Three days is a short visit by any standard – my son flew in, my son was here, my son flew out.
For three days, there were teens in and out, there was assistance running errands, there was laughter in and around the house. And of course, the car keys – in his pocket. Still, there’s nothing like knowing where your kids are. Especially when they’re under your own roof, safe and sound.
Time flies, kids fly
But the visit was so quick. Too quick. And as busy as these next months with my younger son will be, they’ll pass too quickly as well. I’ll look up, and this job will be done.
And then what?
I imagine I’ll be expected to keep a home – somewhere. A place for them to return and feel safe, and ideally, it would be where they grew up. Here. These small rooms. This cozy spot we made our own despite the difficult adjustment and the years it took. Post-divorce life isn’t simple, and ours wasn’t. But loving each other was.
As for keeping a home, what does that mean, exactly? For me? And if there is nothing to hold me here, do I even want to stay? And if I don’t – where do I go, and what will it mean?
Home is where the heart is – but where is that?
The other evening while celebrating Thanksgiving, the grown daughter of a friend was half joking when she brought up empty nest. She said I could join her parents at some activity to keep us busy. It was a funny reference (especially if you’re 28), and meant kindly. But her parents are married. There is a family home of 20 years. There are dogs, routines, grown children and their spouses visiting constantly. There is stability.
I smiled and pushed away any of the thoughts to do with empty nest. While I’ve been projecting toward responsibly finishing the full time aspects of parenting, often wondering how in the hell I”d make it through another day, another week, another month – when the day actually arrives, I will feel relieved and likely, stricken.
When both children are launched, where will “home” be? Where will my heart have flown?
Already, I find myself on the receiving end of occasional comments, regardless of my single status. That I owe my kids a “home.” I understand the remark, but I bristle when I hear it – and it’s usually from married mothers. Yet haven’t I more than delivered on what I owe my kids? Won’t it be my turn, at last? But is it too late to resurrect a social life that was put on hold these past few years, with only so much “self” to be spread around?
Goodbyes, hellos
This morning, kissing my son goodbye as he flies back to school, it’s clear that the power of that goodbye weighs heavily. And the day will soon fill up with bills and housework and reminders for my younger son. Then it will be night, and then Monday and another hectic week with more to fill it than I have hours to accommodate.
I am still scurrying through days and nights trying to provide the bare minimum to my teenage son. Yes, the bare minimum by my standards. There are still days when I wonder how I’ll keep going, how much is slipping through the cracks, and how I’ll make it until time to sleep, then start again the next morning. There is nothing unusual in any of this – most of the mothers I know live these same thoughts, these same years, these same conflicts. Days of spinning our wheels and second guessing; other days when we are proud of our kids and our roles in their lives.
These next weeks and months are exhausting, and precious, and finite.
And the best cure for a goodbye? A hello of course. Or perhaps – in my case – it will be a bonjour.
© D A Wolf
I’ve had similar thoughts with my post-divorce life, my plan involves buongiorno rather than bonjour though. As for maintaining the same home once the kids have flown the roost, that is not necessary IMO, it is cliche but home is where the heart is. Plans can change but if I end up in a small apartment in Italy, I’m sure I will be able to rent extra accommodation and have a favourite restaurant for a memorable family dinner; I can handle watching sun-kissed grandkids playing around a fountain or grape vines while we enjoy a glass of wine, it might not be a standard family dinner but it will be memorable.
((BLW)) The only thing that matters is that YOU are there. Forget material things/spaces–YOU are home to them.
When the kids leave, you have only you to look after. They’ll be adult enough to deal with their lives without you being nearby if you choose not to be. They’ll figure out how to get to where you are to see you. What you “owe” them, I believe, is to be happy with the life you choose. To be there to listen if they need you. To be there for moral support. To love them. None of which requires close proximity.
The idea of “owing” one’s children a home — I flinched when I read that. I know my own mother feels that to some degree (she was hesitant on my recent visit to throw away the decades old Christmas tree that my sisters and I grew up with, even though I reassured her that we would not be traumatized by the replacement we found together). I wish for freedom for her from the perceived responsibility of maintaining that ideal of “home.” I think years of mixed feelings about that space, full of open marital strife, make me extremely loath to encourage her desires (even she admits to some misery from the demands she places on herself). I see pressure where there is already enough from my father to make every day “perfect” for him. I want her to understand that home will always be home for the rest of us when we spend time with her, no matter what the walls around us look like. But the pull of the standard she adheres to is too strong for now. And it’s painful to watch her hold to it.
It’s a complex issue, for so many reasons. Thank you for this thoughtful response. All of you, for the thoughtfulness.
I don’t have any wise words to share. (Are you surprised?!) I do often think, perhaps wistfully, that I will move to the city as soon as both kids are out of the house. However, they have both said to me more than once to NEVER EVER sell this house, their childhood home. It’s so different from my own experience: I grew up in rental apartments and therefore we moved quite often. I don’t think there is any one physical building I’d consider my childhood “home”. My parents live with my nephew now and to me, that is “home” for me since they are there.
The whole concept of “home” is so tricky. I don’t have a family home to return to any longer. Haven’t in some years. It’s sad. I don’t want my kids to feel that way, and yet – does that mean I stay in a place that once felt home-like, and hasn’t in some years? I don’t have an answer. But I know what it is to feel as though you cannot go home – to a person or a place. It’s not a good feeling. I don’t want that for my kids. I guess it’s a “wait and see” – like many things.
Having found myself at home in Los Angeles, when it seemed so alien for so long, such a better place to die than to live, for so many years, I have become increasingly interested in the complete surrender to whatever’s going on wherever it’s going on. Not easy, I’ll admit, but strangely calming.
Sometimes I think the world is really our true Self and it’s about going everywhere we can and experiencing so much, particularly pain, that provokes us to discover, like T.S. Eliot’s notion of arriving back where we started, that we’ve always been home. It’s like having that sort of childhood where one perpetually is thinking, “there must be some mistake here,” only to realize later that it’s all been perfect.
I’m rambling… but I do wish you all the very best of bonjour bonhomie.
Merci, Bruce. I have yet to find that sort of peace in my life. Perhaps it’s a matter of nature. Some of us are at home nowhere, and everywhere, and nowhere again.
The song ‘wherever i lay my hat’ has a lot of resonance with me.
Home is wherever we feel we belong, at least in my opinion it is. 😀