Not Quite Ready for the Empty Nest
July 14, 1999
Having your kids leave home is a lot like being robbed—you read about it in the paper but you don’t think it will ever happen to you.
But things do happen, and if you’re lucky, they happen when you’re ready.
Like an empty nest.
It’s not happening to us yet—our lovely teen-age boy is just gone for a couple of weeks to a camp at BYU. He packed enough stuff to take him to Peru and back—apparently he too is fairly excited to see the last of us for awhile. He’s called home twice for stuff he forgot.
Thank goodness.
But I remember so well when I first became a mom—back before I was actually old enough to own a new car and barely old enough to vote. I was so much more confident, I can tell you that. I was so close to being a kid myself, that I remembered what it was like and I was NICE to those kids.
Those were the first kids when my hormones were strong and the nesting urge overrode everything. And I played like crazy with them. I didn’t mind making a mess because my apartment belonged to someone else. Now we own an apartment peopled with sticky fingered paint wreckers.
I didn’t mind looking stupid when I was younger because I could bend down without my knees cracking and I didn’t look like a Sharpei when I looked in the mirror.
These last of our “family years” have been more a race between our arthritis meds and the end of the picnic. I wonder if we even have any knick-knacks anymore and what they would be if we did? I guess that’s a blessing in disguise.
The questions most often asked by my friends as we march over the hill together is… “Onward Christian Solders?” No, it isn’t. Oh, I remember! It’s “What did I do when I used to do?” (I’m SO grateful when I remember anything!)
These last two weeks have been a practice run at the other end of the spectrum. There’s so much money to be had when you don’t have to dole out the December street-cleaning budget of Anchorage to pay for a week’s worth of milk. And we eat all the healthy things we’re supposed to eat to sustain life forever while we’re on life support: fresh veggies and fruit and grilled fish. The stuff that kids won’t eat. I worry that by Thursday I’ll go nuts and order pizza—it’ll be like the millennium when we find out that we didn’t need Satan to go wrong, we could do it by ourselves.
The Saturday night before the Fourth was a little lonely. The neighbors were firing off round after round of firecrackers and we started to feel down, until we remembered that there was no law that said you could only buy firecrackers with a kid in tow.
Our vacation day, Monday, we went for a drive where we wanted to go: up and over the mountain tops from Joe’s Valley Reservoir by Castle Dale over to Ephraim. With the boy gone, it was great not to have to worry about being home in case someone called to tell us there had been an accident or brought 12 people home to watch a movie. Of course now, even without kids, I’m the one who always has to “go.”
Lots of people seem to be retiring down there amid the rocks and ranches. Small farms, inexpensive houses, safety. Someone told me today that I’d better hurry though or all those wide open spaces would be gone. My cousin told me he and his wife have started searching on the Internet for the perfect ratio of temperature, humidity and restaurants in a place to retire.
If you’re lucky, things don’t happen until you’re ready for them. I don’t know if I’m ready to be among the retired. My daughter’s neighborhood up in the Salt Lake avenues call themselves the “Newly wed and nearly dead” neighborhood. I’m neither today—thank goodness this is just a practice run.
Having your kids leave home is a lot like being robbed—you read about it in the paper but you don’t think it will ever happen to you.
But things do happen, and if you’re lucky, they happen when you’re ready.
Like an empty nest.
It’s not happening to us yet—our lovely teen-age boy is just gone for a couple of weeks to a camp at BYU. He packed enough stuff to take him to Peru and back—apparently he too is fairly excited to see the last of us for awhile. He’s called home twice for stuff he forgot.
Thank goodness.
But I remember so well when I first became a mom—back before I was actually old enough to own a new car and barely old enough to vote. I was so much more confident, I can tell you that. I was so close to being a kid myself, that I remembered what it was like and I was NICE to those kids.
Those were the first kids when my hormones were strong and the nesting urge overrode everything. And I played like crazy with them. I didn’t mind making a mess because my apartment belonged to someone else. Now we own an apartment peopled with sticky fingered paint wreckers.
I didn’t mind looking stupid when I was younger because I could bend down without my knees cracking and I didn’t look like a Sharpei when I looked in the mirror.
These last of our “family years” have been more a race between our arthritis meds and the end of the picnic. I wonder if we even have any knick-knacks anymore and what they would be if we did? I guess that’s a blessing in disguise.
The questions most often asked by my friends as we march over the hill together is… “Onward Christian Solders?” No, it isn’t. Oh, I remember! It’s “What did I do when I used to do?” (I’m SO grateful when I remember anything!)
These last two weeks have been a practice run at the other end of the spectrum. There’s so much money to be had when you don’t have to dole out the December street-cleaning budget of Anchorage to pay for a week’s worth of milk. And we eat all the healthy things we’re supposed to eat to sustain life forever while we’re on life support: fresh veggies and fruit and grilled fish. The stuff that kids won’t eat. I worry that by Thursday I’ll go nuts and order pizza—it’ll be like the millennium when we find out that we didn’t need Satan to go wrong, we could do it by ourselves.
The Saturday night before the Fourth was a little lonely. The neighbors were firing off round after round of firecrackers and we started to feel down, until we remembered that there was no law that said you could only buy firecrackers with a kid in tow.
Our vacation day, Monday, we went for a drive where we wanted to go: up and over the mountain tops from Joe’s Valley Reservoir by Castle Dale over to Ephraim. With the boy gone, it was great not to have to worry about being home in case someone called to tell us there had been an accident or brought 12 people home to watch a movie. Of course now, even without kids, I’m the one who always has to “go.”
Lots of people seem to be retiring down there amid the rocks and ranches. Small farms, inexpensive houses, safety. Someone told me today that I’d better hurry though or all those wide open spaces would be gone. My cousin told me he and his wife have started searching on the Internet for the perfect ratio of temperature, humidity and restaurants in a place to retire.
If you’re lucky, things don’t happen until you’re ready for them. I don’t know if I’m ready to be among the retired. My daughter’s neighborhood up in the Salt Lake avenues call themselves the “Newly wed and nearly dead” neighborhood. I’m neither today—thank goodness this is just a practice run.
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