taken away, you try them on one delicate foot at a time, you delight in their elegant perfection, you decide you MUST have them, you buy them and watch them get packed away in their tissue-laden box, you take them home, model them, savour their loveliness. High heels are impossibly PERSONAL. They’re not practical, not comfortable, and might not be worn more than a handful of times.

With university costs and expensive equipment requirements for both girls, it’s unlikely our daughters will enjoy any more frivolous shopping sprees courtesy of their parents. No, I see more winter boots in their futures, more sensible coats, apartment accessories, food of course, camera equipment and fabric bolts, even hats and mitts and scarves and shirts, but we may in fact have just purchased the last pair of strappy heels for a female member of the household that is not me. Sigh.

(Bright side reflection: every future pair of sexy shoes we buy will be all MINE…)

Deb: Oh Barb, this was so beautiful. The idea of the last pair of shoes resonates with me. Since our boy has been in New York, some three years now, he more and more will not allow us to pay for things when he needs something. When he has to, he will cave. But usually he chooses to live independently. So I know what you are going through.

And although you will not be able to buy that pair of strappy goodness, you WILL be able to say, “Hey, since you’re in town, why don’t we go shoe shopping together?” And when you do, maybe you will treat, or maybe she will.

Or maybe neither of you will find anything worthy of your money. And you will be left with simply a glorious day together. Such is the crapshoot of adult children. 

In My Room

Deb: As Brian Wilson sang:

There’s a world where I can go and tell my secrets to ... in my room, in my room.

In this world I lock out all my worries and my fears ... in my room, in my room.

Do my dreaming and my scheming, lie awake and pray,

Do my crying and my sighing, laugh at yesterday.

Now it’s dark and I’m alone but I won’t be afraid,

In my room, in my room, in my room in my room, in my room, in my room, in my room.

Growing up, my room was my sanctuary. I am sure many of us feel the same. From my very first ballerina wallpaper to my ponytail-girls-talking-on phones wallpaper to the Beatles and Monkees posters, it was always MY SPACE, not myspace.

Because this “my space” was reserved for my inner sanctum, the keepers of my girl world. Carol Ann, Donna, Bev, Jane, Pat, Pat, Gail, Dale and Suzanne.

My parents were so wonderful about letting me make my room my own. During Monkees years, I even had a poster of Peter Tork on the ceiling above my bed. Sigh.

It was with this spirit that we allowed the boy to do the same. And he has gone for it over the years, sporting rooms that spoke to him and surrounding himself with things he loved.

There was the Pooh room, the Thomas the Tank Engine room, the Space Cowboy room, the Flags of the world room, and the purple movie posters room.

In the last few days he transformed his room yet again, his father and he ripping it apart, recycling, giving away, trashing and cleaning. This time he was inspired by photos he had seen and he downloaded a hundred or so, painstakingly cutting them out and arranging them like an art installation around the room.

It looks so fantastic and I love it.

And then came a sobering moment. After oohing and ahhhing about his room, he said to me, “Mom, what will you turn this room into when I move away?” Wow.

“Ahh, yeah, honey, I ummm, don’t know. Maybe a crafts room or ahhhh, ummm, guest room or.........I don’t really know.”

So I shall cling to this latest in a long line of sanctuaries of self-expression the boy has lived in.

Because in the blink of an eye, it will become a boring old guest room. 

Barbara: Wow, it’s crazy that you should write this on this of all weeks. I mean, you could have written this any time over the last blog-year, given that your boy has been unofficially gone from the nest for the last few years (still coming home between stints at school).

But no, you’ve written this and I read it now on the very week that my daughter received her acceptance to university out of town. She already has a place to live. An apartment with two other girls. She’s all set. She’ll be moving out in the fall—not permanently yet (I don’t think, sniffle, sniffle), but she is close to that too.

I will feel my first loss in the fall and I am feeling weepy now thinking of it (thanks, Deb!). Don’t get me wrong, I am nothing but thrilled and excited for my daughter. But I anticipate that her room—in all its eclectic and vagabond glory, with its posters of Dylan and Marley, its Egyptian artifacts, its life-size octopus hand-painted on one wall, its piles of homework and books, its mountains (a veritable RANGE) of clothing on the floor––will soon become a boring old something. And she will be gone. And it will be quiet. And a chapter will be over.

Wow.

Deb, it is serendipitous in the extreme that you should write this now. Because not only do you remind me of this hard, cold reality, but you have also shown me by your amazing example just how much loving energy and loveliness can come to that empty nest, changing it from “empty” to “full of grace”. Thank you.

Apron Strings

Barbara: I was in Montreal last week and had the chance to spend some time with my father and stepmother. It was great. We strolled through the Botanical Gardens and ate food so delicious, it will colour my dreams for years to come. 

The trip also became another chance for me to reflect on the wonderful good luck I’ve had when it comes to parents—and with Father’s Day just past, to acknowledge what an interesting and lovely man is my own. He who was rarely around in my growing years because of work and work-travel is now a manifestly connected and considerate dad with whom to commiserate. In truth, I never minded his business trips when I was young—I was very close to my mother and sisters and we kinda looked on his time away as a good excuse to Girls’ Night it up—no matter that we weren’t old enough for discos and gin tonics, we rallied with fast food burgers and late night TV. 

So, as an adult, it’s been a very sweet development to get to know my father. And he constantly surprises and delights me with his intuitive wisdom. Like the other day on our visit, he tells me that he and my stepmom were just realizing that my husband and I had now entered into one of the best phases of adulthood: the time after your kids are grown and before you’re too old to be sidelined by physical constraints. Now, before I go on, I just want to say: it’s not my intention to nyah-nyah those of you who are still in the thick, or to discourage those of you who haven’t yet started that part of your life-journey, but to clasp arms with those of us on the other side so we can tell you, “Yeah, it was exhausting and wonderful and crazy and stressful—sometimes beyond words—but there comes a time when your job is done and you can let go and sit back and abscond responsibility from other people’s life choices.” 

It’s a cutting of the apron strings from the other side of the old cliché. We let go because we have to and because it doesn’t matter anymore what we say because the kids are fully cooked and will do whatever they damn well please. And there is something so liberating about that. When the kids were babies, on sleepless nights my husband would moan with complete conviction that our children would never, ever, ever sleep through the night or poop in the toilet. Well, he was wrong on both counts. And of course, we knew that one day our kids wouldn’t need us anymore, but in the long moments between birth and maturity that concept seemed/felt unfathomable. And then one day, they didn’t. Like overnight. Both of them still at home, but fully cooked and independent and apron-less. And I get to enjoy them, counsel them, worry about them––but I don’t get to handhold them anymore. So now my hands are free to pick and choose. It’s a curious feeling. But I know that’s what my Dad meant. 

I also realize that this is why it took for me to reach adulthood to finally be privy to his gems—I think he was saving this precious stuff for when it would be welcome as conversation … and not shunned as lecture. 

Deb: So much of what you had to say resonated with me, although from a slightly different angle as you know. We have been empty nesters for two years now and have had a huge taste of what you speak of. Most of the time, except for holidays, there is no boy in the house at all. So we are thrilled to have created a friendship with him before he left, as I know you have with your girls. As a result of this friendship, we find ourselves decidedly not guilty about enjoying this “new” couple before us. The couple that is into going to a Jazz Festival on a Tuesday night! Where did they come from? And when we see the boy, the time is rife with quality because we are such friends and really enjoy each other. 

If you had told me when the boy was 2, 5, 9,12 and even 17 that it would feel this right for him and for us, I would have never believed you. The day we left him in another country to go to school and watched him walk away from us was a sting in our hearts I will never forget. He let go of our hands and walked in one direction and we grabbed on to each other’s and walked in the other. In that very moment, it felt different … and nice.

Barb, I have had a similar joy with my Dad lately but for different reasons, as you also well know. He is having some health issues and at 83 has needed my frequent help. What I discovered through these excursions we take from groceries to drugstores, to specialists appointments, etc, is that I treasure this time with him. It has been challenging given his lack of mobility, but this reversal waltz we have been doing has been an unexpected pleasure. It has further illustrated to me what an amazing human he is. And as I just wrote in his Father’s Day card, I am still learning gorgeous life lessons that, as you say, Barb, are not even couched in lecture any more. We are two loving adults sharing wisdom, history, and deep respect. My time with him could be summed up as grateful time. We are just so happy to be here together right now.