I was sitting in the backseat of my VW Tiguan as my ex husband took his turn driving on the way back from dropping our freshman off for her first year at UCSD. My 14 year old was in the passenger seat chirping away at him as he drove, while I sat in the back unsure of what to do with my body and mind. Do I sleep? Am I even tired? Do I cry? I watched an empty coffee container from the morning drive to the college roll around in the wheel well until I couldn't stand it any more and wedged it still with a breakfast carton.
That was then. This is now. We are returning minus one member of the family unit.
A week before the drop off, in a moment when I was talking about nothing to do with this loss, I suddenly felt that trepidatious well of emotion rise up from my throat. My boyfriend and I were parked in the car, about to walk to the beach.
“I know it sounds messed up,” I said. “But even though I have been divorced and co-parenting for eleven years, my kid going to college feels like the end of something I have been doing for a long time.” Then it struck me. I have. Eleven years of negotiating two houses, costs, decisions, all around this kid we baked into an adult, a moderately well-balanced adult, and now it was only minor conversations over major issues like the college bill paid, and maybe holiday sharing. But she was on her own now with her thinking. She could go wherever she wanted to for Thanksgiving or Christmas or anywhere. I mean, she joins a cult, that’s not going to fly, but if she decides to take a gap year and join the Peace Corp, I no longer have much of a say unless asked.
I understood in this moment in the back seat as we were stalled in horrific highway traffic, that I was feeling nothing because there was nothing yet to feel. Everything I had done, or not done, well for this child was released into this mass energy of a projectile that was a freshman in college. She was launched into a tiny dorm room with three bunk beds and hopefully kind and compassionate roommates. If I started unpacking what I did wrong, I was going to just make myself miserable.
Back at home, now with one kid, I was half empty nesting which is a weird feeling for everyone. I am not going to go so far to say it felt like someone had died, because my daughter was on phone, text, face time. But it felt like we suddenly had this quiet and loss, while at the same time, some new space to lean into as the family unit reconfigured itself like an amoeba that has split into two cells.
We were factioned but we were still whole.
I had to take a very dreamy day today. That may look like procrastination to my inner critic, but to me it comprised of a floating through the aftermath of the new reality here at home. I had one less kid to pick up, feed, listen to complain, sort out the daily drama. I needed to re-calibrate myself for what would fill that space in a positive way. This meant I ate way too many chocolate sun spires, drank a few too many cups of decaf coffee, laid in the grass under a tree in the breeze while ants clambered on me, napped for 30 minutes, did a 20 minute surrender meditation, cleaned their bedroom of dust bunnies, and finally around now, 4:30 PM, decided to write and work.
It couldn’t have been any sooner that I could motivate. It couldn’t have been any sooner that I felt ready to come out from under the large leaf I had placed over me to bathe in the gentle shadows. The proverbial shadows of a mother coming from one part of herself, into another. Finding a new area of love, of consideration, for a time space continuum that was shifting.
What comes with expansion can be exciting. My daughter would have new stories, experiences and opinions as the months pass. I would now merrily skip to the post office to mail care packages and swoon in the joy of her receiving one. She will come home for Thanksgiving for a few days, and even though I would love for her to take the train and not to have to drive, I feel like for now, I want to be her valet. To make up for all the hours of time I am no longer her Uber and chauffeur.
As fall creeps in, and it’s sweater weather, my younger daughter leans into her first year of high school. But she has a window into the future through her pioneering older sister. She gets to see the terrain through her sister’s eyes.
“How do you feel?” I asked her.
“It’s quiet,” she said.
“Can you imagine this will be you one day?” I asked. “Headed off to college?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m pretty excited.”
I was too. For all the possibility, but for now, I’ll hold on to half empty nesting, thank you.