Our daughter entered our life when I was 32 years old. I was in between gigs as a consultant (programmer/analyst) when we became pregnant. When our daughter was born, my thought of, “Sure, I can be the breadwinner,” dwindled into “Hmmm…I’m not sure I’m okay with that.
Thankfully, hubby (at the time) was on the same page.
I volunteered and worked a bit part-time in different roles throughout her childhood, but my main gig was with her.
Moving ahead some years, we experienced interesting educational challenges with our daughter (our only child). We have been the parents of a homeschooled student, a public school student, and a cyber schooled student (full and part-time cyber schooled). By early 2016, it had become apparent that considering to send our daughter to college multiple years early and more than a couple of states away was going to be an option we needed to consider.
Then, it happened. Someone said to me:
Oh my. My mind went on overdrive with negative thoughts.
Comments from others were primarily to the tune of, “Wow, you get it four years early, you are so lucky.”
I hadn’t considered the empty nest. I mean, I was so busy with the details of the process (college interview, tours, FAFSA, application, etc.) that I hadn’t thought about what the following year would look like for me. Plus, I would think, “She’s not leaving home permanently; she’ll be home in the summer and breaks-,”
You know how you say something out loud, and it hits you: as if someone just struck a gong near your noggin’?
Yeah, that was this for me. “Summer and breaks. Only summer and breaks. How long is the semester? Wait, how many weeks until we see her?”
And I was cut short of the prep time by four years, so I had to become okay with ALL of it real fast. I had to stop dodging the fact that our daughter wouldn’t be living with us, which automatically gave me access to the big things and the little things in her life.
Well, I had work to do.
I handle things pretty well on the outside, but inside I was a mess. I firmly believed that our daughter attending that particular school at that specific time was the right thing for her. Was it the right thing for me? I had to get to a place where I believed it to be the best thing for myself to allow me to become my own best friend, the best wife, and the best mother I can be.
So, I worked on it. I invested a lot of time and energy in being more than okay as I moved ahead. There were easier days and more challenging days – that is how life works, anyway. I now focus on leaning into the difficult days, rather than fighting them – in the beginning it was strange but now it has become empowering and has been life-changing (I’ve lost 35 40 45 50 pounds as a side note!), and, now, even when I fail (because I am human), the growth in my life is super-incredible.
The amazing part is that it all started with my thoughts.
It is now my passion to work with parents of high school students (and beyond) who are in the trenches with those empty nest emotions and are having a hard time with it all. You can absolutely lean into the next jaw-dropping amazing chapter of your life. Why not? Your life isn’t over. It is just beginning.
By the way, your empty nest years aren’t going to look like mine – they are all yours!
Take a listen to my podcast in your favorite podcast player: Your Empty Nest Coach!
Check out the 30-Day Challenge to Empty Nest Success for a bit more.
Group support offering has been archived. Current offerings are listed here: Empty Nest Help.
We moved twice as a family, navigated all four years of out of state college for daughter (now graduated), I lost weight, started taking better care of myself, started working full-time while building this business, turned 50-years-old (now 52!), hubby above is now ex-hubby, got a great new job, cranked out 190+ podcast episodes, attended my first podcasting conference, spoke at the next one, and just bought a manufactured home for me (and my daughter for as long as she needs to be there) to live in, changed my last name, podcast hit 100K+ downloads, and I'm having fun along my way to future-me.
Empty Nest Success doesn’t always look like over the moon happiness. Sometimes, it looks like accepting what is, processing emotions, and moving forward as peacefully as possible with little drama – and that feels amazing!
You are amazing 💚,
~ Christine