My Empty (for Now) Nest

The Wright Brothers were tricksters. Didn’t they realize that it would be a terrible idea for people we love to be able to get on planes and be whisked half a world away in a few hours time? Didn’t they know that their invention would someday cause huge heartaches for those left behind? But the brothers were inventors, adventurers, dreamers, good souls. So I can’t hold it against them (very much) that my daughter got on a plane earlier this week and a few hours later was in Costa Rica, which is nearly 4,000 miles away from home. She’ll be there through March, working with both sea turtles and volunteers who come with the Earthwatch environmental organization. Read more about the project here: Earthwatch Sea Turtle Expeditions

So last Tuesday started out as an ordinary day with my daughter: an ordinary breakfast of eggs and squash (most of our breakfasts since the garden started producing have included squash) followed by an ordinary walk along the canal. We snuck in an episode of “Virgin River,” the Netflix series that we had been binge watching. We are midway through Season Four. But the clock was ticking and the ordinary and familiar had to pass so that the not so ordinary could commence. My daughter had to finish packing her suitcase.

She was flying to Costa Rica later that evening.

So we rummaged around the house for an hour or so, gathering the last of her clean laundry and reef-safe sunscreen, her insect repellant and snorkeling gear. We then made an unfortunate discovery, after we hauled out the bathroom scale and she stood on it, suitcase in hand, that her suitcase weighed in at 62 pounds, twelve pounds heavier than it should be if she didn’t want to pay a baggage fee of $100.

She did not want to pay a baggage fee.

So then there was a half-hour of unpacking and shoving heavier things into her carryon bag and eventually locating a bigger carryon bag. We thought for a few minutes that she might have to wear her hiking boots on the plane, which would have been one of the more interesting shoe choices that anyone might make for a flight to the tropics. Somehow, though, we got the suitcase down to 47.5 pounds, and then it was time to get in the car and drive to the Sacramento airport. I parked in the parking garage and walked her in and held my breath while her bag was weighed and thankfully came in under the 50 pound mark and then we went up the escalator to the second level and I watched as she got in line and made it through security. She waved and was gone.

Here is something about growing older that I am starting to realize: the lives of my children are becoming bigger while mine is becoming lesser. But maybe “lesser” is not the right word. Maybe better words would be “slower” or “smaller”? And slower and smaller aren’t bad. Not at all. It’s just that my children have so many beginnings and choices in front of them now. I do too, of course. We all do until we get to the end. But certainly there are doors that have closed for me.

I am content with my life as it flows along now, my home, my work, my friends. I don’t feel like I have as much to prove anymore, and that’s fine. But the departure of my son to college and my daughter to her post-college life mark the end of a long, beautiful season, my years of active parenting. There is grief today. I would love to put away my computer now because writing is silly and I am tired and I would like to sit on the couch and watch another few episodes of that Netflix show, Virgin River. But I suspect it’s not Virgin River that I’m longing for. It’s my daughter. It’s my son.

It’s a strange thing, to leave the house in the morning and come home and have everything be the same as I left it. No new leaves tracked in on the floor. No dirty dishes in the sink or cups on the counter. I went grocery shopping the other night and realized that there are entire categories of food that I won’t need to buy anymore, because they are things that the kids ate that I don’t. The only clothes I have to wash are mine. There is nobody else to blame for the messes that used to have questionable origins. Who left toothpaste in the sink and water spots on the counter? Who forgot to put the clothes in the dryer? Who didn’t bother to fill up the ice cube trays after they used the last of the ice in the morning? Just me. It could only be me.

So what will fill the parenting space? Friends and work and my garden and continuing to tame the blackberries that are growing down by the creek and hopefully the inward journey. My house can become a hermitage of sorts. It’d be good to journal more than once a week. To write down more of my dreams so I can share them with my spiritual director. To listen to old episodes of “Turning to the Mystics” with James Finley, a podcast from the Center for Action and Contemplation. To read some of the books that have been sitting by my bed for a long time. To pray a little more.

Mostly? That book I’ve been writing for more than a year? It is time to finish it, such as it is. I remember advice one of my writing mentors gave me years ago when I was working as an intern at the National Catholic Reporter newspaper in Washington, D.C, my first job after college. He said, “Robin, the time has come that if it is worth doing at all, it is worth doing poorly.” He meant that whatever article I was stuck on, it was time to finish it, regardless of how I felt about it.

Time to finish the book, friends. Seems like a good project for my new hermitage.

I’ll keep you posted.