Empty Nest

Emilie Anne is my oldest child.  She is down at UNH doing the dairy thing and learning to do her life straight up.   She and her sister Elizabeth (Lulu) have been teaching  me all about this phase of life, Empty Nest.   Lulu lives in New Hampshire with her dad and so with her being out of the house as well, it makes the issue of re-identification a bit of a challenge.  Double hard to have empty nest when the primary residence is somewhere else, so the guilt of not having you kid is heaped on with a special measure. Add to that, I had my children in my mid twenties and my peers about a decade later, so I am going through it a bit alone.  My buddies have tweens or younger and are still coordinating their lives around pick-up, drop off schedules. I wonder in their exhaustion if they see how flippn’ lucky they are to be in the middle of life swirling all around them?

Lulu is 17 and gaining independence as well.  Visits home are coordinated with what is going on in her school, sports, love-life, friend schedule. I have seen her once, since the beginning of school.  She was due for a visit, weekend before last, but her BF Tanner got sick, so she stayed put (and went out Halloween night with her buddies)  instead. She was planning to come up next weekend, but Tanner’s Dad is heading down from East Now-where Maine for a visit, so she has pushed the visit off again.  She now says she will come the weekend after next. (ha and double ha, I will believe it when I see her roll into the driveway)

I have been tempted many times to move back to East Conway to be closer, but the reality is that it would foul up her groove.  Add a major complication for all involved and I think in the end be more damaging than helpful.  Being the alpha wolf and trying to co-parent in tight corners with her step mother calling the shots from their home would not work so well.   Human nature to be a bit critical when another woman is raising up your pup.  So I have adopted a hands off policy for the sake of providing peaceful space for Lulu to grow.    The challenge has been to “be there” as a parent from over 100 miles away.  Similar to the role parents have then the kids go to boarding school.

We didn’t have cell phones or lap tops, face book pages, yahoo email, or skype when we all took off.  I was 15 when I headed to Proctor, and I don’t remember ever calling home weekly.  I called when I was in trouble, or broke, or was negotiating my plans for long weekends and holiday breaks, which included NOT being home.  I was a free agent and I loved it.

Emilie has been loving it too and managed to lose her cell phone over a month ago and then melted her computer by leaving it on a radiator.  Instead of whining about it, she sucked it up and has been going to the library to use the computer there and has been off the cell waves.  I have been getting calls from her dad asking if she is alright because she is in a non-communication mode. ( except to me, I see her pop up chat a couple of times a week from the library.)  And she and Kenny came home this weekend for a quick touch base.

I picked her up a track phone and some minutes, then I got ordered her a new laptop.  Let me be clear. She didn’t ask for them, I need her to have them so I can feel more connected.  As for Lulu, she calls me a couple of times a week to talk about the important things, like her boobs keep growing and how boring the pre-season meeting was at Cranmore, and how she got a hair cut, but doesn’t like all the layers.

Turns out I probably talk and  give support more support because we don’t live in the same house.   Also turns out that the girls are doing well, more than fine and my worries are simply misplaced angst about my own need to grow and adapt to my life as an empty nest mom.  Can I get an Amen?