Even the brilliant snaps of sunset photos this week all reveal a fading light of the summer, which matches to the wistful tone of your text about the house now being less noisy, less chaotic, and painfully empty. And it did bring to mind some philosophical writing I did recently exploring loss, not just as the absence of the joy we knew, but as the opportunity to make room for the happiness we will know. However, sometimes the “right words” are not as helpful as we would like. It seems too complicated for this moment of reflection by you and Sarah, and I decided to share a lyrical quatrain anaphora poem I wrote recently for someone else, who also… just ‘needed a hug’.
It's so wonderful to watch the light change, but more, to Learn it. To know it. To remember. This poem is beautiful, and feels exactly like the hug you described it as.
I was empty nested last year - I think I mourned ahead of time the full year prior, so after the actual drop-off, I was surprised to find that although I had some tears, I was also...pretty ok.
I was also surprised to find that for the first time in my life I was not really emotionally beholden to anyone but myself. It was kind of great to only need/want to listen to myself and my needs for the first time ever. Also, my kid is happy and successful where he is - and as we all know, we're only as happy as our unhappiest child. So, he's happy, I'm happy....but I will say this. Unless you need a trigger to make you cry more, don't listen to Brandi Carlile's "You without me" about her daughter growing up. I went to her concert this week and bawled at this song. Then I listened to it at home because it came up on one of my feeds and cried some more. Then I called Jack. He was like "I'm at some environmental justice thing...I'll call you later." It was fitting.
But, yes - empty nesting is all the contradictory paradoxical feelings (as is parenting in general - I always say having a kid is like having ALL the feelings under the sun under a huge umbrella of love). I think it's super weird that this all-consuming18-year experience is over (not the act of being a parent, but...). And I had this weird sense like when you do something really hard or push really hard at work and then go on vacation and you get sick? Like that, except a little with life. I was re-immersed in the things I love - but not that jazzed about doing all the things I'm supposed to do (like work). Like, super-unmotivated. I am working on that part.
I am so glad you were ok when the time came! I am actually so impressed with Sarah and how she's handling it! This is all such wonderful insight, truly.
Beautiful, breathtaking images and words! I couldn't get through this one without crying...and then having to circle back when I could see enough through blurred vision to carry on. I'm feeling this shift myself...most acutely. Not only am I now an empty-nester as well, but this on the heels of returning from our year in the UK, the loss of my own beloved fur baby at the end of June, and the arrival at home that has yet to provide a new nest. I'm rudderless without my son, our beloved dog, and a home to putter around in figuring out how to fill my newfound time and space with the next meaningful endeavors. Sometimes life transitions arrive in a whisper and sometimes it's a thunderous boom...mine feels like a boom that continues to sound while I go through a rebirth process. And as you so astutely point out: go for walks...this has been my saving grace. I'm here in the Hudson Valley housesitting at the moment and time spent in the crisp autumn air on trails, beside streams, admiring the changing leaves has felt like salve for a weary soul. Thank you my friend, for sharing the beauty of this journey! ❤️
Oh Lisa, for the tears I am sorry, and also thankful. You're amazing and I cannot imagine the weight you're feeling, both lifted, and settled in deeper. I love how deeply you feel the width of this life.
Tyler, it's joy through tears! I love seeing my son thrive, as he launches into adulthood and I'm so happy to be home in my favorite city, but of course it also means carrying the grief of loss and old stages. It's a beautiful thing to be able to contain a breadth of emotional experience simultaneously, as you well know. All my love! 💞
As the kids say, those sunset photos are FIRE. hehe is that a joke?? I think so! I'm so sleep deprived I don't even know what I'm saying. 😅
I really enjoy hearing about the parenting journey from the chapter you guys are in. First it was about teenagers, now legal adults off to college, and the "empty nesting." It feels so far away from where I am but I know it's not. My roller coaster is starting to gain speed and I know that part will be hurtling towards me sooner than I can catch my breath. I love hearing about your experiences because I care about you both, but as a mom of Littles, I'm also personally invested because I like to try to use the future to better understand and appreciate the present, and to walk into what's to come, with my eyes wide open.
How beautiful it is for you to find the moments of joy amongst the sadness as you and Sarah navigate this new phase in your parenting journey.
I still have several years before my children go out on their own, and am truly already dreading it because I know it will come with a whole list of new worries and uncertainty. I hope I will remember to reflect upon this quote as a reminder of all the years and work I have put in to help my children become independent:
"Good parents give their children roots and wings: roots to know where home is, and wings to fly off and practice what has been taught them," -Jonas Salk
Glorious! The sunsets, Gilly, and your realizations.
We don't get sunsets like this in Bloomfield, NJ, but the sky can become eerie glows of orange, yellow, and peachy pink. I wonder if the fires so near you cause some sort of 'disruption' in the atmosphere that enhances the colours. Even though they are gone, something of them must still linger somehow ... maybe I'm thinking magically. But why not? Beauty is beauty, no matter the cause.
Those sunsets! Your beautiful words! ❤️ 🌅 ✍️
:) I am so thankful you enjoy both!
Oh my word, absolutely beautiful skies❤️🔥
Montana just does it right.
Those skies! I'm gobsmacked
SO WAS I! It's so insane how often we get skies like this here.
Even the brilliant snaps of sunset photos this week all reveal a fading light of the summer, which matches to the wistful tone of your text about the house now being less noisy, less chaotic, and painfully empty. And it did bring to mind some philosophical writing I did recently exploring loss, not just as the absence of the joy we knew, but as the opportunity to make room for the happiness we will know. However, sometimes the “right words” are not as helpful as we would like. It seems too complicated for this moment of reflection by you and Sarah, and I decided to share a lyrical quatrain anaphora poem I wrote recently for someone else, who also… just ‘needed a hug’.
A hug
/
I want to hug you:
To protect the love we share
To honor the truth we dare
To show the world we care
/
I want to hold you:
To begin your everyday
To be with you in every way
To let you know - it’s okay
/
I want you in my arms:
So that you won’t depart
So close within my heart
So much like a lost art
/
I want to embrace you:
To have nothing to forgive
To share a life we want to live
To offer all I have to give
It's so wonderful to watch the light change, but more, to Learn it. To know it. To remember. This poem is beautiful, and feels exactly like the hug you described it as.
Was the bumblebee alive? If so- how did you not get stung???
Oh they don't ever wish to do that! I pet bumblebees on their little fuzzy backs all the time, and they do the cutest little warm shake. It's amazing.
Beautiful. Fab sunsets. I'm a fan.
I was empty nested last year - I think I mourned ahead of time the full year prior, so after the actual drop-off, I was surprised to find that although I had some tears, I was also...pretty ok.
I was also surprised to find that for the first time in my life I was not really emotionally beholden to anyone but myself. It was kind of great to only need/want to listen to myself and my needs for the first time ever. Also, my kid is happy and successful where he is - and as we all know, we're only as happy as our unhappiest child. So, he's happy, I'm happy....but I will say this. Unless you need a trigger to make you cry more, don't listen to Brandi Carlile's "You without me" about her daughter growing up. I went to her concert this week and bawled at this song. Then I listened to it at home because it came up on one of my feeds and cried some more. Then I called Jack. He was like "I'm at some environmental justice thing...I'll call you later." It was fitting.
But, yes - empty nesting is all the contradictory paradoxical feelings (as is parenting in general - I always say having a kid is like having ALL the feelings under the sun under a huge umbrella of love). I think it's super weird that this all-consuming18-year experience is over (not the act of being a parent, but...). And I had this weird sense like when you do something really hard or push really hard at work and then go on vacation and you get sick? Like that, except a little with life. I was re-immersed in the things I love - but not that jazzed about doing all the things I'm supposed to do (like work). Like, super-unmotivated. I am working on that part.
I am so glad you were ok when the time came! I am actually so impressed with Sarah and how she's handling it! This is all such wonderful insight, truly.
feeling this
:) So rad. I am glad it hit home.
Beautiful, breathtaking images and words! I couldn't get through this one without crying...and then having to circle back when I could see enough through blurred vision to carry on. I'm feeling this shift myself...most acutely. Not only am I now an empty-nester as well, but this on the heels of returning from our year in the UK, the loss of my own beloved fur baby at the end of June, and the arrival at home that has yet to provide a new nest. I'm rudderless without my son, our beloved dog, and a home to putter around in figuring out how to fill my newfound time and space with the next meaningful endeavors. Sometimes life transitions arrive in a whisper and sometimes it's a thunderous boom...mine feels like a boom that continues to sound while I go through a rebirth process. And as you so astutely point out: go for walks...this has been my saving grace. I'm here in the Hudson Valley housesitting at the moment and time spent in the crisp autumn air on trails, beside streams, admiring the changing leaves has felt like salve for a weary soul. Thank you my friend, for sharing the beauty of this journey! ❤️
Oh Lisa, for the tears I am sorry, and also thankful. You're amazing and I cannot imagine the weight you're feeling, both lifted, and settled in deeper. I love how deeply you feel the width of this life.
Tyler, it's joy through tears! I love seeing my son thrive, as he launches into adulthood and I'm so happy to be home in my favorite city, but of course it also means carrying the grief of loss and old stages. It's a beautiful thing to be able to contain a breadth of emotional experience simultaneously, as you well know. All my love! 💞
As the kids say, those sunset photos are FIRE. hehe is that a joke?? I think so! I'm so sleep deprived I don't even know what I'm saying. 😅
I really enjoy hearing about the parenting journey from the chapter you guys are in. First it was about teenagers, now legal adults off to college, and the "empty nesting." It feels so far away from where I am but I know it's not. My roller coaster is starting to gain speed and I know that part will be hurtling towards me sooner than I can catch my breath. I love hearing about your experiences because I care about you both, but as a mom of Littles, I'm also personally invested because I like to try to use the future to better understand and appreciate the present, and to walk into what's to come, with my eyes wide open.
Hahaha, FIREEEEE. It truly is Not that far away, it comes before you even know it possibly could. Treasure it all.
😭 beautiful essay… and pics too :)
:) Thank you so much!
How beautiful it is for you to find the moments of joy amongst the sadness as you and Sarah navigate this new phase in your parenting journey.
I still have several years before my children go out on their own, and am truly already dreading it because I know it will come with a whole list of new worries and uncertainty. I hope I will remember to reflect upon this quote as a reminder of all the years and work I have put in to help my children become independent:
"Good parents give their children roots and wings: roots to know where home is, and wings to fly off and practice what has been taught them," -Jonas Salk
You will get through it, and we will help! You're amazing. Thank you, so much, for being here.
The SUNSETS!!! And Sarah in them!!! Holy bananas. Speechless.
A birdhouse, rather than a nest. Love that!
:) Me too! I'm so glad you know.
Glorious! The sunsets, Gilly, and your realizations.
We don't get sunsets like this in Bloomfield, NJ, but the sky can become eerie glows of orange, yellow, and peachy pink. I wonder if the fires so near you cause some sort of 'disruption' in the atmosphere that enhances the colours. Even though they are gone, something of them must still linger somehow ... maybe I'm thinking magically. But why not? Beauty is beauty, no matter the cause.
So love you sharing ...
Sometime, Montana you must see!