Less than 48 hours ago my husband and I said good-bye to our youngest daughter on a bustling street on the campus of Brown University in Rhode Island. We hugged and kissed, shed a tear or two and headed west. Watching her in my rear view mirror I saw her skip away in search of her freshman friend.
And, just like that, my nest emptied.
Nothing could have prepared me for that moment. Of course I knew that it was coming. Over the summer I had tried to picture my husband and I having dinners alone. I thought about the quiet that would pervade the house. However, I purposefully tried not to talk about it with others or to search the web about how the empty nest might feel.
You see, I want to experience this shift my way. I don’t want advice nor do I want to know when this feeling of rawness and newness will pass.
I want to feel empty.
Right now I don’t want to fill my schedule with a new hobby or sign up for a new on-line course. I don’t want to work more or socialize more.
I want to feel empty.
The Buddhists teach us that emptiness is the gateway to discovering everything. In experiencing nothingness I may just become intimate with the immensity of my existence. In nothing I may just experience everything.
I have been given a tremendous gift this week but it won’t necessarily last. As I sit in this tender transition, my life as I knew it has ended, my role as mother is redefined and my new relationship with life has yet to reveal itself.
I feel empty. I feel nothing. I feel everything.
