Remember that children’s book, ‘Are You My Mother’ by P.D. Eastman? It’s that one where the baby bird hatches only to find he is all alone, so he bravely leaps out of the nest, and sets off to find his mum. Published by Random House in 1960, it sat on our bookshelf with the ‘Cat in the Hat’ and ‘Yertle the Turtle’. Well, these days the shoe is firmly on the other foot, and the kids have left us, and I am booking flights to find them. And I have images of King Lear haunting my dreams…
Yet isn’t it perfectly normal for our kids to grow up and leave home? Isn’t that what they are suppose to do? It may have been a bit sooner than I was prepared for, but we had joked from Day One that we would be kicking them out at eighteen. As Third Culture Kids, leaving home probably means relocating to a different continent, which makes it a little more challenging – but at least they won’t be bringing their washing home at weekends. At a time when I am constantly reading about the “Boomerang Generation”— those young adults who keep coming home to live with their parents, or who simply never pack their bags – we are now busily, sadly, and a little reluctantly, adjusting our lives to the lack of teenagers in the house. Although they all staggered home for Christmas, which was fabulous, they all have their own lives now, scattered around the globe. And we are facing a new chapter, without struggling for possession of the car keys, fighting over who’s washing up, turning up our noses at smelly football kit, communicating in grunts, or demanding a toll of hugs and kisses as they pass through.
Yes, it’s true, both boys leaving at once was a little confronting. Emotional? Me? Well, OK, I did get a bit weepy. Strangely enough, it was worse in the anticipation of departure than after the event. Maybe I am shallow, but once the flight has departed, I tend to move forwards, admittedly limping a little, but nonetheless “onwards and upwards!”
The psychologists warn us that there is an ‘Empty Nest Syndrome:’ a feeling of grief and loneliness at the sight of a teenager’s empty bedroom that can lead to a loss of purpose for parents, even depression. And apparently I am in the ‘particularly prone’ category. Looking back over the past six months, there may be a smidgen of truth in that diagnosis. For a while I struggled to make decisions, to plan, to organize myself. I retreated into computer games and lived on Facebook. And yes, those empty rooms made me want to cry more often than I would have expected.
On the other hand, I am used to change. Eighteen moves in twenty five years, good grief, I am an expert. Aren’t I? And as I keep telling my friends, the boys are communicating more on Facebook than they ever did when they lived down the corridor – so don’t anyone criticize Facebook to me, husband dearest.
Yes, of course I miss them, but they have gone. And we are lurching about in an apartment that is way too big for us. So I have reached a decision. I am selling off the furniture, dumping a load of excess ‘stuff,’ and we are downsizing. It’s good for the soul, all this purging. It clears the detritus that has gathered over years, forces us to re-think our priorities, and makes us plan for a new era. Spring cleaning, past, present, future. The mad woman in me would like to reduce it down to the two backpacks we set out with in 1990, but that is probably unreasonable. And I find I am rather attached to some of the stuff, despite my best intentions. But emotionally I am now recharged, eager to move on and re-arrange. I am still on the internet at odd hours of the night – well, you try keeping three kids in three different time zones! – trying to sort out minor issues, book half term holidays, give advice about computers… but at least, as one friend remarked, there is always someone to talk to.
So I will not be a Bill Bryson, expecting those kids to come back a lot. They have flown. We will see them again and again, of course, but it is time for them all to test their wings, and go in search of their own dreams. It is quiet. And echoingly empty. And I can’t stop cooking for five. So we will continue to live on left-overs until I get the hang of it. But I am clearing out the book shelves and purging the picture books.
And let’s face it, we knew from the day they were born that we couldn’t keep them forever. ‘Better to have loved and lost’ and all that – although I suspect that Lord Tennyson wasn’t talking about our children.