Closing the Circle

Note: This blog was actually written February 7, 2010, and I'm just getting around to posting it here.

Today, we officially became empty nesters. In other words, we moved our youngest daughter, who had graduated from college last spring, and had gotten her first full-time, post-college job this summer, into her first real apartment. “Home” for her is no longer our home address.

I was going to write that this process started when our eldest daughter, Jeannie, moved into her first apartment. And then I was thinking that the beginning was when they started going off to college (again, Jeannie being the first one). I remember the waterworks that came upon me as we got ready to leave Jeannie in her dorm. I started crying, then all three girls started crying, then Eric, with a look of disgust on his face, said, “I’ll be waiting in the car.” Too much estrogen in the room for him. With each subsequent girl’s departure for college, it got easier to let them go.

But even this wasn’t the beginning of the empty nest. It started when Jeannie went to Kindergarten. A bus came to the entrance of our townhouse community, and I put her on the bus. She waved goodbye happily, and my eyes started watering, but I managed to hold it together until the bus pulled away, whereupon… you get the idea.

Hence, I’m feeling a little lonely tonight. No longer am I assured that on a daily basis I will get hugs and kisses from my babies. They are engaged in lives of their own, and like Jeannie her first day on the Kindergarten bus, they are looking forward at their futures, and not backward at the space they have just left. Such is the way of it.

I will do my best to fill in my time with whatever activities I want to do. I will have plenty of free time, for no longer will I have to shuttle girls to volleyball practices, ballet lessons, and shopping trips. I’m no longer responsible for getting them to the Metro, so that they can get to work. I don’t even have to worry about loaning them my car. I have lots more free time.

Three children, my three girls, came into my life, and into our home, first Jeannie, then Meghann, then Sarah. In the same order, they have now left our home – Jeannie, Meghann, and today Sarah. Each one made a space for herself in my heart that is like a little nest, and now those spaces feel empty. I know this is nothing new, and I will get used to it soon. I am blessed that all three live close by (for now). Life goes on, but today I find myself waving goodbye to someone who isn’t looking back.