Empty Nest Syndrome, a Mother Daughter Journey

Little birds fly the coop every August and September in our country. It’s a normal part of life having your children leave. That’s our job as parents, to help our kids become the best adults possible.

From the day a child is born, they are leaving you. At first, it seems impossible that the helpless little life that you are holding in your arms will some day become her own person. This child, who grew inside of your womb, who began as a butterfly flutter and ended her stay practicing field goals with your bladder. Finally, the interminable nine months are over and the long and seemingly endless days and nights of feedings and diapers begin. You bemoan your lost figure, your lost sleep, your lost sense of identity as you become tethered to this new being who is completely and utterly dependent upon you. You forget that you were once a sexy woman who flirted in bars, instead you become intimate with the breast pump so that for one night, you can remember what it was like to be an adult and have adult conversations. You barely get into REM sleep when the alarm that is a screaming, hungry child goes off at a piercing level. When you do finally sleep and have the rare luxury of a dream, they don’t bring peace, instead you dream of giant breasts chasing you through a forest of diapers and angry babies.

Then one day, it really clicks. Past the fatigue and fears and uncertainty at your competency as a parent, you look down at the sleeping bundle and fall hopelessly, deeply in love. Sure, you felt the slight tug when you first held your child in the sterile hospital room. Yes, you were thrilled to introduce this new being to her home. But as a new parent, the terror kept the deeper emotions at bay. Until, the routine becomes just that and you realize that you have never in your life felt as deeply for another being as you do with this child. No childhood crush, no first love, not even the emotions you feel for your husband will match the fierceness of a mother’s love for her child.

And so, you fight past the exhaustion, the demands on your time, the loss of personal identity to happily become this little miniature person’s slave. And than one day, the child is no longer helpless, those endless nights of midnight feedings are gone and a whole person emerges from this miracle. Her wise eyes miss nothing as she devours the sights and sounds around her. She begins to sit up, to mimic you, to attempt small words, to crawl and than to take little tentative steps. Than, watch out, this person is on the move and from this moment on, you will try to keep up but will always be one slight step behind.

Your days will become a blur of bedtime stories, visits to the zoo, walks in the park, exploring hidden treasures that you have seen a thousand times but never through the eyes of a child. You will think every sniffle is pneumonia, every fall is a broken a bone, every tear is the end of the world. And when preschool begins all too soon, you will think your child is the brightest in the classroom and the most amazing talent on stage. All too soon, elementary school rolls into high school. You have mere moments to catch your breath between soccer and school plays, between band concerts and sleepovers, between best friends forever and I’ll never speak to her again, between I’ll never find a date and the first love.

Then before you know it, you are standing at the front of the auditorium, camera in hand, taking pictures of all these children who wove themselves into the fabric of your life. Then, there she is, your own baby in her blue cap and gown with the gold trim walking on stage and everyone else fades away as you look at this tall beauty who only yesterday took her first steps. And you realize that this is the moment that you have been walking towards together and your eyes brim with tears of joy at what you have helped to create and misery that the journey was too short and she doesn’t need to hold your hand anymore.

Thankfully, those tears are short lived as a strange phenomena occurs. Your brilliant, beautiful child is replaced by a creature from another planet. You check under her bed at night looking for the pod that has insinuated itself into your daughter’s body. This wonderful, loving person becomes moody and disrespectful. Although you had your share of tiffs with your teenager, she now decides that indeed, you must be the most stupid human on this planet and it is only through her grace that you are allowed to live. Every word that comes out of your mouth becomes an opportunity to argue. A simple speculation on the weather turns into a discourse on cloud dispersement and wind speed. A question regarding the latest artist on the radio leads to defensiveness regarding musical tastes. A plea to call when the child arrives safely at a friend’s house inevitably leads to an exaggerated sigh and the rolling of the eyes followed by incomprehensible mumbling that you are sure you don’t want to comprehend.

And soon, a miracle occurs. A small part of you begins to wish for the journey to the end of August to speed up. You start to fantasize about having a quiet house. One where the peaches you bought yesterday are still in the fridge for you to eat today. One where you can listen to NPR without competing with the latest rap music in the closed bedroom. One where you can safely say a sentence or even a whole paragraph without being challenged. And then the day arrives when you help her pack her clothes and load up the vehicle for the road trip to college. And you find that you are a bit giddy with the thought that you’ll be coming back to that quiet and clean house and for one golden moment, you think you may just survive this new twist that life is throwing at you.

The trip begins like an adventure. The two of you are doing well, stopping to visit roadside attractions, eating in chains and sleeping in cheap motels. You are on a great quest and you remember how deeply you love this child of yours, this now young woman sitting at your side, singing to the radio, wind whipping through her golden hair, excited about the new life she is going to greet with open arms. You are on your best behavior and vow not to let your buttons be pushed. Secretly, you fear that just one more argument will push her farther away and she will embrace her college experience with barely a glance in your direction as you drive away home, giving you not a second thought until the need for money arises

At last, the girl bonding trip ends, argument free save for a small tiff when you take a wrong turn and get the two of you stuck in rush hour traffic for three hours. The college looms large in front of you and you get swept up in the excitement of new students arriving from every corner of the world. You feel a small pang of regret that you will be going back to your routine while your child’s future is a mystery waiting to be discovered in the vast libraries and classrooms of the stately university before you. After getting her settled into the dorm room, meeting her roommates and their parents, attending the obligatory parent’s seminars quietly urging you to go home, you take her out for your last supper together as the family that you were. You hope for sentimentality, you secretly search for a glimpse of unshed tears in her brown eyes. You are greeted instead with restlessness, loud sighs at your last minute bits of motherly concern and wisdom and those beautiful brown eyes are looking at every passing student, not at you. It is at that moment that you realize that your job is done and that it is now life’s turn to nurture and teach this person. And so, you get in your car, feeling as though someone has died as you drive back down the long and lonely highway home.

It has now been four months since I dropped my daughter off at Yale. The fears that I had were short lived. The first week of school I didn’t hear from at all. I stubbornly waited for her to call me first. Childish, I know, but also necessary. I didn’t want her to feel that I was a helicopter mom, even though I admit that I have been just that somewhat. We speak several times a week, sometimes everyday. She will call her father and I with big news or big disappointments, but also just to say that she loves us and to hear our reassuring voices. School has proven to be more difficult than she imagined. Balancing her new freedoms, a checkbook and homework have at times been overwhelming, but she knows that we are her safety net.

She is home for Christmas for three weeks and I am overjoyed by this new person that she is becoming. There have been a few moments of tension, that is the nature of us mothers and daughters. Mostly, however, it has been an incredible joy and I am squeezing everything I can out of this stay. Soon, she will be going back for her second semester. The nature of time continues to fascinate me. It seemed to crawl by right after she left, but now that I look back, it flew. She loves her new life and embraces it with the same awe that she had when she was discovering the world as a toddler. I myself have found it challenging to adjust to in many ways. It is a real tragedy that this time period generally coincides with the beginnings of gray hair and crows feet. I am restless and trying to fill the time that was taken up with raising a child. I work and my job is very fulfilling and busy but there is an emptiness never-the-less. With that said, I do admit that I enjoy my space, the clean house, the full refrigerator. I am finding time for myself, doing more with my friends and getting to know my husband again. And I understand that we are a family and always will be. The nature of my relationship with my daughter may mature, but fundamentally it will remain the same. She knows that no matter how old she is, I will always be her mommy and she will always be my little fluttering butterfly.