By Erin Matuczinski
I imagine it to be exciting. Filling up the squares on the calendar with fun projects, social events, taking vacations, visiting old friends…anything and everything they have wanted to do since they were young. Having moved to a new city brought the opportunity to find new places to experience. “Been there, done that” turns into “Why not? Let’s try it.”
For 22 years, the focus of Greg and Kelly’s lives was raising children. In the beginning it was two young, energetic girls taking up every moment of the waking day (and sometimes night, when they interrupted such needed peaceful sleep). Their daughters pulling every single toy out of the wooden storage bin to climb inside of it instead. Then dragging the colorful clutter out to the living room in front of the tube TV watching VHS favorites like Aladdin and Mary Poppins on repeat.
Every night was a bath night, with one parent taking on the soap suds in the tub upstairs and the other taking them on with the post-dinner dish pile downstairs. Neither got to think of their own sleep until the girls lost their battle against bedtime and listened quietly to the prayers and stories for the night.
It did not exactly get easier as they got older. Preschool performances turned into middle school concerts, and pee-wee tee-ball turned into travel team softball. Sometimes dinner planned for five p.m. didn’t happen until eight, and then there was homework to check. When one spouse was deployed overseas, the other took on the duties of a single parent. I have found the consistently hectic schedule around my sister and I to be a reason that I do not long to have children of my own.
So when the time came that both daughters had grown up and moved out of the family home, there was much more empty time to fill. I expected for them to pick up a lot of new and exciting hobbies, I expected lots of weekends taking small trips to reconnect with old friends. Maybe they would finally get a pet or inevitably accumulate a jungle of plants both inside and out. All the years of trying to be perfect parents had led up to the moment where they could reap the benefits.
Yet, as it turns out, it hasn’t gone exactly the way that I thought it would be.
“Some of the first things I had to adjust to were changing my grocery shopping and cooking practices,'' said Kelly. “I didn’t need as much anymore. It’s also amazing how much conversation in the house revolved around the kids. Now that they are not here every day, sometimes it seems like there is nothing to talk about.”
“Empty nester syndrome” refers to the feelings of loneliness that parents experience when all of their children leave to begin their own adult lives. While it is not an actual medical condition, it can still affect people greatly. Some couples feel disconnected from their partner, others feel disconnected from themselves. Parents may grieve that their children no longer need to be cared for by them.
“You’re so used to helping that it’s hard to step back and let them do it,” said Greg. “It’s hard to let go. That’s your sole focus, your children. Of course you want to see your kids fly, but it’s hard to let go.”
Greg and Kelly moved from southern to central Virginia in order to be closer to both their children and their elderly parents. Leaving their house and community of over two decades changed the course of what they may have expected life after children to be like. They have found themselves mostly occupying their time with DIY projects in their new place. Weekend afternoons have been spent putting new coats of paint on the wall in between rearranging the layout of the basement. The muddy, blank backyard has been spruced up with a dreamy patio. But one problem has yet to be solved, the chairs surrounding the fireplace often remain empty.
“All the things we used to do, all the friends we used to have, it was all because of the girls,” Kelly said. “When your kids go off to college, we’re not as involved. We’re not meeting people through them. Our social life was them, and now we struggle.”
Almost every previous family friend was made through their children’s classmates. Seeing the same people over and over at elementary school parties and after-school sports practice led to a literal neighborhood of connections. Soon enough, every summer holiday was spent at backyard cookouts with the parents on the patio and the kids in the pool. But it dwindled as the girls got older and became independent enough to spend time with their friends on their own.
If moving and becoming empty nesters at the same time was not difficult enough, it was all done in the midst of the global pandemic. There’s no easy way to meet new friends when the only thing to do around town is get a table for two. But the pandemic took more than just a typical social life, it took their dreams to travel.
“I was looking forward to being able to just pick up and go places, travel more,” Kelly said. “And then COVID happened...and we couldn’t do any of that.”
A two week trip to Italy, a bucket-list destination for Kelly, was in the books for July 2020. There was excitement to see the world as a couple and not just parents. But rescheduling turned to cancellation, and there hasn’t been an opportunity for overseas vacations since.
Nevertheless, they have persisted. They’ve taken part in a winery club and joined a local Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) post; things they did not initially see themselves doing. It has become time to find their own interests again.
“As a mom, it was harder to take time for myself when taking care of the kids,” Kelly said. “I always felt there was something else I should be doing instead of taking time for me.”
Both say that they don’t particularly have a desire to take care of another living thing like many empty nesters seem to experience. Yet, they have quickly come to adore their new backyard wildlife; consistently putting out pellet feed for the wandering deer and supplying sweet nectar for the migrating hummingbirds. They adore the days that their golden retriever grand-dog, Thor, comes over for playdates.
I’ve wanted them to get a dog of their own, or maybe rescue rabbits again. I’ve wanted to see them put their nurturing personalities towards something other than their children, something they’ve already been doing for over two decades. I want them to enjoy their well-deserved easy years, but I also don’t want them to feel lonely.
“It’s bittersweet- as a parent you spend 18 years preparing your child to become an adult and to make it on their own, but when they do, it’s a bit sad because you miss them being at home every day. It’s hard to convince yourself to be happy for them when your heart misses them.”
The empty nester life I have imagined for them, one full of non-stop adventure, is simply a kind of life that I have just imagined for myself. Everyone sees their parents in themselves in some way or another, but I have been looking in all the wrong ways.
I have known for many years that I never want children; I have no desire to always be living my life for another human being. I dream of constantly working towards checking each “once in a lifetime” experience off my bucket list; visiting as many countries as possible, rescuing animals of every type, becoming fluent in multiple languages…things that take a vast amount of money, energy, and most importantly, time. It does not mean that their definition of adventure is raising children is a wrong one, it’s just not mine.
My parents and I are adapting to our separation differently. Their calm, secluded, dare I say “mundane” life in a rural home is one that they deserve. All the years of putting the kids before themselves means that now they can spend their relaxing Saturday afternoons as they please, not changing diapers or chaperoning pre-teen birthday parties. Now my hectic life begins, just in a very different way.
Greg and Kelly are comforted knowing that they’ve settled close enough to their adult children to see them on the weekends, but far enough to let them begin to make their own nests. After all, it’s who they live for.
“Nothing can replace spending ‘in-person’ time with your kids,” Greg said. “Once my youngest daughter was out the door, I remember calling my parents and asking them, ‘Do you ever stop worrying?’’ Greg said. “No. You never stop worrying.”