I helped our youngest son move into his new apartment he was sharing with friends. I helped him unpack, organized his clothes, put together his IKEA, and then we went out to buy the necessities for starting out life. Afterwards I bought pizza for everyone and as we finished eating he said well mom are you going to go? I knew my time had come to depart. He was ready to have his place and life to himself and I was ready to get the transition started.
I cried as I walked out to my car, though not as hard this time, I had done this three times before, but this time was a little different. It was the last of four children. My husband and I would now officially be alone. I drove home and embraced my dog as if he was the last living creature on earth, headed out to the back deck with him and the cat, looked at the sky, and asked, “What do I do now?”
An article on lifehack.org gives soon to be parents ten easy steps towards preparing for parenthood. I think we can reverse those steps to give us some quick tips on how to transition to the empty nest. When active parenting ends and we transition to a supportive role.
1. Say hello to a social life. Hopefully you already have one, but if you didn’t now is the time to strike up new friendships, strengthen old ones, and actively participate in life outside of work and home.
2. Say hello to a quiet house and the opportunity to sleep as much as you want. Many people complain of how sleep evades them at midlife and beyond, so when the house empties you are free to sleep as long and often as you want, if you can. My sleep problems started at the age of 50 partly due to extreme stress, partly due to menopause, and partly because I don’t know why. So yes I can sleep in a quiet house uninterrupted, but will my body let me? That is another matter altogether.
3. Theoretically say hello to less day to day practical stress, but depending on your level of involvement with your adult children, expect certain amounts of stress due to things like them moving, getting and losing jobs, divorce, sickness, and basically the milieu of things that can happen to any adult. The difference is you will be the parent of the adult it is happening to.
4. Say hello to a clean house and time to do what you want after work. I cried when my last child moved out, but a week later I came home after work to a clean house. Shazam! I didn’t have to pick up anyone’s shoes, puts dishes in the dishwasher, or pick up trash. The house was just as we left it. Say hello to having the opportunity to relax after work after all these years.
5. Say hello to privacy. You can now go poop by yourself, unless the dog comes in, you can have sex without fear of interruption, make as much noise as you want, walk down the hall with no shirt or pants on, or however you want. Say hello to having a space to live in that is yours. All yours. It takes some time to realize how much privacy we lost, but as soon as it sinks in we will begin to see how beautiful this time of life is going to be.
6. Say hello to quiet, space, and as much or little companionship as you want. The quiet, space, and lack of companionship, even if you are married, can be terrifying at first when the kids leave home, but once we readjust to our new life we have an opportunity to embrace a quiet home, with more space for us, and we can decide who and when we want to be around others. Silence can be as scary as it is beautiful, but a deep and amazing life awaits those who find out how fulfilling life can be in the quiet space of our own home.
7. Say hello to more money. This depends on how long you fund your 20 somethings life, but at some point there should be a cut off and when that comes hopefully you will get the opportunity to decide how you want to spend money you have left after paying bills. Say hello to downsizing if you want, less house payment, maybe rent and forget house maintenance. Say hello to buying yourself stuff, investing in self-care, taking up a new hobby, actually paying down debt, investing in some good shoes, joining a gym, or whatever else you have been putting off because everything went to the kids.
NY Times author Lindsey Lopez encourages soon-to-be-parents to manage their expectations and to overestimate their recovery time as a way to prepare for what is ahead. The same techniques can work for the parents facing an empty nest. Maybe we thought it wouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. Maybe we thought it would floor us, but we are doing just fine. Some things you can’t completely prepare for and the empty nest is one of them. So maybe you are reacting differently then you expected, it’s okay. Maybe it’s taking you longer to recover then you thought it would, that is okay too. Give yourself some room to feel, breathe, adjust, and move ahead.
Say hello to the second half of life. A time about us. A time of amazing opportunity and growth. Where we get to take all that we have learned and pour it into making a great life. A time to let go and support. A time to back off and embrace ourselves. A time where we get to be free again and explore the world we live in and find our place in it. Say hello to you and the time of life your youthful heart has longed for. Start with these steps and take many many more. I look forward to seeing what you become, who you create.
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Marcy Pedersen
