From Nest Half Full To On Empty

On letting go so we can become

They say a lot will change for you when your kids move out of the house and you enter the phase of parenthood commonly referred to as Empty Nesting; how you cook and what you eat; the way you spend your hours; the pursuit of new interests and hobbies; meeting and befriending new people; who and how you date. 

It’s been over two years since I was handed a plaque, not to be confused with a pension, that was stamped EMPTY NESTER and congratulated on succeeding at a career that you’re only considered an expert on once you’ve retired from it.

The obvious first change I made was dropping a drab sounding title like ‘Empty Nester’. The idea that my life is now empty without kids in it was not only offensive, but depressing. Besides, I’d had a little taste here and there over the years of this freedom when my kids went to camp or spent the night with a friend. I was more than ready for the life I’d seen my friends without kids living, that in my opinion, they took for granted. Look, I get it. Sometimes you don’t know what you have until it’s taken away. When you’ve spent more years of your life having to account for where you are or where you're going, including arbitrary moments in the bathroom, you have a harder time understanding the complaints of single people who ‘don’t have time’ or are ‘tired’. (now that i don’t have kids in the house I can relate to these individuals who don’t have time and are perpetually tired, but I blame it on years of parenting) and the fact that I’m still on call for big kids, big problems.)

Feeling unusually optimistic about my life not as full time parent, I took it upon myself to use some of my extra spare time to re- brand Empty Nester to Nest Half Full™️. It’s for those of us who are entering a life post kids at home and want to embrace the idea of living alone and a life that is more about making choices solely for ourselves. Not as mothers always thinking of their children first. (this statement conveys a much stronger stance than where I stand today, but baby steps. once a mother, always a mother.) The main point is of course, we are meant not feel bad about thinking of ourselves for once.

I would finally have a life that I was living for me. A very exciting proposition especially considering it would be the first time in my forty plus years of existence that I would have the autonomy to do so. 

No parents. No husbands. No kids. 

Just me. 

Last week I was having coffee with my youngest while she was home visiting from NY for the holiday. I listened to her plight about having roommates and wanting to live alone. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much sympathy…

Mom, you don’t understand. Do you have any idea what it’s like to always have people around? I’m never alone.

I’m sorry, do you even know who you are talking to? I’ve been living with you and your brother since I was 20 and it’s been, uumm, not unlike having roommates. Wait, I take that back. Mostly it’s been like living with my parents; I couldn’t just bring anyone home and have basically had a curfew. Shuffling you around over the years, listening to you two bicker like an old married couple.

Then it became like having roommates. 

The only orgy I’ve even been part of was the one I walked in on,

in my home, 

being hosted by, 

not me. 

(never in my life have I seen kids transport so quickly to the corners of a room. They appeared freakishly like the last scene out of the Blair Witch Project)

I don’t think you and your brother understand….

For me personally, the prospect of living alone as a woman in her forties brought with it a romantic curiosity;

Would I walk around naked? How many bedrooms would my house have? What about sexy sleepovers? Would my friends and I stay up late listening to records? Sipping on wine or smoking joints on the sofa? Perhaps I would just lie around leisurely with entwined with a lover binging on Netflix. Maybe I would work all day and night? Not stop for dinner. Or lunch.. Sleep into the late hours. Pleasure myself until exhaustion….

Who would this woman, no longer on the edge of her seat waiting to be beckoned, moommmmm??!! become and grow into with all her new found freedom and independence? 

Like most of life’s decisions, I would have to live into those questions and wait for the answers to reveal themselves. 

Enter Nest Half Full™️ Era.

Photo by Jurate Cesnaite on Unsplash

One of those answers became me moving into a three bedroom home in a part of town that was new to me. 

The house was more than I needed as far as rooms were concerned, but from the moment I saw it, more specifically the kitchen and the primary bedroom, I didn’t care about the extra rooms or unused space. There was a feeling that overcame me each time I walked through my front door and when I entered my bedroom; simultaneous serenity and satisfaction.

My bedroom was located up a steep set of stairs away from the rest of the living area and bedrooms. Separate from the other bedrooms, that in theory would be for kids, I could sequester myself from myself. Something I had never had in my bedroom as a parent was a tv. I bought a 60+ inch flat screen and had it installed on the wall across from my bed. I wanted to feel like I was in a hotel room. Speaking of that. I bought this oversized white slip cover bed that looks like a cloud. The headboard is like the back of a sofa, pillowy yet firm and extends well beyond the frame of the bed itself. Covered in all white sheets, a variety of pillows and a down duvet, it centered perfectly in the space. Surrounded by a few key windows, the light would softly drape over me in the morning. That is when I didn’t have my black out shades drawn. 

They say the average person spends a third of their life in bed. I’m not average.

The first question visitors would ask me upon entering was,  is it just you living here? Even my kids made the statement, I don’t think we ever had a house this big when it was just the three of us.

They were not wrong. 

What no one saw were the spare rooms, closets, cabinets and drawers filled with my kids school assignments, semi broken crafts, mini cupcake baking sets, baby backpacks, decades of pictures and memorabilia from their childhood; boxes of pictures, along with additional containers and books + other miscellaneous items that my mother insisted I take that were stored in the far right top corner of the closet in an unused bedroom that later held with it her cremated remains; below those things were more things from my first two marriages, like a compact disc containing all the images from the night my second husband and I got married that I’ve never once looked at, graduation certifications, divorce certificates, death certificates, files from long ago, bills, art work I didn’t want to see so I turned it around to face the wall, magazines, electronics, laptops that don’t work but have images stored on them since 2003 along with many, too many! random items that best fit in the ‘junk drawer’ category.

All of this remained after what I thought was a thorough Marie Kondoing like cleansing and decluttering prior to moving in. It turns out the majority of items that I had no problem letting go of -that the promise of closure had been met-  was a panoply of materials and goods associated to or gifted by the men I’ve dated in the past or clothing that had worn out its welcome.

It was a good day at the Goodwill. 

However, that only represented a 1/16 of my life, if that. 

It would seem that my nest was both figuratively and literally half full from the material proverbially baggage of a life that I wanted to move on from, refused to deal with, was still defined by and hiding behind closet and cabinet doors. 

As life would have it, my mother passed away a few months after I moved into my house. A few months after that I remember thinking, I don’t have the space- the emotional bandwidth - to keep living like this. There was this weight all around me.

From my birds eye view now, I can see how that was the beginning of me emptying my half full nest.

When I would peek into a closet and catch glimpse of the floral box containing all the memories of my childhood next to my mothers remains above my daughters elementary school drawings and my sons lucky rabbit foot that was held in a tiny wooden trunk with little jewels glued on it sitting next to a newspaper article of their deceased dad holding a surfboard in one arm and one of our children in the other next to a stack of hand written recipes that my grandmother passed on to my dad who passed onto me, I had an over-sized, almost empty home to hold space for me to fall apart and get lost in. 

There was a shedding of the mother I’d been, of the daughter I never got to be, of friends and family, and of the woman I had become for everyone else that roamed those rooms in tears, laughing at the irony of life; moaning in grief and orgasm; standing in the middle of the steep stairs wondering why and how, unable to understand or make sense of; bottomed out and numb; vulnerable and desperate not to be seen; that had to emptied in order to become.

Undefined and becoming, I am in absolute awe of the woman that’s been brought to her knees not just once or twice, but many times over as a mother, wife, daughter, friend, person… and gotten back up. Emphasize awe on getting up.

A few months before my lease was up, I started to feel another shift. I was ready to downsize and minimize the things in my life. I set my eyes on a one bedroom guest house and hoped to Gawd that my bed would fit. The one thing I’m not willing to let go of at the moment. As I began the process of sorting and packing, I found myself reminiscing about my first experience of living alone and what I learned about myself.

I learned that I only need a .4 oz cut of meat.

I learned that I once I start working, if there is no one to stop me, I’ll keep going.

I’m learning not to let myself do that.

I learned that it only takes about fifteen months for me to feel ‘safe’ enough to sleep with my bedroom door unlocked and left open.

I learned how to live a sober life unlike any other period in my life.

I’ve learned but also have always known I don’t have friends over after dinner.

I’ve learned to be okay with days that feel unproductive or not busy. Like way okay.

I learned that most nights I prefer an empty bed. The only two people who spent the night with me in my home were my daughter and my best friend.

Most importantly, I learned that I could make it on empty and not just be okay…

that I could eventually become full again.