Empty Nest, What Now?

One Day My World Suddenly Changed, The Empty Nest Hit Hard

It happened so fast I didn't grasp the empty nest thing right away and when the change finally dawned on me I felt like having taken the free fall from a 600 feet cliff and was waking up halfway down.

Not thinking about landing in the water, still bewildered, scared, little by little realizing the situation and not prepared at all doing a proper landing in the deep water.

You probably wonder what in the world I am talking about, what change?

Here is the answer

Your kids have grown up, safely and slowly, and the last one has just left home.

The home is silent, you feel this empty nest you have heard about but never really understood what was.

Now you do.

The kids you have nourished and taken care of almost 15-20 years as a mom, are not attached to you the same way any more - the change feels almost as if they don't like, don't care about you, but you know they do, and you try to send those self pitying thoughts away.

It feels so short time ago that they were crying when you left the house just to go food shopping without them, or the years they came running crying mommy mommy, laughing at you, with you and wanted to share everything they saw, felt and heard with you. Suddenly it is all gone!

Those feelings of belonging with them, being a part of them and they being an all day part of you. -Gone.- Of course you know that they have their own lives to live, but it feels like it is too soon!

You are crying and want them back!

Gradually they have become the late teens or older who now sometimes come home, first thing go to the fridge to find the goodies - and yelling: Mom, where is the ham, the burgers, the ice-cream etc if they can't find it. And their washing and ironing and cleaning is now your privilege to do as the empty nest mom - sometimes they thank you but it becomes more and more seldom. You might even still support them economically.

Their father or your partner is beginning to get really irritated because you have those feelings - he feels offended - and you don't understand why! These kids have been your life for so long, he should understand that!

One day someone tells you that your partner probably has been looking forward to this time of change - hoped for the time when attention would be more on him instead of on the kids who now want to have and live their own lives! You might think: "what a stupid idea!' You have always also taken care of him!

After a while you start to think about if you really have taken care of him, did you?

Or did you kind of forget him for the children?

You defend yourself with all the work it was with the kids, the time it took, the exhaustion you felt and thinking back you have no idea how you ever managed to come through those years!

Then you cry again because you miss those beautiful years with all the emotional roller coasters, the many happy times that constantly run through your head and won't let you alone. You want them back, but know it is not going to happen, those times have gone and you must let new times into your life if you don't want to spoil everything. Your "mom-time" is over and you need to become a real grown-up growing women taking care of your own needs.

It Is a Tuff Journey This Empty Nest - I Understand What You Are Going Through

The feeling of emptiness, feeling not to be anything any more, although being an active mother has taken all time, thoughts, creativeness and social life for years. It is gone! You are not part of this any more.

AND it is all a very big natural part of your growth in life.

Realizing you have to start again from scratch seems unbearable, but already the thought might make you feel less empty as you are growing to be somebody new, somebody of a different importance with something else that occupies your whole day. Your partner becomes suddenly more important, you see him in a new light and that light is not always the expected. You want everything to be good, want it to be successful for you, for the kids, for the family. For him.

So here you are asking yourself questions like:

"What do I do, the money my partner gives me to run the household suddenly makes me feel like a call girl."

You want to be respected and not for your sex, or even maybe former sexual attractiveness, but for your abilities to do something of lasting life value and for everybody.

Of course you raised the kids and that is a great job well done, but you feel that everybody takes it as an of course that you have done that. That is what you have been supposed to do all the time.

Having a job has for some years been out of the question or only possible for you without working for a career, so your income is not what you want it to be and maybe not your job either.

You now with your empty nest want to do something different now with your life - something of new importance, something that also gives an income so you don't have to ask for money. Now the kids are away you are not getting the money you used to and you feel you have to ask when buying stuff for yourself, even small things.

So are you tired of having anybody look at you as a problem that needs to be fixed?

Then take an instant energy-smoothie by getting clear on what you really want NOW.

For me it was starting a business.

Maybe that is also for you.

Pia Balling

Wishing you a wonderful life-journey with growth for yourself and everyone around you.

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