Becoming Empty-Nesters With A Rocky Start

When I tell you the story of how we became complete empty nesters you might cry. It was honestly the saddest day of my life.

The Preface To This Empty-Nester Story

Let me preface this story by saying that before this happened I felt giddy when I thought about becoming an empty-nester. I love my kids, but the thought of a clean house, food in the fridge and a car with gas in it in the driveway sounded pretty appealing.

Let me back up the bus a bit further. It was the year when all three kids were to be away at university. And, it was the day before we were to leave to take our son to Virginia for his first year of university.

To further set the background, our fridge had died and we were due to take delivery of a new refrigerator that day. So the night before, @geraintthewelsh drained the water and put the empty tube in a bucket to catch any overflow.

A Rocky Start To The Day

I woke up early to go to work and the kitchen was flooded. Panick ensued. This is how the day started.

While at work, I was on the phone all day with our son Griffin, as he had things he was responsible to get done before we left. I also had lots to do at work before I could leave on vacation. You know what it’s like rushing with stress at every turn.

Something Unexpected

I returned home from work and rushed around trying to get things packed and cleaned. (See the dorm packing list) At one point I realized that I had not seen our dog Sammy (Sammy was the original wet dog). She usually greeted me when I walked in the door, but I was so rushed I had not noticed that she was not there this time.

I went through the house systematically looking in all of her favourite places and I even rang the door bell. Then I found her. She was peacefully having her final sleep under my daughter’s bed. I screamed and cried. If you have ever lost a pet, you can imagine the immediate feeling of loss and profound sadness that we felt.

We called all the kids home from their jobs urgently. No one understood why. As you can image, we had a very sad few hours while we cried and grieved, interrupted only by the untimely delivery of our new fridge.

We buried our beautiful Sammy on the water’s edge and held hands as we shared our favourite memories of her .

Drop Off At University For Child Three

The next morning, we put on our positive attitudes and packed our car to headed to Virginia to drop our son Griffin off for his first year of university.

Once our son was settled, we said tearful goodbyes and drove silently to Washington. We had planned a relaxing few days but it was hard to enjoy ourselves. There were more tearful goodbyes when returned home and our girls left for university.

Finally Empty Nesters

Then came the day that we had been waiting for. We were finally empty nesters. But we returned home from work to a house that was eerily quiet. Sammy was not even there to greet us at the door. She had helped us raise the kids and her work was done.

The first night @geraintthewelsh and I just sat there and looked at each other. Neither of us could move. I am not even sure we ate dinner. I think we were shell- shocked. The second night was not much better. By the third night, we needed some proper food. So I made one of my usual dinners and realized that there was enough left over for another meal. So we ate the same thing again the next night.

When I was planning our meals for grocery shopping, I planned to cook only every second day and eat the same thing twice. @geraintthewelsh was good with it. The grocery bills were cut in half, so it was good all around.

Less cooking meant more time. I started exercising more and oh, I started a blog. lol

There was less cleaning, things were the way we left them when we returned home. No sticky mess on the counters when I woke up. There was gas in my car. We went away for the weekend with no planning and just closed the door behind us. Who knew life could be so easy.

Finally Setting Into Empty Nest Life

Needless to say, after a rather rocky start, we settled into a rather comfortable empty nest life. It was so comfortable that I had a pretty hard time adjusting to young adults living at home again last summer.

But all is good now. We have our puppy Lola who now greets us at the door. We have enjoyed having our kids at home. But we will also be able to enjoy ourselves when they are gone.

Always

Leslie