<p>ChoatieMom, Half Moon? 
I have a reaction to the empty nest that has surprised me. I thought I was over the litte kid phase of my life, but I find myself forging relationships with young children in our family/friend circle. Maybe I will be a cool grandparent some day.</p>
<p>Well this whole empty nest thing is just too overwhelming for me. The thought of my DD going off to school this fall is killing me. I was hoping she would stay in our home state but because of her sport she wil more than likely be recruited OOS. 
It is such a roller coaster of emotions that seems to wash over me and suddenly I feel so empty. I am very close our D. For the last 9 years almost everyday I have spent with her at her lessons and weekends at competitions. I think that I am also mourning the loss of her sport that has kept me going for all this time. She is an equestrian and there is a great deal of bonding between you, your sport and your horse. My peers are moms whoās kids ride or trainers and show staff. I have spent over 1/2 of her life with her at shows and a barn. More than likely when she is off to college her horses will be leased or retired. The expense of keeping them in training is just too much for us on top of college.<br>
I guess I have reached that point where its time to regroup and instead of focusing all my time on the kids both my husband and I will rediscover new interests and new hobbies. Funny how scary that seems to me after all these years!</p>
<p>crittermom----Just take one day at a time and allow yourself the feelings. My only D, who is also my only child is 700 miles away. Sheās a freshman in a 5 year M.Arch program. I homeschooled her all the way from 1st grade through highschool and have been with her nearly every day of her life. Weāre very close and the change is huge for us both as well as my husband. In addition to homeschooling I was a āballet momā. My girl has danced her entire life and most of her free time was in the dance studio. One of the reasons she picked the school she did is that sheās been able to continue to dance ballet while studying archi, which is a rare combo. Like you in the equestrian world, my world revolved around her dance auditions, classes, costume fittings, etc. The change is profound. At the moment Iām working on myselfāexercise and dieting. I have yet to clean out our sun room where she did her school work and where I taught her to read. </p>
<p>Things will change gradually. When she came home for Thanksgiving it was wonderful but a week later she was gone and I was crying like I did when I dropped her off. Thereās a grieving process. Sheās coming home Saturday morning so Iām living for that.</p>
<p>itās still very hard for me. i really thought i was starting to find myself and to take advantage of some great opportunities for myself. </p>
<p>i was crushed by some hurtful comments of some coworkers and have since been struggling with who i really am. not actually a coworkerāa co-volunteer. the comment from the co-volunteer was āiām a successful businessman and youāre just a teacherā¦i couldnāt expect you to be able to understand.ā even though i know i should dismiss his words, they had a very profound effect on me.</p>
<p>i was visiting with a good friend the other day, and she too seems to be having issues with this time in our lives.</p>
<p>who are we?</p>
<p>During D1ās senior year I began looking for what I would do with my next stage and ended up in a Masterās of Marriage and Family Therapy program. I graduated the year after S1 finished high school and now have a private practice. D2 graduates from high school this year.</p>
<p>There was something I learned when studying the marital and family lifecycle that has served me well. Iāve told my husband about it several times so he has it intellectually, but has still struggled emotionally. All of us on this discussion board got our first taste of it when our kids got their driverās license: They could come and go on their own.</p>
<p>The college and empty nest years are filled with transitions and ācomings and goings.ā One of the biggest skills parents need is FLEXIBILITY. As the little birds go off to their dorms and apartments, we know the door will always be open when they come to visit or stay for a few months (or years). But they will be the ones deciding when the visits/transitions take place. We just need to be willing to sit with a cup of coffee for a chat, on their time table. We begin to realize that the phone call they make to us during the 10-minute-between-classes hike across campus is very meaningful to themā¦ even when it comes at an inconvenient time for us.</p>
<p>At Thanksgiving this year, I donāt think we had two nights in a row where the same combination of offspring was sleeping upstairs. This is our first year where the two older ones are in apartments 45 minutes away in Nashville. They stay there or here ā usually they let us know, but not always. Iāve had evenings āplannedā in my mind, only to receive a text that D1 was coming home for the evening to pick up something in her room. She will want to sit for a while and chat. I am happy to do it because I know that when she finishes her masterās in SLP next May, she may move far away.</p>
<p>The empty nest flexibility is practice for the next big lifecyle change in family structure: marriages that add new sons and daughters and then the biggest one ā grandchildren. They are little people who are biologically related to you, but whom you have very little control over. Being a fun, caring, and supportive grandparent is amazingly marvelous (according to my friends who are there now) but will require a lot of flexibility. Iām looking forward to it.</p>
<p>P.S. Sorry this got so long.</p>
<p>The individual who characterized himself as a āsuccessful business manā is a fraud. Oh, he may have made some $ but his comment demonstrates he has ZERO people skills which is a crucial tool for success. In fact, that individual is profoundly insecureāanyone who needs to build himself up by tearing others down is a Failure In LIfe! Consider yourself thankfulāyou know what kind of a person he is.</p>
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<p>And MaryTNāTHANK YOU for such an informative post!!! Very helpful.</p>
<p>bungalowdweller: Thanks for the encouragement. I find myself savoring every minute lately that I have with my D. Because of her sport and constant connection with us she has always relied on us. As you know being a āballet momā there is little time in their lives to connect with the āoutsideā world. My D is not the typical teen girl that hangs out at the mall or moviesā¦most of her time is spent in a saddle training and her weekends are spent away showing. It is such a catch 22. She has never had time to get distracted with boys or trouble and yet she doesnāt have the greatest outgoing social skills. She just recently had time to take drivers training and get her license. ( scary) My S who is 19 now also had a pretty sheltered childhood. He grew up in the world of hollywood. He was very successfull and worked and auditioned nonstop since the age of 5. He had very little time for making friends other than the ones on set. While he loved what he was doing, it became a hard transition for him when he decided to quit the ābizā and be a normal teen. ( the truth is most everything in the hollywood/media world is not normal ) . He did not have any close friends at his HS and it was a new HS and freshman year. Our family all went through a mourning period because all of a sudden after 10 years we lost contact with the people and world we knew. I guess it is what I fear the mostā¦not just the deep hole I will feel missing her but the daily habits that have been part of our lives for so long. </p>
<p>MaryTN: Thanks for the insight. I will learn to be flexible in a whole new way. The transition will be hard but she will always need us in some form or the other. She is such a bright and talented beautiful girl with a journey ahead of herā¦ā¦.I will have to find my own journey, but in the meantime I will be balling my eyes out every time she walls out the door. :(</p>
<p>crittermom - I feel your pain as I am also a horse show mom and we do have a special bond. This past year has also been stressful with the college app situation. BTW, my D got into CALS as an animal science major and we found out yesterday. I know we chatted a few days ago about our girls. I am now exhausted and happy and stress free that the college search is over, but there is a whole other set of stuff to contend with her junior year ending and the end of 13 years of this sport together. She hopes to ride at Cornell and should she make the team, she will not be able to keep us away from competitionsā¦but yes it will be quite different. Change is good though and in my heart of hearts I know that and you should take comfort in all youāve provided to your daughter. good luck!!</p>
<p>critter mom: meant to say junior career ending, not junior year ending (could be confusing to others reading)ā¦haha</p>
<p>my blog about ānestingā - needless to say, now that Iāll have a kid at Cornell my topics will most certainly cover dorm decorating and all the issues of kids with college - over the years, Iāve written about ānestingā with my kids at my side, taking photos for me and cooking alongside me. My D takes most of my photography and now Iāll have to train my son when she leaves for collegeā¦Good luck everyone who is still on the journey, and congratulations to those accepted to Cornell yesterday!</p>
<p>LoveHorse: Congratulations on your D acceptance to Cornell. Such a great school and program. My D applied there for RD. She is not too crazy about being that far away. She has six schools that accepted her and they are all NCAA Div 1 schools. She also wants to study animal science, but is willing to major in Biology for the first 4 years. She has official visits lined up in Jan & Feb. that she is very excited about. She is such a competitor that being on a team means the world to her. ( she still has one more Jr year to ride ) I am sure your D will find her way to the Cornell team. I know that they hired a new coach this summer,Todd Karn. He seems to have lots a good credits to his name. I will certainly look up your blog and be excited to hear how College life at Cornell goes. It is always good to talk to someone who is familiar with the horse show world. To some of my ānon horsey friendsā it is a foreign world of its own. I am so happy to hear your college search is over. I canāt wait for that and yet I am ok to wait!!! If riding for a Div 1 team does not work for my D, she has been excepted into the Honors program at Colorado State and into the Animal Science Dept. She will probably play club and there are several trainers that want her to come ride. I will definitely keep up with you and your transition out of the H/J world. I know mine will be painful.</p>
<p>just went over to the website, and it appears theyāve taken their profiles downā¦oh well. Anyway, thanks for the headās up about the new trainer - we did visit the barn when we visited cornell as the former trainer was transitioning - and then we popped over the equestrian zone finals - to see how very different it is from what our girls are currently doing. It is very very different, but like your daughter my daughter is very happy to be part of team on a sport she has been doing individually for so many years. She has until December of next year to complete her junior career too and we are heading to WEF for New Years to ride and hoping, hoping she can ride a jumper through the summer - but we shall seeā¦keeping my fingerās for you on the college search and good to keep options open to see what will be best for her. best of luck!</p>
<p>LoveHorzes: my daughter would love to be at WEF this new year! Good luck to your D. It should be fun!!</p>
<p>Not meaning to hijack this to a horsey thread, but crittermom your post spoke to me as my D is a 2012 grad who competed in A show equitation almost every week before leaving for college (and yes, my wallet is still on fire). She opted not to go the NCAA route but is giving the IHSA team a try as a club activity. PM me if you want specifics on our decision matrix. DH (which you and LoveHorses understand is Dear Horse) is leased out in-barn and doing great with his new rider. But I certainly feel the void. But bringing this back on topic, gotta say cash flow coming IN from DH is being put toward the much needed kitchen remodel!</p>
<p>HopefulSkeptic: Welcome to the empty nesters! Love the DH!!! I will have 3 DHās on my bill when DD is off to College! I am already in mourning over knowing that life is going to change. As MaryTN put it, It is a time for flexibility and transitions. I donāt do flexible very well and hate transitionsā¦but I also look at it as a time that DD will get to spread her wings and grow upā¦a little. Congratulations on the kitchen remodelā¦isnāt it amazing how much 1 DH can cost us???</p>
<p>We see our kids a lot (one is 1.5 hours away and the other 3/4). Both call us for advice ā me for academic and careers; ShawWife occasionally for emotional/personal. At the moment, I get many more calls, but I expect that may change as they enter new phases of life. Both are great kids and fairly independent in many ways, but not completely so. Theyāll get there. I really love my kids and they know that they can count on me, but both ShawWife and I love empty nesting.</p>
<p>Hello allā¦ DD graduated college in 2008, DS in 2011. I am here to report that there is life after children leave the nest!!! There was some mourning, some redefining self, some empty house-too-big feeling, some what-is-my-purpose-in-life, some what-is-my-relationship-with-my-spouse, some WOW this-is-a-big-transition. But now, we LOVE being empty nesters. one kidās bedroom is a meditation room, one is a music studio. We skype regularly with both kids and are very intouch with them. We eat what we want, when we want. Pick up food, eat out, more money available to play, more flexibility to live our lives with less worries, more time to be by myself.l. It is very liberating and very enjoyable!!! I hope you realize that it is a big transition, but can be a great one!</p>
<p>the goodbyes begin againā¦</p>
<p>or auf weidersehen as django would sayā¦</p>
<p>I just said goodbye to our youngest, a college freshman; Dad is driving him to the airport for his flight back to school. Am I allowed to admit this? Ahem: I actually have become accustomed to my clean, quiet house, and as much as I love DS, Iām looking forward to having the peace and quiet back. Only two loads of laundry a week. The scissors in the drawer exactly where I left them. No towels on the bathroom floor. No loud noises. My H is not feeling the way I do, so I dare not speak my feelings aloud. But the truth is, after being so sad last Augustā¦Iāve adjusted! Is that so bad?</p>