{"id":1595,"date":"2017-05-08T07:20:54","date_gmt":"2017-05-08T11:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=1595"},"modified":"2017-05-08T13:22:15","modified_gmt":"2017-05-08T17:22:15","slug":"empty-nest-mothers-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/empty-nest-mothers-day\/","title":{"rendered":"An Empty Nest on Mothers Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Robin<\/em>It\u2019s when they buy a mattress, \u201cSealy Posturepedic, Mom. And a frame, and I got sheets….\u201d That\u2019s when you know: they\u2019re really leaving home this time.<\/p>\n

The sob-fest starts. It almost feels like grieving again although this is good news. For him. He\u2019s so excited, \u201cMom, I leave Tuesday.\u201d I\u2019m happy for him, and very proud, but my heart is a cracked egg.<\/p>\n

When he next lands in town, he\u2019ll only be visiting and it\u2019ll be on a round-trip ticket with a predetermined disappearing-date. It won\u2019t be some temporary flight of adventure where, with maybe an hour\u2019s notice he\u2019s gone who-knows-where, and suddenly sometime later \u2013 surprise phone call in the middle of the night, \u201cMom, you locked the door. I\u2019m here, can you let me in,\u201d he\u2019s found his way home, his mission ended or the money ran out. No, from now on when it\u2019s time to go home he\u2019ll scurry towards his own place, far away, where he\u2019s parked his own mattress that he bought himself with 12-month zero-percent in-store financing and free delivery. Where beer cans and pizza boxes grow in the kitchen corner because he hasn\u2019t figured out yet that someone has to remove and recycle them periodically. Where he thinks, at last he\u2019s gonna get a pet pit bull.<\/p>\n

No more of those soaring times when I cancel out on girls\u2019 movie night, \u201csorry, my son\u2019s grilling steaks tonight.\u201d No more finally falling fast asleep after I hear him slip into the house safely at 2AM. And the exquisite elation of being needed, \u201cMom, I locked my key in the car,\u201d or \u201cMom, is there anything in the house to eat?\u201d No more. It didn\u2019t matter how early or late or inconvenient, I will miss those times.<\/p>\n

Okay. Big breath. Get centered. It\u2019s not like he\u2019s going to Syria. He got a job. Everyone with kids eventually goes through this. Empty-nest syndrome. It\u2019s just a little harder for me, maybe, having \u201clost\u201d one.<\/p>\n

If I\u2019m lucky, I\u2019ll get an occasional phone call. But I don\u2019t remember calling my own mother when I left home. Not until I became a mother myself did I even consider she might be anything other than thrilled when the house emptied out. And Mom always said, \u201cYou should have one just like you.\u201d Sigh.<\/p>\n

He left for his new home before he could eat the pear I\u2019d saved for him, nursed for days to perfect ripeness. Seeing that prized pear sitting alone, uneaten, triggered a major meltdown. And when I finally stopped sobbing, there was nothing to be done but devour the pear myself. And phone my mother.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Please remind me, what’s so wonderful about Mothers Day?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s when they buy a mattress, “Sealy Posturepedic, Mom. And a frame, and I got sheets….” That’s when you know: they’re really leaving home this time. The sob-fest starts. It almost feels like grieving again although this is good news. For him. He’s so excited, “Mom, I leave Tuesday.” I’m happy for him, and very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1062],"tags":[1063,314,1194,1192,1195,1191,1190,1193],"class_list":["post-1595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1062","tag-empty-nest-syndrome","tag-grieving","tag-leaving-home","tag-loving-my-son","tag-missing-my-grown-son","tag-mothers-day","tag-my-son-is-moving-out","tag-phone-home"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}