Pondering The Empty Nest

Empty nest.  What an interesting term for the time when our babies are grown enough to test their wings.  It is their natural urge to be fed by us, taught the important lessons for survival by us, and eventually leave us.  It is considered normal development, at least in this culture. Relatives in Australia tell me they would never consider sending children thousands of miles away for college, and when they do return from school they move in up the block. But here in the U.S.A., especially in California, we value independence and encourage it in our offspring.  So why are so many of us devastated when these same children take flight? 

It is that time of the year again. Nests are being emptied, rearranged and examined. The familiar faces seen up until now every morning and night will only be seen during school breaks or on Skype or Facetime if everyone has the right phones. For some kids it is the long awaited exodus from the controls of home and family. But even they seem to struggle with the completeness of the change, the loss of familiarity and fears about the unknown. Others feel the growing pains very clearly as they stretch into their new identities as independent young adults while aware that they are also still dependent in most cases for their support. The feelings may be mixed in parents as well. Some have counted the days until they would be free of the ongoing angst of daily management of offspring with very different ideas about what is acceptable behavior. But then there are the myriad memories of infancy, first steps, funny stories, younger versions smiling from the photos in the family album.  There are fears and excitement and not unlike the preoccupation of their children, questions about the unknown.

As a parent, the feeling has a way of repeating itself through different time periods, in my experience.  The first time I put my 3 year old on a kiddie ride by herself I had that same visceral discomfort of not being able to get to her.  It repeated when she got on the plane for college, along with a strange feeling I can only compare to phantom limb some people experience after an amputation. This week I got to experience it yet again as my little granddaughters, who are a large part of my life, took off for their new life in Boston, and it wasn’t any easier.

When we open our hearts to all that have come from us we open ourselves up to everything – blazing moments of joyful connection and the roadmap to sadness or even despair when it is gone.  Being there is the only answer – for the gritty hard parts as well as the cheering and pride. While we have them we change ourselves to care for them and they become a part of us. When they leave we are left to figure out who we are without them. It is a new beginning for us as well as them. Wherever they are, they come from us, and that is no small thing.