The Top Ten Things I Did as an Empty Nester
10. Did NOT clean out their rooms and make it an exercise room – in fact both rooms are still intact as shrines to their childhood today
9. Ramped up the writing – all the lamenting and whining over the emptiness gave me good fodder for writing. Thus the Hot Flashes Blog was born
8. Stopped cooking – My husband has to cook if we are going to eat a meal any given night (this excludes holidays when I still cook) We are known to eat Smoothies, or even worse, Cheetos for dinner some nights.
7. Did NOT join a gym. I said I would, I promised I would, but I didn’t.
6. Grieved for an entire year. When my daughter left, my last one in our home, all of her friends left with her. Suddenly my very alive house was very DEAD. I had to acknowledge that my children’s childhoods were really and truly a thing of the past. And so I moped, and I grieved.
5. Became poorer. Although both of my children had college scholarships of varying amounts, I found out it was much cheaper supporting them under my own roof than in their own places. Basically, I was supporting three households.
4. Had to go out of my way to see people. It was just a given that I would see so many people from the kids’ school events, friends functions etc. Now, I could go a month without bumping into anyone except my neighbors
3. Played music all the time to drown out the deathly silence in the home. i discovered You Tube, which coincidentally, I had time to watch since my time was all my own again.
2..Worried from afar. I didn’t give up my Mommy license and so the worrying didn’t stop then and still hasn’t stopped. It was just done from afar now instead of close by.
1. Finally adjusted about a year later. F-R-E-E-D-O-M!!!