Party of Two: Settling in to An Empty Nest

Party of Two: Settling in to An Empty Nest

In the primitive playgrounds of my childhood, my father pushed the hot metal merry-go-round at breakneck speeds, my brother and I shrieking and holding on for dear life. We learned to hold tight to the nearest pole, arms and legs wrapped like baby monkeys around our feeble anchor. Had we let go, we would’ve been flung into the whirling scenery, small human projectiles.  When the spinning stopped, the background kept going, and we staggered like diminutive drunks, our arms akimbo attempting to balance.

That’s the best feeling I can conjure for what it’s been like for the past few months. In the space of one summer, we had two graduations (one from college, one from high school), a wedding, an out-of-state move, and finally, packed our last fledgling off to college. When that merry-go-round stopped spinning and the busyness subsided, we blinked at each other in the quiet, clutching hands for stability. Our nest of four had suddenly become a party of two.

The old spots I used to rely on to prevent dizziness in the spin of parenthood were missing, and for several weeks a sense of disorientation and unease was  unshakable. We knew the house would be quieter, but we didn’t anticipate the other changes that made us feel shifty and uncomfortable, like wearing a sweater a few sizes too big.

The contents of the pantry and fridge changed. No one drank the milk each morning (or early afternoon) with cereal, so we no longer keep the familiar half-gallon on hand. In fact, entire aisles at the grocery store are now obsolete. Obviously the diapers and baby products were abandoned long ago, but off the list went the requisite teenage boy snacks. We notched up the a/c upstairs, the bedrooms uninhabited. We only need to climb the steps when we need a suitcase from the bonus closet, so might as well save on the electric bill. It takes longer to amass a full load of laundry, and the dog needs extra walks because the boy who could always be counted on to play tug-of-war or chase isn’t blowing off steam in the afternoons after school.

We still liked each other, the spouse and I. We had to say that out loud every now and then as we renegotiated and adjusted our routines and rhythms. Our dance steps were a little off–we stepped on each other’s toes as our expectations of ourselves and each other shifted. Our conga line had become a tango, and the tempo had changed. Admittedly, there was a bit of tip-toeing around, eyeing each other sideways and trying to gauge moods and emotional availability. This is the same thing that happened when they were newborns. Children up-end your life both coming and going, it seems.

After twenty plus years of mentally juggling four lives, my attention was my own once more, and it was strangely unsettling. “Give me a week,” I announced. “Of sitting in this before you need me for anything.” I wanted to feel the house’s stillness, mull things over in my mind about our next chapter, and yes, be sad over losing the way things had been for so long. So I did, and I was. But my curiosity about what lay around the corner and my pride and excitement for the paths our kids were on burned away the fog of melancholy soon enough. They’d launched, and the two of us back at headquarters were still full of pluck and vinegar.

A Scrabble tile rack with a handful of letters sits on our bookshelf. I use it to spell out one-word attitude reminders like “joy,” “kindness,” and “love.” For the longest time, I’d place a word for the week and come back to find it had been rearranged into some garbled nonsense or, more often, an “alternate” word choice. Kindness became “dinkness,” for example. This, of course, was my son’s doing: his idea of subversive hilarity. What even IS that? I’d cry in mock outrage. We’d go back and forth at it, each of us changing the word and seeing how long it would take for the other to discover the sabotage.

When we moved this eager sapling boy into his dorm earlier this year, he got the last word. I was too busy checking off lists as we packed to notice the Scrabble defacement. It was days later, when my eyes wandered to the shelf as I waited for my coffee to brew, that I had to laugh. He came home briefly the other day and I caught him smirking in the kitchen.

“What?”

“You’re not very observant, mom.” He glanced at the shelf.  I smiled up into his triumphant blue eyes.

“Oh, I noticed it. I just thought I should leave it there.” I got a rare hug. Perhaps he felt, too, how the familiar house had changed in his absence, how the buzz of activity had lulled to a low hum.

In the days to come, as we enjoy our new routine and menus and discover this new rhythm in our roomier nest, that tile rack will remain unchanged. It’s a good reminder to us to keep laughing, even when it stings a little, and to treat one another gently. No matter how strong we are, there are times when we can all use a little human dinkness.

 

Losing My Marbles

Losing My Marbles

Nine hundred and forty marbles. On the day your child is born, if you fill a jar with 940 marbles, you’d have in your hands the number of weeks between that child’s birth and his 18th birthday. That’s a hefty jar, maybe too heavy to hold with only one hand.  All shiny and colorful, they clink against each other when you give the jar a shake. Deceptively small, they represent potential, time, milestones, birthdays.

By her fifth birthday, 260 of them are gone, spent over weeks that pass in a blur of diapers, feedings, Goodnight Moon, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Marbles disappeared from the jar in a haze of sleepless nights, the whir of the humidifier too soft to cover the sound of a croupy cough, frosty Christmas mornings, visits to grandparents, and post-nap cuddles in front of Dora the Explorer.

By 10, over half are missing from the once full jar. Hold it up to the light with one hand, and recall the ER visit for the broken arm, the sports equipment scattered in the foyer, and the too-big teeth in a rakish smile as he grins proudly, having scaled a tree to free a frisbee lodged between the branches. It’s not useful to pile guilt on a young mom, telling her to savor the moments, how she’ll miss all this some day. I believe in intentional parenting, but trying to live each second that way will drive you mad and eliminate all the best moments. Some good lessons come from spontaneity and stumbling your way through. To be honest, there are many bygone moments I don’t miss in the least.

Sometimes, most times, the jar is easy to dismiss. The noise of friends, flurry of school projects, and need to check the calendar constantly are more urgent matters than the number of little spheres in the jar on the desk. It’s a challenge to organize life with a teen, and siblings add to the chaos. There’s a loud chorus of voices and laughter as they raid the refrigerator, bang out tunes on the piano, and toss car keys on the counter as they come and go.  By 16, only 108 marbles rattle around in the base of the jar. There are moments, sometimes whole series of them, where with gritted teeth I silently wished a few of the marbles gone, so great is the emotional toll of teenagers wrestling with independence. If they’d had a say, they might have tipped the jar themselves, willing the time to pass quickly, hungering for some imagined life of total freedom and self-sufficiency.

Mostly, as we hurtled through 17 towards 18, a sense of urgency gripped me.  As their schedules became their own and we saw them less, I craved their feet on the coffee table, tousled bed heads at breakfast–or lunch. My eyes memorized their features as they did long ago when we rocked in the twilight singing “Baby Mine,” that song from Dumbo that the mama elephant croons. A remake is coming out in a few months, and we saw a preview in the theater recently. “Why are you crying?” my son asked through a mouthful of popcorn. “Don’t you remember this song?” I say.  Stricken, I exchange glances with his dad, as he shakes his head. Some memories will belong only to me, made too early, before he started storing his own.

“Mom. What?” In the final weeks of their last summer, they would catch me staring and I’d look away, unable to explain, avoiding their impatience. How could they fathom the pride I felt, my wonder at their confidence, humor, and the fact that no matter how much stubble grew on his face or how smart she looked in a fitted jacket, I would always see them at 3, 8 and 16, their younger faces wavering in and out like holographic images? A curious emotional cauldron bubbled within, a witch’s brew of joy and excitement for their futures, and a deep and marrow-filling sorrow at their departure.

How did we arrive here? The supply seemed endless. Graduation parties, one last family vacation, and, this past week, a final pat on the dog’s head before climbing into the car destined for a new address, a new bed.  I palm the last marble from the jar and grip it tightly. So many times when they were toddlers and teens I thought I might go nuts in the chaos and, as they say, lose my marbles. Last week, it turns out, I did just that.

Far & Away

Far & Away

Since the only consistent thing in life is change, it should be no surprise that once we adjusted to sending our child off to college, she glanced at the horizon and discovered she hadn’t ventured quite far enough from home yet.  One in ten undergraduates study abroad on trips that last anywhere from a couple of weeks to an entire academic year, and they don’t have to be foreign language or art  history majors to garner benefits.

I’ve seen the statistics.  Students who’ve studied abroad are twice as likely to land a job within a year of graduation.  They have 25% higher starting salaries and a sophisticated (and marketable) global approach to the world.  If they can hone or pick up a foreign language while they’re away, this increases job prospects further and makes them international citizens, able to transition more easily between cultures in our shrinking world.

A semester in Italy sounded glamorous and exotic.  She packed and repacked, trying to meet the luggage requirements (how can you fit three months’ worth of clothes, snacks and toiletries in one 50 pound bag?), and finally we waved goodbye at the airport.  If you haven’t yet had a child travel far and away, here’s a glimpse into what it’s like.

  1.  At least once before they leave, you will suggest an evening in for a movie night. This is a good time to watch Taken, and to rewind and give in-depth and animated analysis of the part where the naive American girls give out personal information to a perfect stranger at the airport.  Point out that while you don’t personally know Liam Neeson, you do have his speech memorized and are completely willing to make good on his threat.   While it probably won’t, things can happen (Paris, Brussels, Nice), so make sure everyone has emergency numbers, passport copies in multiple locations, and international medical coverage.

2.  Staying in one place while abroad is not enough for millennials with tiny attention spans.  Hopping a train or cheap flight to a neighboring country is common, usually fairly cost-effective, and an easy way to make the most of an extended study abroad trip.  Traveling in small groups works well and offers more security.  With any more than six opinions and preferences, more time is spent trying to herd cats than actually see a new city.  Whoever came up with the name “hostel” for cheap student lodging is just spiteful.  Why pick something that to English ears sounds patently unfriendly and scary?  Might I suggest changing it to cubby?

3.  You will be amazed at the child who consistently couldn’t manage to make curfew.  Suddenly he transforms into a person able to juggle international train schedules, Google maps, and changing time zones to be certain he makes it to Bono’s concert in Berlin or a street carnivale in Spain.

4.  Aren’t they supposed to be taking classes?   Yes, there is classroom time, but much of the education is outside a textbook.  The field trips, cross cultural experiences, and interactions with each other and local people are where real learning occurs.  Immersed in a different language, the brain actually creates neural pathways to adjust.  Having to live in another culture’s rhythms and pace teaches them to let down their social boundaries and stretches them to see others differently.  Often, they come home with friends across the map.

5.  Study abroad is a life-long lesson in managing expectations.  The trip that seems so glamorous on this side of the ocean won’t always live up to the visions in their head.  They won’t love every teacher, meal, museum, or travel companion.  It won’t be sunny and 80 degrees every day. Public transportation frequently goes on strike.  Outside American culture, the rest of the world operates on a more flexible time table. The word of the day is flexibility.  A tall order for some, this is a chance to embrace the unexpected, learn a different flow and become more tolerant, agreeable, and open to change.

6.  It will cost approximately the GNP of a small country to Fed Ex forgotten or emergency items to your student abroad, with no guarantee they will arrive.  Double check the packing list.  Pre-fill medications and have back-up credit cards.  If they’re traveling across borders while abroad, be mindful of different regulations for what’s allowed in carry-on’s or backpacks.

7.  Technology can be friend or foe.  Shop around for international data plans, and be sure to get something so your student is reachable without WiFi in case of emergency.  FaceTime or Skype is wonderful when you just need to put eyes on them.  It might take the whole semester, but eventually they will remember that the time difference means that while they may be riding elephants in the Thailand afternoon, you are in a deep, sound sleep in the wee hours.  Or at least you were.

8.  You aren’t going to want to know everything before it happens.  You should’ve already adjusted to this truth of college life, but sometimes it’s better not to know until  afterwards.  My friend’s daughter bungee jumped off a 440 foot platform in New Zealand while studying abroad, and to this day her mother cannot watch the video.   It’s the age of Vimeo and GoPro, and your millennial is going to want some choice post-able footage of their time away.  Squeeze your eyes shut, stick your fingers in your ears and loudly chant:  LALALALALA.

9.  They’ll learn a measure of independence.  While you may be footing at least some of the bill, they’re having to manage logistics, relationships, and emotions from far away.  They have likely done this already just in their regular university situation, but being thousands of miles overseas forces the issue somewhat. They learn to work it out, tough it out, or cry it out on their own.  They realize they are capable.

10.  The student you dropped off at the airport likely will not be the same one who greets you several months later.  He will seem wholly different somehow in a way you cannot at first pinpoint.  She will be morphed by confidence and distance, transformed by her experiences, more worldly and seasoned person.  You will burst with pride at his accomplishments and feel his joy as he describes moments with breathless excitement.  Except the part about paragliding over the Alps.  Then you will clutch your chest and demand to know what she was thinking.

A final note:  once they arrive safely at home, don’t forget to Tweet Liam Neeson and tell him you will no longer have him on speed dial.

 

Sink or Swim

Sink or Swim

My father’s brand of parenting was both efficient and effective.  With five children, perhaps he lacked the time to coddle, or more likely, his military bearing precluded the impulse.  I learned to ride a bike by careening downhill in the backyard, honing my steering by avoiding pine trees as they rushed by in a blur.   He had imparted the facts at the top of the hill, pertinent information about pedaling, braking, and keeping your eyes up.  Gravity and physics are master professors.

All three of my older sisters became ace softball players, singular in their ability to field, unafraid of pop-up ground balls.  They’d lived through hours of practice in the hot Florida sun, my father beaming fast-pitch into their thin leather gloves until their palms stung. Loss of focus or flinching could mean a bobbled catch, a ball-sized bruise beneath their floral tank tops and directions to Walk It Off.  It was softball as self defense.

My younger brother learned to swim before he turned two.  A pool in our backyard and a toddler with stealthy escape skills drove my mother crazy with worry.  So she sat chain smoking by the pool while my father hired an avant-garde teacher to toss her youngest into the deep end, his blue eyes wide under the water as he blew bubbles and paddled to safety.

We learned independence early.  When it came time to pick a career path or a college, there were no fancy weekend tours, guidance counselor sessions, or laboring over applications and essays.  The process was more of a self-directed cursory decision, driven by the calendar and necessity.  No water wings, no kiddie pool–just sink or swim.

Faced with these polar options, we gained fortitude and an admirable proficiency at faking confidence even when–especially when–we felt it least.  Once when one of my sisters was about 10, my father decided it was time for her to learn to water ski.  We took the boat out on a less populated Florida lake and in she went, skinny arms held straight out in front of her and her knobby knees slightly bent atop skis that felt awkward and too large for her thin frame.   With the motor idling, you could hear the deep croaking of the alligators on the bank calling to each other.   Of course there were gators.  Every body of water in Florida contains gators.   You’ve never seen a faster study on water skis than my sister.   She got up and stayed up, at least until he had to stop to refuel.  As we slowed, she sank, her eyes growing wider as the dark lake water swallowed her whole.   I have never doubted Jesus’ miracle of walking on water.  I witnessed it first hand as my sister made it to the boat in record time.

We all learned to become high-achievers.  When the alternative to failure is becoming reptilian lunch, the non-lunch option is popular.   Some of us are just wired this way, call it Type A or chalk it up to perfectionism.  The stakes stay high.  It’s like living life in the middle of the James Bond car chase scene at all times–motivating, exciting, and intense, but exhausting.  Every little letdown becomes a crisis with personal implications.  Imagine:  your car breaks down and heads will roll because someone somewhere should have seen this coming.  Your toddler has a melt down and the entire grocery store must be judging your moral disgrace.  You get a “B” in a class and all you see are the 10 ways you should have studied harder.   In sink-or-swim living, there’s no room for error, no patience for sub-par.

Keeping the snarling dog of failure at bay means having to be constantly alert.  Because life is black and white, options get reduced to an either/or:  sink or swim.  Stepping out with something new, a change in the landscape, sends primal signals to the survival center:  fight or flight.  Because the universe has a sense of humor, all the good things come with risk of failure and the most messiness–relationships, creativity, opportunity.  When you’ve been conditioned to avoid failing, you do one of two things:  (1) dodge the risk altogether and don’t try (stay safe), or (2) do try and stay in a perpetual state of freaking out when things go awry (stay in crisis).  Both are unacceptable and frankly more than a little whack.

A provocative book called Nurture Shock discusses the outcomes of different ways to praise children.  One group was told they were smart; the other, that they were hard workers.  Hard work is something they could control; being smart is evidence of something out of their control.  After being given increasingly difficult puzzles to solve, the “smart” group gave up earlier.  They stopped trying.  Failure to solve the puzzle would mean they were no longer smart.  The “hard workers” never stopped trying.  Failure didn’t diminish their identity; it was something they knew they could work through, and even learn from, given enough time.

It’s taken some reprogramming, but thankfully I’ve learned life rarely operates in black and white.  In between sink or swim is a whole other option.  Ironically, the infant swim teacher taught us this, too.  We can float.  Floating involves no freaking out, no shortness of breath or raging at onlookers.  Turns out it’s mostly peaceful and we get a great view of the sky while we’re at it.  Unless we’re fleeing the alligators, which, let’s be honest, are mostly creatures of our trumped up imaginations, floating allows us space to trust ourselves, the universe, and other people for help.  The water itself–the very thing we were struggling against or afraid to jump into–becomes a source of buoyancy, bearing us along with the tide.

Struggle and failure hold gifts of wisdom and character that can be received no other way. When we give ourselves and our children the freedom to fail, we sprinkle grace into our lives.  We learn to sit in the mess and take stock with reasonable objectivity, picking out the good parts and tossing aside the rest.  Best of all, we learn to link hands with other failures–otherwise known as humanity–until forgiveness, humility, and grace become second nature.  We lie back with arms outstretched, fill our lungs with a long, slow breath, and float.

Too Quiet

Too Quiet

The rules of physics shift when we become parents.  Somehow the airwaves change and we are suddenly tuned in to sound in a new way.  Noise is now a thing we both fear and crave.

A  baby can scream non-stop for two hours from colic or exhaustion or teething, fraying every nerve in your body until you make unholy bargains with the devil for some quiet.  When he finally falls asleep and that blessed quiet falls upon the house, the crazy sets in.  Now your radar is super-tuned to the static of the baby monitor.  He doesn’t usually sleep this soundly.  It’s awfully quiet in there.  You quiz your spouse:  do you think it’s too quiet? You ninja-creep into his room and hold a finger under his nose:  is he breathing?

With age, the noise increases, especially if siblings are in the mix.  I can scream louder than you.  No, I can!  Then eardrums are no longer a thing, and it’s worse than having spent three hours at an Iron Maiden concert.  It’s an endless barrage of questions, singing, yelling, and fighting. On the way home from an afternoon of errands, I used to tell my kids “Mommy’s ears are tired!  Let’s let them rest for 5 minutes!”  Who do you think invented the Quiet as a Mouse game?  A mom.

But you don’t want them to be quiet either.  You know the kind of quiet I mean.  A friend of mine foolishly relished a few extra minutes of sleeping in one morning.   Her rambunctious toddler twins were unusually quiet.  She got up to find they’d emptied five pounds of flour all over the kitchen and living room and were gleefully driving their trucks through the paths of “snow” they’d made.

Quiet does not bode well.  Quiet means smearing the contents of their diaper all over the crib and walls.  Quiet is eating the cat food, cutting their own hair with great concentration, dropping your earrings in the toilet one by one.  If siblings are involved, quiet gets more interesting:

https://youtu.be/xt2crfRgvYQ

My older sisters quietly devised a fun game one afternoon while my mother made dinner.  The oldest had to capture the younger two in a cowboys-and-Indians charade.  She found the first sister, tied her hands and feet and added a gag and blindfold for good measure. She ordered her to stay put while she went off to find her other quarry.  As the bossy first-born, she expected her instructions to be followed and didn’t think it important to tell the prisoner that she’d been stationed at the top of the stairs.  Like any self-respecting prisoner, the first sister attempted escape:  hop, hop, CRASH, TUMBLE, CRASH!  She landed at the bottom of the stairs with her knee through the drywall, the other two sisters staring wide-eyed from the top of the stairs, and my mother incredulously trying to make sense of the scene as she rushed around the corner.  On the upside, they learned from my father how to patch drywall.

As tweens and teens, the quiet is harder to navigate. The noises are loud music, friends hanging out and raiding your fridge, slammed doors, and huffy sighs.  Does an eye roll have a sound?  Yes. It speaks volumes.  That Spidey sense when it’s too quiet still works, but the signals can be hampered by hormones.  They are the ones who now both fear and crave quiet.  Mom, why do you have to ask so many questions?   Seriously? I am transported back to their loud public toddler queries:  why is that lady so fat?  why do we have to poop?  do babies come out of your bottom, mom?   In comparison, my questions seem civilized and tame.  They want you to be interested but not too interested, near but not too near, available but not intrusive.  The quiet you worry about now is the silent scrolling through the phone or clicking sites on the computer.   What are they up to?  You’re still holding a finger under their noses, checking for signs of life:  are they depressed?  lonely?  sad?  worried?

Sitting on the porch this morning with my coffee, it was blissfully quiet. The good kind, not the hair-prickling uneasy kind.  It’s nice to have an occasional coherent thought and time to just be.  I get times like these more often now that the kids are mostly grown, but now I look forward to the noise.  There’s peace to be had in noise, too.  Noise means life and love live here.  Noise is wrestling, jumping in the pool, and slamming car doors when your kids come home for the weekend.   “Guys!” I yell, when the couch almost tips over.  “Quiet!”   A little voice inside pipes up with a smile:  But not too quiet.