S4E24 Not feeling nor ready for this empty nest syndrome

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Transcript

Speaker 1 (0s): Our all right, bows and bow ties. So look, I have to apologize for the weird light situation. I am not in my normal vehicle today. I had to bring the Bronco because my children are coming back from outdoor school, which is why I'm gonna be talking, what about talking about what we're gonna be talking about shortly, and I need something that I can carry that, that can carry all their luggage and stuff like that. So yes, my children have been gone this week for outdoor school.

I've got one child in college, and so I had one child home who basically doesn't really talk to us, so he forced him to talk to us, and we went out to dinner last night. He's a great kid, but he's just kinda like, Hey, hi. Why are you forcing me to talk to you? And you know, I love my kids, right? But it's got me thinking about this empty nest syndrome thing that I just am having a difficult time with all of a sudden.

Go ahead. Go ahead, go ahead. I'm giving it to you. I'm giving it to you. Go. Sorry, I'm trying to let this, this car in the car was dummying up anyway, so excuse the weird lighting situation. I know. It's like streaking across the, the, the, the, the screen here. But it's just the way the lights are situated in this car, they can't have attached to, they can't have the lights and everything attached to like a door or something because the doors come off this vehicle. Think it be like a Jeep. So, oh, it's National Bread Day. Celebrate today was a new banana chocolate chip bread and get two 50 points.

That's my Dunking Donuts app. Y'all are not gonna judge me. Okay. I have the app. Okay. So. yeah. So the reason why I was talking about this is because my kids were gone and my house was quiet, which normally, look, we could find things to do, but it was just so weird. I'm so sorry. This is so loud. But it was just so weird because our whole schedule was thrown off, right? We didn't really plan how we were gonna do things, right? We were like, my husband was happy for just peace and quiet too, right?

I mean, I'm, I'm sure he misses our kids too. We didn't have to do a lot of running around, but because they were gone and because I have one in college, we didn't have to do a lot of running around. So everything changed. And so it hit me that when they were gone, just like when my son went off to school, we talk about one of the first things I'm not ready for, and I'm still dealing with, when you're starting to feel that empty nest syndrome, you start to be concerned about a lot of stuff, right?

Because think about it, when they're under your, in your house, under your purview, under your rule authority, whatever it is you wanna do, whatever, like, you know what they're eating. I know it's stupid. I know it's stupid. Listen, I was like, I hope they're eating enough. I hope Caleb, that's my son. I hope he's eating his vegetables. you know, you get concerned about a lot of things. I I'm concerned about my oldest who's away at college. I'm like, what is he doing? Is he getting enough sleep? I mean, is he, is he eating right?

Is he eating just pizza? I mean, like, you know, all these things. One of the things that also I was thinking about was when you're dealing with empty nesting and look with those of you who are actively going through it, where you're truly officially empty nesters, one of the things that, and may, I would love for somebody to, to chime in on this. I was thinking about reclaiming your time, right?

So I have things that I want to do and experience, but I'm like, what does that really look like? Do you just jump in? Or do you allow yourself to feel that sense of, I hate saying emptiness, but emptiness, right? Like a lot of people who may not understand what this feels like, probably thinks this is so silly, but this is like very real for me. I'm like, okay, I need to reclaim my time.

So am I doing this the right way? Right? Like, do I just jump into a bunch of stuff right away? Do I allow myself to just marinate a little bit in the new normal, right? I don't know. What I do know is it, there's a lot of emotions centered around when your kids leave the house. Now, I got two coming back today, so I'll be leaving work early. but nevertheless, I was just like, I, I don't, I don't like this feeling, you know?

Usually if I'm going to try to like rec clean my time with my husband and go away for a few days, that's different. 'cause that's like, on my terms. And then I still act like this every time I go away, my husband's like, oh, you need to stop. I'm like, I miss the kids. Like, I miss them. I love them. They get on my nerves. but I, I, this is my every day. I mean, like, I'm just calling a thing, a thing. When I say they get on my nerves, like, you know, there's a certain bowel rhythm you used to like, Hey, why are you picking on this one?

Like, what, what is your problem? Why do you have like, I don't know, it's part of my new normal. I'm like, I told you to eat this first. No, we're not gonna eat a whole bunch of snacks before dinner. No, you know, your day to do your laundry is on X day. Why are you asking me about your stuff? I suggest you go upstairs and get your stuff and put your stuff in the laundry and then dry it. I'm like, but what if it's too late? I'm like, that's not my problem. You're better off doing it now versus not doing it at all.

It's just stuff like that. I'm used to doing that and now to go a week and I virtually had to do any of that. I'm like, whoa, okay, so what does this mean? What am I gonna spend my time doing? What am I gonna spend my time thinking about? There's things that I wanna do, but is it smart to just jump into these things? I don't know. Maybe the new me will not want to do those things. Okay, let's go to the next thing. It's the, the, it's the needing, right?

So I, I always wonder how stay at home moms deal with this. As a mom in general, whether you stay at home or whether you go into an office, most of the times it's like you still know that your children need you for certain things. And so for those who stay home, I know that they are a lot more in tuned with things that go on in the home.

It's not that I'm not in tuned with things that goes on in the home, but I don't focus on some of those things, right? Because I have to leave my home to go into an office to work. So for those who did not have that particular set of relationships, I mean, I know they have other, they form other relationships, but it's still centered around the home. I always wonder how they deal with it because I don't think I'm doing a good job even just thinking about it.

And I'm not even a fully blown empty nester. I always wonder what that's like when you know, when it's like, okay, no one needs me now for maintaining the house on the level that it was being maintained, right? Because when people leave, they've consumed less resources. They, they create other, other bills and stuff, but you consume less resources. And, they might speed this up, or I might go way too slow. You consume less resources. The house doesn't get as dirty. You're not, you're not constantly having to remind people or go behind people and clean things, whatever.

Now I make my kids clean it themselves. But I think the thing is, is like you go from having to manage this world and now the world is being ripped from you. It's being changed. You're like, do my kids need me anymore? Does anybody need me anymore? What does that mean now? Right? So for those who've never experienced having to care for a family, right? They have the luxury of knowing what their battle rhythm is, right?

It's a great place to be. So if you're a single person who didn't have children or something like that, and you have your set of activities, that's amazing. My activities had to shift, right? When I had children, some of my activities I had to put to bed for a period of time, and I had to take on different activities. So when, so when I no longer have these kids around, I'm like, do they need me for things? They don't need me for a ride.

They don't need me for this. They don't need me to nag them to tell them to make their bed. They don't need me for any of those things. And so then you start to, to reevaluate, like, okay, so how do I show up in this world now? Like, what does this mean? How am I gonna show up? It's hard to explain because it's not that I don't find, think I have value I know I have value, but it's like trying to reevaluate where you fit in.

And I have a, a career. My goal is once my children are done with school, I'm either going to just stop working altogether or I'm going to scale back my my hours significantly, right? Because it's going to be time for me to con to, to explore that other part of my life. And I'm going to need the time. God willing, I can afford to do that. It, it'll be a blessing for me to do that. I'm gonna wanna have the time to do that.

Let's see. I will say this. When dealing with this whole empty nesting thing, one of the things I always talk to my husband about, like every once in a while I talk about being intentional, right? Like, we went away a couple weeks ago just for his birthday. I'm like, we needed complete alone time, right? We, we needed that, right? Like we, we tend to, because we know we have a busy schedule, occasionally we leave work early to date each other. We will go sit at a happy hour, whatever.

And it's not even that big of a deal. But we connect with each other because we have to, we have to be intentional and talk to each other and work at it, right? But it's not always perfect. But we will get together, have a couple of haws or drinks or whatever it is, we work at it, and then we go home and then we try to be present for our family, but we try to be intentional. And so my question is, when you're an empty nester, it's like now you have each other full time versus having to be intentional about scheduling that time.

So I'm curious to as to how that's gonna work, right? What does that look like? Like I don't anticipate us hitting each other, but like, we're gonna be going from not spending as much time with each other and scheduling it in to now all of a sudden we've got each other all the time. I can see how the, the pros and cons of that, right? Because you built this, this battle rhythm of what it's like when you don't see the person for one, we both go into an office during the day.

So that in itself takes up a lot of time away from each other. And then once our, it didn't be like, we get home, we, we manage our children. So this whole empty nesting thing, I'm like, wow, we will no longer have our kids at some point to, to manage. Which makes me think like, is that a precursor to how you need to manage yourself in retirement? 'cause eventually you stop working and then you really see each other all the time.

Anyway, these are all the things that I was thinking about. But I was like, oh my gosh, I don't think I'm ready to be an empty nester. I'm not feeling it. I'm not feeling it. I think about things like, did I raise my kids, right? Am I doing a good job? Am I teaching them to be a good character? To have a relationship with God, to seek the truth? you know, what's, what's right? Am I teaching them to, to to love themselves, to take risks while they're, while they're young, to work hard, to work smart, to practice kindness?

Let me see, I have a few more notes for myself. I think the thing too with, with kids, like I know a lot of people are getting out here on these apps and they're talking about how they don't want kids and families. They're, they're, they're painting this negative picture about raising kids. And let me tell you something, I'm not saying it was all roses, but the one thing I will say is I voluntarily had my kids and I think the biggest thing is watching throughout the years, watching your kids learn the highs and the lows when they achieve something that they worked so hard and they're so excited.

And you see that face when you see how they're like full of glee when you see how they're so proud. Like, there's something to be said for watching a child achieve something. There's something to be said for watching your children develop. I'll never forget, years ago, I was watching something on television maybe 20 years ago that was, it was back when Paris Hilton was, she had her reality TV show with Nicole G and I remember there was some sort of, I don't know if it was like a psychologist or someone had come on television and made the comment about Paris Hilton And.

they said they felt so sad for her because she has everything. And I had to pause and I, and I got it as he was explaining, he was like, imagine having everything and being the, and robbed of the opportunity of achieving something. Sometimes, like, sometimes just to achieve something, they're like, there's something to be said for that. And it feels amazing. You feel so proud and you feel like you are like, like your self-esteem gets tied, purposeful.

And so he made the comment that why do you think she has to engage in all of these ridiculous acts, right? Like, she has to seek this high, this, this attention because she has everything. And now you're trying to get this value. So imagine if you've had everything, you've never had to achieve anything, and then you go on television and it's like, pay attention to me. Pay attention to me. Pay attention to me. Because that, that self-esteem, that self belief isn't organic.

It's almost like solicited, right? And now I'm using, like, I'm paraphrasing. So anyway, getting back to that, like as a parent, when you are watching your kids go through these stages of development and they're achieving And, they learning and they're accomplishing. You've seen their failures, you've seen their successes. And now as an empty nester, you don't get to see that anymore. You don't always have a front seat to that. You don't have a window to that. You don't, it, it now, the world gets it.

The world gets to see that from your kids. It's rough. I was like, oh my gosh, am I ready for this? Ultimately, you wanna see your children move forward. You wanna see them leave the nest. You wanna see them achieve and you're happy for them. You're genuinely happy for your kids, but you're sad for yourself because like I said, you don't have a a front seat window into it anymore. Now they become a part of the world.

And then you, you circle back to like, okay, so I spent so much time doing this with my children. What does my world look like now? So even though we have interest, my husband and I have interests and stuff like that, you know, ultimately when you're trying to raise your kids, you know, you're trying to do the right things. We don't always get it right. And I know, I know people will try to attack and have an opinion, this, that and the other.

They're like, you shouldn't just live for your kids. I'm like, well, I don't think I'm living for my kids, but I'm trying to make sure I give them the best opportunities. Right? Do the best I can. And yes, we do take time away from our kids. Maybe not enough. And yes, my husband and I, we had plenty of interests and passions before our kids. Some of them we could not really pursue because it was a choice to make sure that our kids were, were healthy and happy and had opportunities.

So I'll, I'll just leave it at that. I'm just sitting here thinking about like, I don't know how I feel about this soon to be empty nest syndrome. I got a taste of it when my oldest went off to college and I still have three at home. But when my twins went to outdoor school and the house was just so quiet and we didn't have to run through all of these different sporting things. My, my son that's home, all of his stuff was like, we're in this weird like pause.

He picks back up next week. It was just so like, okay, that this is happening. I can't wait to pick them up early to pick them up early today. I cannot wait. Let me see if I can turn this off now. I don't need this anymore. I can't wait. I can't wait to see them. I can't wait to find out. I mean, we saw online 'cause they've been posting pictures and stuff. I can't wait to see what they've learned, what they've learned about life, what they've learned about themselves, how they felt about the experience, how they feel about being back at home.

I just wanna love up on them. I want to, yeah, I can't wait to see what this means and how this is going to propel them moving forward. How they wanna attack the world, how they see the world, how they feel about themselves, how confident they are. And this is gonna force me to do some soul searching on, okay, so now that you had a glimpse into what this could be like, what do you want for yourself?

How do you want to show up in this world when you no longer are training up your children? Your job is going to be done soon. Like, you're always gonna be the parents and, and, and give advice and, and, and mentorship and stuff like that. But this changes. And so how do you wanna show up for yourself? What do you want? you know, this has me thinking about a lot of things that I was just like, I was like, oh my God.

I'm like, my kids need to come home. And my husband is more like, you better enjoy this time. I'm like, I but I. I can't wait to come home. I can't wait for when it's time for me to leave today, honey. They're gonna be like, I'm like, I gotta go. I gotta go. So anyway, let me know your thoughts. Am I psycho?

I'm definitely, definitely struggling with this idea. I don't, I don't know what to think. all right.