EMPTYNESS-T

I can't tell you how many times I've sat here looking out my front window.  Thinking.  This is where my laptop stays---for the most part.  Since I rarely take it with me anywhere, it sits in my study and, by such placement, offers me a vantage point to the street outside. 

It's a great view, but nothing ever happens on this cul-de-sac.  The only cars coming down the street are the neighbors or the odd delivery vehicle.  Just to my east is a guy who works from home so the FedEx van visits there quite often.  There is an older couple that lives up the hill on the end.  Next to them is a retired single man with his dog who faithfully accompanies him on long daily walks.  I see them sometimes half-way to town.  He has a lot of time on his hands and the dog seems to love it.  To my left is a couple, kind of like us, with one child grown and out of the house and one still in school.  The single lady who moved in across the street has a twelve-year-old son who plays the saxophone and rides his motorcycle all around their adjoining pond, woods and two acre lot.  I seem to know my neighbors well enough, but like I said before, nothing ever happens on this cul-de-sac.  Not anymore.

Perhaps the gloom creeps in mostly when I think about the hot bed of activity our house was when the girls were still at home.  There was always band, choir, softball, soccer, church and school projects to keep us hopping.  I say "us" because parents play a strong role in all of these if you haven't heard.  We've lived so vicariously through our kids that by the time they are out on their own, we don't know how to live our own lives once again.  Things slow way down and the house seems very empty. 

Maybe that's it.  That's the culprit that won't come out of hiding and be identified.  Empty nest is a condition that deceptively hangs around longer than you first thought.  One, maybe two years and I'll have this thing licked, you say.  Then suddenly, out of nowhere, you hear laughter from a neighbor kid down the block and this happy sound echoes more vacantly than it should.  That is when you know for the hundredth time that your tiny window has passed.  That is when fears of irrelevance steal in.

It takes courage and strong will to let go of such thoughts and shape instead a future built on reality and hope.  The time is now and what is past is confidently sealed up in the trust that you raised them right and now they are soaring on into adulthood.  If you are a parent and not quite here yet, make the most of what is in front of you now.  If you are a parent and nodding your head with everything I have said---strong will and courage to us all.