Empty Nesting When the Nest Is Gone

Ever since my eldest, Jack, went to college in 2017, I often find myself missing him at the strangest moments. At first, I had his younger brother, Michael, to love and hold, but he also left for college in 2019 and that’s when the lack of their presence in my life really hit me. Out of the blue, I’ll tear up, wanting nothing more that to hold them. For both of them, it’s music that makes me long to be near them. My eldest played the violin for years and my younger son was a dancer in the school dance club. If I hear a piece I heard Jack play, or a song that Michael danced to, my eyes begin to mist. One day, as I drove to the property to meet the septic and erosion control crews for evaluations, it was “The Song of the Universal,” arranged by Ola Gjeilo, that did it to me. Jack performed this with his school orchestra his senior year. It’s a moving piece, one that made me cry even then. Of course I sobbed, longing for him. His father had driven him to college for his senior year the day the house burned. Neither of them got to say goodbye. But then again, even those of who were here when we were evacuated didn’t think we’d never be home again, so I didn’t say goodbye either as I fled into the smoky night. Instead, even as burning leaves fell from the sky, I thought I’d be home in a few days.

                Before the fire, when I longed for my college sons, I would go into their rooms to feel near them. In Jack’s case, I would take out his orange and black “bee” hoodie, an item I purchased for him in 8th grade after he’d lost his fifth jacket at school. It was bright and a bit ugly, which is why I bought it for him. I’d figured he’d always be able to find it in the lost and found. He wore it diligently until he left for college, at which point I stole it for myself. I’ve often held it in my arms the past few years, knowing that while he belongs in college, part of him will always be with me. In Michael’s case, I’d often lay on his bed, or sit at his desk and admire his Zelda figurines. I put photos of both boys as littles on the fridge and in my office. Remembering I once was a mother of young sons, and that while they’re now becoming men and we’re all making new memories, it’s okay to miss what we had back then.

                Since the fire though, it’s different. Now when I hear, “The Song of the Universal,” I have to let it wash through me. Instead of rushing into the office to find Jack’s hoodie, my house is a pile of ash and rubble. Instead of Michael’s figurines, there are broken shards of Christmas ornaments. I no longer have anything of theirs to hold. My home-for-now is devoid of their presence. I put a poster up in Jack’s “room” and I have the pair of shoes Michael left behind out so I can see them, but I don’t even have photos of them as littles to put up on the refrigerator. Instead, my nest is blowing away in the wind.

                Gives a whole new meaning to the term “empty-nested.”

                My sons often get homesick, who doesn’t? Yet now I’m also homesick.  I can’t imagine being them—their classes are online due to the pandemic, they lost their childhood home, the pressure on the campuses right now due to the election season, and their social lives measured into pods of those they can share air with and those they can’t. It’s a fucking crazy-assed-mixed-up world and Jack can’t even come back to California to see what’s happened for himself—fucking covid.

                What I want for my sons is for them to find satisfying work, friends who will stay near them even in a pandemic, and lovers who will see them as the beloved souls that they are. This pain I feel right now however, feels far from that, and I wonder, how can I create a space for them to return to this winter break? When I first became a mother, I knew how I didn’t want to parent them, but had no idea how I wanted to be instead. Early on I concluded that my job as a homemaker was to create a place where we could all retreat from the pressures of the world. A shelter from the storm. This meant decorating in meaningful way, taking into account their ages and needs, as well as preparing healthy food, but moreover it meant that my own needs were cared for so that I could be there for them. From meaningful work of my own, to regular massage, to alone time every day, I made sure that I was full so that I could understand the changing needs of the nest. Teens don’t need what little boys need. Shifting meant observing the changes they brought into my life and rising to the occasion.

                I’m going to be honest, I’m at a loss at how to rise to this moment. I won’t have a shelter of my own for three more years, my eldest will most likely be 24 before that happens. How do I build a new nest with that in mind? What do we owe our adult sons? Guest rooms? An ADU? Is this our retirement home we’re building? What about Michael? He definitely needs a room, though he’ll be a senior in college by the time we take our first meal back on the property. In the meantime, I’m nesting in rentals. What sort of “home-for-now” suits the needs of two young men visiting us during breaks from work and school?

                Fortunately for our sons, they each have apartments at college. Most of their stuff was actually there when the fire broke out. They’re building their own lives and it’s the right order of things for young adults to leave the nest and fly away. That’s the whole point of raising children. I’m the one who must let them go, but it’s hard when I’m also letting go of my own home. In a way, I’m like them, trying to setup my first apartment. Buying plates, clothes, dish racks, pots and pans, coffee makers; it’s exactly what they’re doing. We’re all starting from scratch.

                I’ve been here before.

                Identity is a funny thing. Who exactly am I? This is the deepest of all questions, one that has birthed more philosophical streams than I can keep count. I only know my own experience with the ever changing concept we call identity. As a girl in the 80’s, I was raised to be free of marriage and children and to have no need for a nest. Rather, I was groomed to take on the tech industry while driving my convertible Mustang from city to city, seeing the sites, with no need for anything except a large closet to store my fashion. When I found myself pregnant at 26, it was quite a shock to the psyche. There was no place in my identity for the work of a mother. When I quit my tech job after my second child was born, the shift from software engineering to all-day diaper changing was incredibly painful. I think a huge reason for my post-partum depression was this identity crisis. I didn’t know how to be in a story I’d never imagined. I wanted the dream life back. It would take time, but I finally came to a place where I could accept the life I’d been given and I embraced my role as homemaker as best I could.

                The nest is key to the homemaker and now mine is gone. What then to do with this identity I crafted to replace the identity of my youth? Fire has a way of burning through all sorts of layers and not just the physical. Left without a home, without any of my sons’ things to hold, I sometimes feel driftless. Once again, I find myself in a story I never imagined. In January of 2020, back in the age when we could still meet in public, I attended a friend’s workshop on vision planning. I’ve long believed in such practices, it’s good to look ahead and envision where we want to go in life. While doing the exercises I realized that I WAS living my ideal life. I had a beautiful home in nature, a husband I love even after twenty years of marriage, and my sons were launching into the world. I had an office of my own to write in, as well as a publisher and a small, but growing readership. Everything I’d put on my vision boards a few years ago had come to pass. During that workshop, I wondered aloud, what does one do next once they’ve “made it?”

                Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

                A mere two months later, my empty nest was full again as covid thrust my sons back unto my care. I did what I could to create a place that was safe for them, both from the virus but also the mental anguish each was experiencing as they were ripped from the lives they were building for themselves and sent back home to Mom and Dad’s. The nest became even more important as the pandemic continued and school was basically cancelled. I will admit, the family time was nice, but we were glad that each of them had apartments at school so that they could return in the fall. Ironic then that as the eldest unpacked his bags in Portland, our nest in California burned, and now we’re all shopping for dishes and outfitting apartments.

                It dawns on me that all my vision boards also perished in the fire. Who then, am I?

                I don’t know and maybe I don’t need to know. Perhaps that’s the gift of the flame—it burns away everything that isn’t real, leaving behind only that which the eye can’t see. I learned in my thirties that my identity wasn’t what made life happen, it was the work of life that created the story. The work of raising sons, of taking care of myself, of trying new jobs, of changing as events change around me. I threw out the oars long ago and have been drifting down the river of life ever since, sometimes making progress, sometimes going over the rapids, sometimes stuck in an eddy. I hurt right now. I hurt very much. I long for Jack’s bee coat, or to take a nap with my cat, Sebastian, in Michael’s bed. But I can’t, for all of it, including Sebastian, is gone.

                Many of my friends who’ve also lost their homes agree there’s something freeing to having less possessions. We’re all resisting the urge to fill our closets. In the same way, I’m resisting the urge to take on a new identity. It’s possible to let the wildfire victim mentality take over, or perhaps to throw my whole essence into rebuilding. But I don’t want to fill up my psyche. There’s no need to rush to create a new vision board for this story I now find myself in. I’m still a homemaker, just one without a home to tend. It turns out, home isn’t where the heart is. It’s not even where you lay your head at night. Home is something else—more etherial and mystifying than a structure or even a family unit. Home is the answer to “who am I?”

                I used to think I was the one who dreams, but now I believe I am the one who watches the dreams unfold.