The Ache of an Empty Nest - Fuji Journal

Brain Rain | 9.25.26

No one tells you what it’ll feel like when the nest you’ve been building, re-building, cleaning, filling with life, food, laughter, and pain, is all of a sudden a hell of a lot more empty.

Turns out, it’s lots of things. It’s insanely sad, to be certain. It chokes you up at random times when the rooms are quieter, when the noises less frequent, when the schedule somehow opens up in ways that are at first subtle, but then somehow shocking. It’s sorrowful, and it carries an ache, and this is not to be denied. But sometimes, it’s something else too.

Sometimes, it’s exciting. Sometimes it brings its own bizarre joyfulness, it’s weird feeling of freedom that you almost feel guilty for internally celebrating. Both you and your partner will probably be hesitant to voice it, lest you reduce the possibility of their current sadness (if that’s the moment they are indeed in) to inconsequential.

Bottom line, it’s a lot of things. These photos kind of represent the end of dropping off Addie at school, and the beginning of a life of two empty nesters, trying to figure it all out. Click through to enjoy them, to get a sneak behind the curtain of what it meant to us. Oh, and join the family, so we’re not so lonely. Also so we can afford college at all, hahahaha.

Click to view on the website, which lets you view these bigger and scroll through the gallery.

We didn’t linger after making sure Addie’s room was how she wanted it. We cried, we hugged, then we got the hell out of dodge. I think this helped, in a way. The tears came, they always will, but when we got back into Helena we immediately took Gilly on his nightly walk and were treated to one of what proved to be DOZENS of staggeringly beautiful sunsets.

As if to soothe our little suffering, the sky got so beautiful, the storms rolled in, and we were treated to some very Irish feeling weather. Somehow, rain always acts as balm to the ache in a soul. Washes it all clean.

Sarah also went with the full Justin Timberlake January 8, 2001 AMA outfit of denim on denim on denim, and somehow, made it look freaking beautiful.

That walk began a month of walks. Every single night, with no schedule we had to uphold, we walked, and still do. In the forest and mountains behind our home, in the simple loop sprawled out in front of our house when we walk with my parents and their dog, Gilly’s sister Murtle. Every night, a walk, a reset, a breath, a stare into the wide skies and sunsets and storms and deep sighs that somehow refill lungs and souls at the same time.

There’s so much beauty my friends, even when it hurts, maybe even especially then.

Go for a walk. Find it.

As I said, August FLABBERGASTED US with sunsets. Look at the light in these, look at the glow, the contrast between the stormy dark clouds and the eruption of some backlit fire-like glow. Look at my wild-haired Irish girl, who I love in the wind more than all other places. Look at the way the lake water holds the glow from the sky above it, look at the fuckin SPLENDOR that we’re gifted. Just look.

Also look at this amazing portrait of Gilly as I walked up the stairs from the bakery in the basement. What a peach he is.

The month continued to unfurl like ribbon before us, and we just kept walking. Quiet dinners together, we hold hands more than I think we ever have, which is something I didn’t think possible until now.

For some reason we scoot even closer on the couch each end-of-night when we finally watch some silly show before showering together. We see each other, as we always have, but I swear our eyes look deeper into each other than before the nest got quieter and others call it empty. I think it all added up to a realization, if I’m honest, and it’s a peculiar one of such simplicity:

It was never a nest we were building at all, it was a birdhouse, and as long as we’re in it, it can never be empty. It’s home, and it’s just waiting for the days it’s all stuffed up again.

I love you all.

Be good.