Twenty years ago, I was pregnant with my first born child. We were living in the lower level apartment in the house of our dear friends and looking to purchase a home of our own. We were dreaming about what our future would hold. Four years later, we had grown from family of two to a family of six, with children spanning ages newborn to 17 years old. Sixteen years ago, we were in the thick of parenting a foster teen, two pre-schoolers and an infant. We had just begun pre-school co-op. Life was busy, chaotic, and hard.
First home (Nov 1998), Caleb (Jan 1999), Abigail (April 2000), Sean (September 2000), Joel (September 2002)
In these past 20 years, we have launched (or mostly launched) our oldest three children into the world, and we have just our 16 year old living home. This month he will obtain coveted driver’s permit, takes the PSAT, and go on his first college tour. Car ride conversations are different than they used to be, lacking the veggie tales soundtrack in the background. We talk about careers and colleges and how to file taxes. Diner time is recounting school discussions on the literature of the middle ages and what crazy thing happened during house period.
Legal adoption (October 2008)
Three years from now, I will begin the school year as an empty nester. My youngest child’s final years of high school as he is planning for his post high school life is also our countdown towards ending our active parenting years. It is incredibly difficult to wrap my brain around that thought.
I had wanted to have my kids close together so they could play with one another, (Yes, I know bringing a teen into the mix didn’t exactly mean our kids were close in age.) I wanted to go through the stages once and then move on to the next phase. There is beauty in that, but it also meant that we would launch our kids at a pretty rapid rate. Had our youngest been born a week earlier, we would be one year closer to his launch. (My heart and my bank account are both thankful for that very difficult final week of pregnancy that actually bought me this extra time.)
Day to day life this year is vastly different. I am still trying to figure out how to cook for only three mouths. The calendar feels naked without the sports, scouts, and work schedules cluttering the boxes. Jay and I are rarely tag-teaming in order to get multiple kids to multiple events. Date nights include discussions about retirement planning and re-writing our will. We talk about the aches and pains of our aging bodies and how to eat better to stay healthy longer. The unoccupied bedrooms are clean.
Twenty years later, now we are dreaming and planning for a life without children in our home. What will the next twenty plus years look like? Will it include travel, babysitting grandchildren, volunteer work? Will we dine out more? Will the house finally be clean?
I have loved and still do love this beautiful messy life of raising my children into their adult lives. It has been a humbling privilege. I will miss some of the excitement and energy my children have brought into my life. I know summers with an empty nest will be particularly hard. But I have enjoyed virtually every stage of life that I have lived through until now, so I know I can anticipating this stage as well.
