<p>I remember my first feeling of empty nest. My D went to her first SAT test which was being taken at a beautiful local private university. When I waited to pick her up outside I realized it was the beginning of the end (only child). </p>
<p>As they came filing out they all looked so grown up. As soon as I saw her I started bawling. Needless to say she was extremely embarrassed!! Luckily she didn’t know anyone around her.</p>
<p>coralbrook:</p>
<p>Reading your post just now made me think of what happened when my oldest was about to start high school! I guess it’s standard to have these open house/orientation sessions for kids that are about to start high school, so they can see the inside of the school, have a tour, see where the lockers, homeroom, etc. are located and parents are invited to come along.</p>
<p>As we were touring, I remembered thinking how much larger the high school was compared to the middle school and then I began having vision after vision of my S1 in his diapers and stroller, thinking, “where did the time go?” </p>
<p>Well, he’s now a Junior in College on an abroad program and my s2 is h.s. senior. So this time next year, I WILL be an empty nester! ;)</p>
<p>I’m not worried, though, they always seem to find a way of coming back! :D</p>
<p>Loving the empty nest!</p>
<p>Back to going to live music, plays, poetry readings, sporting events. Restoration on an old house. </p>
<p>Could not be happier. </p>
<p>Kiddos both doing well. </p>
<p>Running outside now instead of the treadmill. Go to the farmers market every weekend. </p>
<p>Back in more contact with college best friend who never had kids. </p>
<p>Feel pretty much up for anything these days!</p>
<p>Glad you are enjoying it so much, poetgrl. We love seeing our kids and would love to see them more but both ShawWife and I are really enjoying our lives. We have the freedom to pursue professional goals with a little more intensity and to travel personally.</p>
<p>H and I are also feeling our way now through H’s retirement and now my cutting back on my part-time job to working fewer hours. We are enjoying our time together, eating out whenever we want, travel as long and often as we choose, fixing up our home (lots of deferred maintenance), seeing friends, and lots more. We still are close to our kids and hope they’ll chose to return to HI when they are ready to start their families. We are happy for them and excited watching them make choices on their own.</p>
<p>For us, the important thing was to cherish what time we are able to share over the years and now. We are grateful that we are able to visit with each of them whenever our budget and schedules permit, so that we can touch bases and remain more involved in each other’s lives. We cannot hold back the hands of time, but we can relish what we have.</p>
<p>I just realized that I do not have to do anything about Halloween! I don’t have to decorate the house, do not have to worry about costume for my D and I don’t really have to stand around with candy at the door if I don’t want to. Trick or treating is very hit and miss at our house, some years we will only get 5 groups at our door and other years maybe 15 groups. By coincidence, we will be out of town, but just the realization that I do not need to worry about it at all is making me happy.</p>
<p>^Halloween - we go for a walk, we do not distribute junk food. The walk is soo exciting, to see all those crowds of people on normally empty streets. Some offer us candy, we just laugh. Our own house is dark, but we are not even at homw to know if anybody is coming or not. I have no idea, for several years now.</p>
<p>I am dreading my only child leaving next year. I know we will survive, maybe even thrive but I am not ready to end my job as an every day, all the time parent. I have loved this job above all others and am not ready to be a long- distance, sometimes parent. We have been a unit of three for 17 years. And suddenly we’re not.It can’t be time for her to leave already, can it? I wonder at all these moms so excited by their lives without their kids and wonder what’s wrong with me.</p>
<p>For Halloween this year and many recent years, we have been traveling. This year we will be in Chicago and may venture out a bit to see costumes. The other year, I was in DC with three other women and a male med resident at a conference. We went bar hopping. Two other years, I caught BART in SF. It was pretty fascinating! Saw some very decked out homes in a gated community near SF as well–the community had 3-4 golf courses. </p>
<p>Am happy we can be together for the holidays. S and D make it a point to fly home and spend some time here in the state and in the house with us, as well as connecting with cousins and extended family.</p>
<p>lab317, you will make it through that time. I am the parent of an only too. It is hard to move on, bittersweet really, because you have to let go of something you have in order to get to the next part of your and their life.</p>
<p>New empty nesters, you might want to go back and read this thread all the way through. You’ll see that the empty nest is a process that you go through, with stages just like going trough death of a loved one or a divorce… but that you can come out on the other end with energy and joy in your new life!</p>
<p>We just launched our first last week, D, but still have our S. It is proving far more difficult for me to let go than I anticipated. I keep thinking that she is where she wants to be, that the silence means she is doing fine, and that I need to trust her to make her own choices. Nonetheless, I find myself feeling very sad and unable to concentrate for the moment.</p>
<p>Putting together those 1000 piece puzzles may not have added anything of great value to the world, but it did serve a purpose of sorts.</p>
<p>Now that my mom has passed away, I am finally getting to do my empty nest stuff while son is in his last year of college. Many laugh when I say this is my last year of the empty nest. Surely, son will not come back to live at home. No, but he will be going to grad school, or out into the work force, or maybe finally find a girl and get married. Since he took a full scholarship for undergrad, I want to help him financially with grad school.</p>
<p>But this last month, I have gotten back to one of my passions, which is helping elderly people with lots of cats. Many of them can pick up the kitties, put them in the carrier, and I bring them for spaying and neutering. Some of them, I have to trap to bring them in. I have TNR’s 10 kitties in the last four weeks. While my husband says I’m simply pushing back the waves, I feel like any bit I can do will help.</p>
<p>Last night, I went to a meeting/banquet for the local Audubon Society, as I’ve always been a member, for their magazine, as I’m an avid birder. I listened to a talk by a local professor, who was probably young enough to be my son. I was proud to say I could still identify all the birds on the slides, though it’s been 30 years since I’ve taken an ornithology course, and I could follow the scientific topic of evolutionary biology and ecology, which my collegiate biology electives were in.</p>
<p>It felt good to see these young people going on to grad school and pursuing their dreams, and made me feel better about my son choosing his undergrad school with a mind to be able to afford grad school, something I couldn’t do.</p>
<p>While my knees are not good enough to get out in the swamp anymore, I am looking forward to some urban birding adventures.</p>
<p>Discovered CC a couple of months ago when D was starting to go through the athletic recruitment process but was mostly reading, and just lurking around, those kinds of posts. Never thought my first post would be on this thread, but it’s where I am at right now.</p>
<p>Got back from my D’s official visit for swimming this past weekend. Very successful - the coach and team loved her and will likely to do everything they can to bring her on next year. All indications look very promising. She’s over-the-moon excited right now since this has been her #1 college choice for school and swimming for many years. She was sad to come home after her visit, and would have been very happy to just stay there and start classes and swimming with the team except for that pesky thing of one more year of high school to complete! Ha! We’re so thrilled for her. </p>
<p>But what surprised the heck out of me is the great deal of sadness I’ve had these past couple of days at the realization that our youngest is about to head off and start her own life and I’m now looking down the road at an empty nest (Where’d all those tears come from?). Wow, 11 months out and the process has already begun? I count it as a blessing and a good reminder that I “need to get a life” when we really do drop her off at the dorm steps a year from now. Think I will postpone that planned retirement a few more years and appreciate the posts about keeping oneself busy and involved. (“That’s what you need Charlie Brown - involvement”) I know I will survive and eventually thrive in this process but it will be an adjustment. In the meantime I intend to enjoy my time with my D too.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the great posts on this thread and letting me share my story. I feel a little better already. Hopefully I can provide support to those parents who will go through this in the future just as some of you have done for me.</p>
<p>My youngest is a freshman in college this fall, so we are officially empty nesters! Maybe it’s because I work full time at an interesting job, but other than missing my daughters and marveling at what a clean house we now have, we’ve been fine! I also am going to the gym more regularly and enrolled in a Chinese language class.</p>
<p>Our next is very empty! D1 graduated college and is now a 15 hour drive away. D2 is at a school that is a 9 hour drive away. We stayed living where we are so that D2 could graduate HS with her friends but now would love to move to a more dynamic place if only our house value wasn’t down 150k. Not much happens here, and our goal was to travel 1-2 times a month but with various obligations it has only happened once since D2 went away in August.</p>
<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>This is my first post on this thread. My D is a sophomore now, and really, I have to admit, that it is not that much better for me despite the passage of time. We have tried to add things to our life, and they include seeing friends, and joining a gym. Perhaps it is not that great because of my H’s sick father, and that every weekend home involves a visit to check on him. I could join the thread on caring for the aging parent too. So from our sandwich generation position, the fun part of our sandwich has gone, and we have a rather depressing visit each week with FIL. </p>
<p>I thought I would do more varied things, like art classes or archery, which I used to enjoy, but I still haven’t made the time. As far as travel, we have not taken trips on our own, except once to see step D and family. I guess we are lucky in that our D will still take a trip with us in summer, so our vacation budget went into that.</p>
<p>I hear a lot from my D, but often that is because there is one problem or another. This year, surprisingly more than last year. Her adjustment has been far from smooth to her living situation, classes etc. I feel like I have run out of advice. (Hard to believe, huh?) If the phone is always ringing, I know she is not too happy. How can I feel happy if she is not?</p>
<p>H is probably doing worse than I am, since it is his father that we are watching go down hill. Between losing MIL, having D leave, and sick FIL, it is very hard on us. Business is not so great either, but this doesn’t bother me as much as it does H.</p>
<p>I am not sure that filling time with “fun” is really how we will come through all of these life changes. I guess that is really the crux of things right now.</p>
<p>Thanks for reading.</p>
<p>My first born is a HS senior and I am already sad at the thought of his leaving next fall. I have been treasuring our college visits and time spent together going over essays etc… We will still have my younger son at home for 2 more years after S1 goes to college, but I have just suddenly become aware how quickly it’s all slipping by. I’m hoping my early sadness will mean that by next fall I will have processed it enough to not be a total mess when he leaves and embarrass him completely by falling apart at college drop off. Being a Mom of two little guys is what I’m happiest doing and I want it to be like that forever.</p>
<p>I don’t have the link to it, but John Kass wrote a great piece in the Sunday, Chicago Tribune about your child being a hs senior. My youngest is a senior, so it had me crying. I am so excited for her, but it is sad!</p>