One Cup, One Plate and One Fork

When children leave the nest.

 

The house has grown quiet. It has doubled in size and I wonder if all parents feel this empty when their children are grown. My beautiful children have gone out into the world to make it their own – and how could I have not seen this coming? Before, I thought living alone would make the walls close in. Now I ramble around like an Alzheimer patient in a vacant gymnasium. I close all the doors. I open the windows. I close them again.

The spare room door stays shut (It's energy-efficient, I tell myself). When I have to go in there, I turn my head from the Science Award plaque and Mother's Day candle holders while dragging the vacuum cleaner out. I stop and look anyhow. It's been a long stretch between holidays. I stare into graduation pictures, framed only yesterday and consider rewashing bedding that no one has slept in, or dusting the bookshelf that no one has looked over, then mentally note the number of days or weeks before I'll see them again…

It's a time of weekend bliss when the house is filled up. Everything is smaller again. Bags are unpacked. Pillows are fluffed. There aren't enough chairs. Hugs are renewed and time will stand still for one happy, brief moment. Smells of rib-sticking comfort food fill the family kitchen and uproars of laughter bounce off of picture-framed walls. I savor the closeness and take snapshots in my mind to save up for later, for it will be over too soon. It's always over too soon and there are hugs and kisses goodbye and I'll watch them drive away. The lights will dim and evaporate into the night and lingering phantoms of laughter will drift into the steady ticking of the seashell clock on the living room wall. I'll close the front door and lock it up tight and pay heed to the quiet hum of the refrigerator motor, and the steady plop from the bathtub spigot will echo louder than before. I'll stare into the mirror and wonder why I never thought…

Have I placed such importance on family I have no peace without it? Have I forgotten about myself? I'm being selfish, I know... Would I feel differently if I had a significant other? Will he still be there when I'm finally ready? Or, even more horrifying – Am I becoming my mother? (God forbid!) I'm thinking too much… what is it I must change? What must I not?

Again I push away these scrambling thoughts, impossible to answer, improbable to sort, and sink into homework and literature and download more music, more Clapton on the MP3. I unplug the phone. I start up the treadmill. I walk an extra mile, write an extra hour, and turn my back from the sink that will hold only one cup, one plate and one fork on the days when my children are gone. I lay in bed in the dark, wide awake and I pray and listen to cars and trucks pass by from my small bedroom window. The sun begins to rise and though my mind is still questioning, wondering, analyzing, shouting –

Physical exhaustion will drape lovingly, mercifully around my shoulders until I am able to dream again.

Reviews

[lrigD]

Nice, very descriptive and quite sad, too. This is something I often think about myself (me being the child, not the mother) and I can imagine it happening like this, my parents feeling like you've described...