If you read my last blog post, then you know that, when I wrote it, I was in the thick of it when it came to emotions ranging from pride, sorrow, joy and something akin to grief. All of this because my firstborn had just moved away to college, and I was left wondering HOW ON EARTH time had slipped through my fingers as quickly as it had.
I won’t sit here and spin a tale of how easy it is now, almost four weeks later. It’s not easier. I still miss my boy so so so much….but it has gotten more comfortable. Comfortable because he’s happy, making friends, learning how to juggle independence and academia, and I can’t help but be so incredibly happy for him.
Comfortable because I know he’s ok, and I know that had he stayed home he would be missing out on so many experiences and opportunities. He’s launched and I am sitting here cheering him on.
I am also learning how to let go. I have always been the purveyor of healthy foods, important supplements, and good choices. I know he’s not always eating great (although he promises he’s taking his vitamins!). I know he goes to bed way too late (I know because he sends me memes at 2 am most nights). I know that he might go places and do things that would scare any mom…but then again, I’m pretty sure I have some stories of my own college years that still make me wonder how I made it out in one piece.
I’m learning that now he is on his own to take care of his body, his mind, and his belongings. I know he’s making it to his classes on time and doing his assignments. I know he goes to the gym on a regular basis. I know he’s doing what he needs to do to stay on top of things. I swell with pride over this, because there were days in high school that I felt like I’d have to drag him across the finish line…but sometime between the start of second semester his senior year and the week he left for college, I saw a very perceptible shift into adulthood in him. Words can’t really describe what it feels like to see your kid grow up like that right in front of your eyes.
He’s still a kid, but he’s taking some pretty huge steps right now. And ALL of that makes this almost-empty nest journey worth every moment of missing him.
I’ve been asked by a few people what exactly it feels like in my home now. Mind you, I’m only half-empty nesting because my daughter is still home and a junior in High School. My daughter, however, is the quiet one, and the polar opposite of her brother in every way imaginable.
With him in college our house is so quiet you can actually hear a pin drop (and I know this because she literally dropped a pin on the tile floor while creating a cell structure project for Chemistry and I heard it halfway across the house!). It’s wild.
My son has always been a larger than life kid, unfiltered and irreverent. If he wasn’t in the kitchen cracking jokes or delivering his (often very perceptive and accurate) opinions of the state of the world, yelling at his sister to get out of the bathroom (and to be fair she takes forrrrrever in there), he’d be in his room playing video games….LOUDLY. I do wonder if he games in college and if he’s just as loud, and if maybe, I should have bought his rooomate some ear plugs?
So, the biggest difference is the silence. I should revel in it, and I’m slowly starting to appreciate it, but I somehow miss those loud arguments he would have over Discord. It was part of my life as a mother. It was annoying as hell, but also filled the house with life. The silence is hard.
My grocery bill has been cut in half. Anyone with a teenaged boy will be able to appreciate this one. Teen boys eat. A LOT. I find my grocery cart half filled now, and at the end of the week, there’s always plenty of food left over. I need to make sure to prepare the pantry before he arrives for Thanksgiving break though….pretty sure an entire Costco haul will be decimated in the three days he’ll be here! And while saving considerable bucks on food is nice, I won’t keep the fact from you that I get hit with a pang of sudden sadness when I have to remind myself that last week, this week, next week, I don’t have to buy his favorite cereal.
Another hard to ignore difference hits around 3:30pm every weekday. This is when my daughter gets home from school and I have always been so used to them both barging in the front door together competing with one another on who was going to fill me in on their day, or the gossip of the moment first. I have a sofa at the back of my home office where my son would hold court speaking over his sister, and inevitably winning the mic. I miss the daily story time and seeing his wild hair pop in the door a few seconds before the rest of him did.
I do still get updates, but they’ve taken the form of text messages and the rare (and oh so prized by me) phone call when he needs “advice about women”.
There’s barely any laundry to do now. That’s a big difference. For the past almost 20 years, I have done several loads of laundry twice a week. With my son in college I do two loads a week. That’s it. I’m still not sure how my son was able to produce so much laundry all on his own? I also am almost 100% positive that he’s done ZERO laundry in college yet. I cannot wait to see the amount of dirty clothes he turns up with during the holidays. I hope Santa brings me an industrial sized washer this year.
These may all seem silly and small differences, but to a mother’s heart they are huge. I try to not think about the even bigger picture, which is that life as I knew it with him is over. The every day constancy of everything is no more and I wish I had not taken all of it…even the maddening times…for granted. When my mind goes there, I try to quickly redirect and remind myself that life with him is beginning in a whole new and amazing form. And I can’t wait to keep becoming the best of friends with the man I spent all of those years raising him to be.
So if you’ve already gone through the throes of a newly empty nest…I know you see me.
If you’re going through this now…please know I see you.
If your kids are still little….embrace the insomnia, the constant cold and flu seasons, the tantrums, the colic, the everything…seriously. Well, you don’t have to love it. I know it is hard….but embrace the littleness of them and the gift of time you have with them right this moment. They’ll be launching soon enough.
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**header photo by Stefan Stefancik @pexels
