In just a few days, my husband and I are officially empty nesters. My youngest son moves out to live on campus for his final semester of college. It's a landmark event, one that puts us back where we were 40 years ago, just the two of us.
It's going to be quite a thing. We're still in the big family house. We will be 'rattling around' as people like to say. Once upon a time, the people that lived in this house used an intercom system to communicate with one another but that hasn't worked for many years, so I have tended to send a text when dinner is ready, and people appear.
Without a student in the house those long gruelling days of academic writing have, more or less, come to an end. That is to say, I won't be surprised if he returns on certain days to discuss a topic, and I won't be surprised if my days as editor have not entirely come to an end, but he's remarkably talented, so all things being equal, I can hang up my academic assistant boots.
Truthfully, I have considered taking up an academic pursuit of my own, but at the same time, I want to see how it goes for my husband and I to return to a state of 'just the two of us'. I don't know how long he will be well enough for us to share time out and about, so I don't want to compromise the next period of time with distraction. It's a hard choice because there's a big part of me that would like to get qualified and act as a therapist. Maybe two therapists in the family are one too many. Maybe it's my time to slide quietly into activities that provide me with joy.
When I think about this time, I imagine time carved out for pleasure. I keep banging on that we need to walk every day and now I can turn that into a reality. We can head out the door and, in any direction, we can walk to a coffee shop or a park or a supermarket. We can simply walk the neighbourhood and enjoy the many styles of architecture and beautiful gardens. We can walk to the club we both belong to, and that's on the agenda again too. A simple lunch or dinner, maybe a sauna or a swim; for me, an exercise class, or for him, some gym time.
Reduced tickets turned up in my inbox yesterday for our town's Symphony Orchestra, so I bought those and booked into the restaurant nearby for an early dinner. We've bought plane tickets for a holiday and started to book accommodation. We are getting into the spirit of this empty nesting, with blind faith that everything will be all right.
We have marked a day in our calendar when we return to the holiday house together and put it back together now that the painters have gone. Together, it won't be so overwhelming. In fact, it will be fun.
In two days, my eldest son arrives with his two sons and wife. Apart from a few hours at the beginning of his life I haven't seen little L and I am excited to hold him again. He's been an angel.
So, maybe, just maybe, we've paid our debts to the Gods of Fire and Fury, and we can enter a time of peace and quietude. Well, mostly, this world rumbles on, the Earth shakes, but seasons come and seasons go, just as they have always done, and maybe we have entered a season where we can take care of one another and find pleasure and purpose in one another's company. We have built a beautiful family together so now maybe we can rest a little on our laurels.
