Empty Nest Syndrome aka Who the Hell Am I?

When I was a teenager, it wasn't unusual to find me watching a show called 'Empty Nest.' Yes, I know, strange show for a teenager to watch, but I have never been a person one would consider "normal." Watching this show left me unprepared for the real deal. The words Empty Nest Syndrome (ENS) are quite frankly a mockery of what really happens when one's child or children flees the coop. 

I fully expected to be at a loss for what to do with myself, but I also imagined that I would continue to have a close relationship with my child, the way I had for the past 18 years. But oh, no. That is not how life works. Get used to it, accept it, embrace it. As anyone with a teenage daughter knows, they are completely unpredictable, cunning, smart, and sometimes they bite. Just like my daughter's cat Tinker, who happens to be male. To make it perfectly clear, (to use a too often used politician's preface to any statement they make, true or false,) I am so incredibly screwed.

Anyone who has started or finished the process of Empty Nest Syndrome knows that this is a personal and unique experience for every single person. It is not an experience that can be replicated, reproduced, experienced verbatim by another. Some mothers have it easier than others because somehow, some way, they were incredibly successful in the raising of their child. I bow to those mothers. Other mothers, like me, have a hell of time, and I am quite ready to acknowledge that it could be worse and that other mothers have it way worse than I ever will. But right now, in the thick of it, this is pure and total hell. 

I love my daughter more than my life, but right now, I don't know who the heck she is. And worse, I don't know who I am. This is what I did not expect - to not have a clue who I am or who she is. In that respect, I owe my daughter a small snippet of gratitude for forcing me to tackle this question. Who am I? What do I want? What do I want to be when I grow up? Holy shit, this is overwhelming, scary, and quite frankly, I sometimes revert to the five year old I was never allowed to be and throw the proverbial tantrum screaming the words "but I don't wannnnnna and you CAN'T make meeeeeeee!!!!!" in the most whiny and pathetic voice you could possibly begin to imagine. (Even when I allow myself this indulgence, I also revert back to remembering the look my father would throw towards the paddle collection, which consisted of remanned cutting boards, and broken paddle ball toys, should I have an outburst of this sort, and I have to admit that this somehow snaps me out of it.) 

But then I magically grow up (or maybe it's just the memory of broken paddle ball toys) and remind myself that I have to. That's just one of the crappy parts of being a 38 year old woman. It's time to put on the granny panties.

The first couple months of my forced solitude (which for the record, I am more inclined to be a hermit than a social butterfly) were incredibly strange, depressing, a roller coaster of emotions I never expected. On the one hand I looked forward to having the house all to myself. I was thinking "party time, excellent! (insert Wayne's World followup of dennannnananan!) But on the other hand I looked forward to the daily conversations I would have with my daughter, hearing all about how she was maneuvering through what was now the beginning of the adult portion of her life. Application DENIED. In big, bold, red, military like letters. D E N I E D.  I didn't know what to do with this. I didn't know how to react. I didn't know how to act. And sometimes, my not knowing how to act made everything that much worse because I acted badly.

For the past 18 years, she had been my sole focus, my reason for living, the person I lived through vicariously because she was always in so many ways, who I always wanted to be. I admired my daughter. In retrospect, my goodness did I put pressure on her. It wasn't until I read a book called 'Atlas Shrugged' that I started to see some of what was wrong in my relationship with my daughter, albeit not everything that was wrong with my relationship with my daughter, but it was a statement that forced me to accept responsibility for my actions and it was a statement that began to define the rest of my life:

I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor will I ask another man to live for the sake of mine.

Powerful and profound. It was time to figure out who I am. 

At this point, I am sure you are excited. You are believing that I have figured it out, that I am going to tell you what I have found ala Eat, Pray, Love. No such luck. Still in Capt. Kirk mode to be quite truthful. I'm still searching through the myriad of galaxies of the human experience. I'm still living in a world of semi-denial that I will figure it out in no time. This is not the case. This is a journey. A really long and hard journey. 

So, to all the moms out there who have yet to come close to the ENS portion of their lives, here is my one and only piece of wisdom: don't lose yourself. Because when you do, you don't only find yourself wandering through a maze with nothing but your child's cat, you discover that losing yourself is precisely why you don't have the relationship with the child that you had always envisioned.