Turn the Page
Our youngest leaves for boot camp this week. We - both my wife and I - have come to terms with his decision. We support him. We love him. Unconditionally. As I’ve written before - this will be good for him. He’s charting his own path.
The reality of his pending deadline, his orders to report for basic training, have suddenly hit home for him and for each of us.
On Sunday afternoon, we’ll drive him to the local recruiting station, and they’ll take him to the military processing station, where they’ll put him up at a nearby hotel for the night. We’ll pick him up there, and take him to his sister’s apartment - where we’ll eat Sunday dinner together as a family, one more time. Dani’s making sauce and meatballs - it’s our family’s dish, a hallmark for holidays, birthdays, and those momentous occasions like sending your son and brother off to become a Marine.
After dinner, we’ll take him back to the hotel where he has to report by 2000 hours.
The next day, Dani and I will see him briefly one more time when he hands us the clothes he wore the day before. Then he’ll board a plane. When people ask where he’s going, I’ve taken to responding with “Hilton Head.” It makes it sound so relaxing and chill. Of course, when you think about spending three months in Hilton Head in the dead of summer, even that loses its sense of relaxation and chill.
Our next contact with him maybe that Monday night when he makes a hurried phone call to read the official USMC script that he has arrived safely at Parris Island. He may not be able to make that phone call, what with nerves being shot, his mind and body disoriented, and a team of drill instructors screaming at him and his newly formed company. He may not be able to dial the numbers, recite the script, or even get a turn on the phone.
Dani and I have both accepted that.
After that, and until he graduates in October, it will be letters - and even those will be delayed until we learn his address two weeks from now. His phone and his few personal effects (the clothes on his back when he arrives at boot camp) will go in a lock box in storage. That will force our communication to a whole new level - a whole new page.
One of our last blow-ups, between Joe and me, was about communication. Looking back at all of our arguments - they were all about communication. While I’m not a relationship expert by any means, I do understand that communication is the leading reason for arguing, yelling, and relationship failure. Mark Manson, the author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k, writes: “The argument is rarely about the argument. It’s usually about the identity of the person speaking - their values, their hopes, and their fears. It’s usually about a scared person - each one of us - straining to tether together the world in some coherent way that we feel we can manage and absorb.”
Writing letters will afford us each the opportunity to work on how we present ourselves and our values, and to work on how we receive the other person and his values. It will afford us the opportunity to strengthen what tethers us.
Sending your kid off to boot camp is absolutely nothing like sending your kid off to college. With college, there are minivans packed with essentials, non-essentials, and maybe-I’ll-need-this-on-some-random-day-essentials. There are middle-aged dads in our ubiquitous cargo shorts circling packed university streets looking for a good parking spot, while moms scour Target for last-minute forgotten items and rearrange the university-provided furniture with the IKEA-inspired storage solutions they brought from home. Parents schlepping clothes and knickknacks and other assorted belongings, while kids nervously begin forming acquaintances and friendships and cliques. Families walk campuses, mapping out class schedules and searching for the nearest and best fast food. And then last hugs in the parking lot before mom and dad drive away, and the kid goes to a party that night.
Three years ago, when we dropped our eldest daughter off at college, we were able to call and check in with her. And three weeks into that first semester, when the novelty of being away from home barely was tarnished, and she contracted Covid and the university moved her into a temporary isolation dorm, we were at least able to connect with her through the magic of Facetime, see her eyes, hear her voice, receive proof-of-life that she was okay and I didn’t need to drive down that night and sit outside in the parking lot.
Sending your kid off to boot camp is nothing like that. We’ll have to trust that until we can get our letters to him, he’ll carry in his heart that we support him and that we know that he can and will meet the challenges in front of him. We have to trust that he knows that we would do anything to ease his struggle - but we respect that he has to do this on his own because this is his path. We have to trust that he knows that we love him.
Both of our daughters live on their own - one downtown, the other over two hours away. They have jobs and internships and friends and lives away from us. They’re navigating adult decisions and adult issues - like a car breaking down on a random Tuesday, or a maintenance item that costs significant money to have the leasing company address or a few dollars and some elbow grease to fix yourself. They’re dealing with friends and bosses and college schedules pulling on their attention. They’re learning from their struggles and celebrating the wins.
They’re on their own paths. We love them, and we want to ease their struggles, but they have to do things on their own.
So, now Dani and I are on our own path. We've been on this path for over twenty years. We’re just continuing on.
It’s exciting, and a little nerve-wracking, to know that now we’re empty-nesters. We’re not nervous about the time with each other - we like each other. We’re not nervous about the time with ourselves - we’ve got goals and dreams and miles to go in our own journeys.
Dani and I feel good about where we are, who we are, and how we’re developing as two individuals in a committed relationship. We share values and interests. We know that our partnership takes work, desire, and communication. We’re going to do what we have been doing for the past twenty-plus years: talking with each other, sharing our hopes and dreams and goals, communicating and growing together. We’re going to continue to date each other.
Ray Dalio, the founder of the hedge fund Bridgewater, penned a blog post on the arc of our life journey. It’s a powerfully reflective piece wherein Dalio adroitly states: “While you can’t change the phase you are in, you can know where you and the people you care about are and where you all are headed, and you can plan for it and adapt to it well.”
There are no classes on empty-nesting, no sessions at the local Y, no mid-wives or doulas in hospital conference rooms teaching Sunday evening classes to soon-to-be-empty-nesters on the how-to’s. There are no books titled What to Expect When You’re Expecting (To Be an Empty-Nester).
Entering this phase of our lives, we’re not nervous for ourselves or our relationship with each other. We’re anxious for each of our kids - that they remain tethered (not tied, not chained, and certainly not glued) to us and each other.
Tethered implies out-on-their-own, but still connected to, in a meaningful way, something resolute. An astronaut conducting a space-walk tethers to the space shuttle; a boat is tethered to a dock so as not to float away; a rider tethers her horse to a rail. That’s what we want for our relationships with each of our kids, that they conduct their own space-walks, but remain tethered to us and each other. Don’t untether. Don’t undo the moorings and straps and float away. Stay connected - meaningfully.
My fear is that they’ll leave us alone, that they’ll leave each other alone, and that they’ll go their separate ways and their paths will never meaningfully intersect again. My fear is that we’ll realize the fate John Prine sang of in Hello in There: “Well, it's been years since the kids have grown / A life of their own, left us alone.”
But fear is a horrible reaction. The opposite, and better course would be with conscious, choice-centered pro-action; where, fate permitting, goals are achieved, intentions are fulfilled, and a well-crafted life transpires. The wise sage Yoda noted that: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
We’re choosing not to suffer, but to actively work to maintain the bonds, ties, and tethers we have built and maintained as a family. “Sunlight comes into your home not because you want it. It happens because you open windows” teaches the yogi Sadhguru. We’re choosing to actively open the windows and let the sunlight in and maintain what tethers us as a family. We’re choosing to support their individual paths, while also encouraging their connections with us and with each other.
The image of a bird flying the nest really is apropos for this time in our collective lives. They have to fly - on their own. They have to go out - on their own. They have to try and fail and succeed on their own. That’s good for them. That’s good for us. That’s how we continue to evolve and grow and develop.
Marcus Aurelius chided himself in his Meditations (5.1) that he was made to do things: “Were you then made for pleasure? In short, to be coddled or to exert yourself?” So it is for ourselves and for our kids - we don’t want them to be coddled, we want them to exert themselves. We want them to meet their struggles and become stronger. We want them to walk their own paths.
That’s what and why we were invested in all those Saturday morning soccer games and Wednesday afterschool piano lessons and Thursday tutoring sessions, and running here and there and everywhere in between. We want them to go out, on their own, and do good things.
But we also want them to remain connected. Just as they have a choice to walk their own paths and to meet their own struggles, they also have a choice to stay tethered to us and one another. Despite any protestations and desires, the choice to remain tethered is as much theirs as it is ours. They will remain tethered because it gives them a sense of being, of belonging, of self.
In the aforementioned “last blow-up” between Joe and me, he lashed out that he wasn’t moving back here ever. And that set me off - his tone, his ingratitude, his comeuppance. We verbally tore at each other and then silently sulked to our separate corners. What I missed in that moment, was that I provoked him. I had started the conversation by stating that I would be renovating the room that has been his bedroom for the past seventeen years, purging it and stripping it down, re-painting and re-arranging it.
I unwittingly provoked that “last blow-up” by suggesting that I am going to un-tether from him.
Far cry!
Yes, we’re re-doing that bedroom, mainly because he hasn’t cleaned it in at least four years, and God only knows what else may be living in there. But we’re re-doing each of the rooms that they’ve had as bedrooms because it is a new era for all of us. We want our house - wherever that may be - to be our collective home, a home for all of us to return to and be connected to and find solace, comfort, and support with the people there.
Dani and I have no clearer idea of where we may be living in the next five, ten, or twenty years than each of our kids has for themselves. None of us: Dani and I, Grace, Frankie, Joe - none of us have any idea what fate holds for us individually. But all of us can rest assured that wherever one of us, all of us are welcome, all of us have a home, and all of us are connected.
We’ve already affirmed, for him and for each of our daughters, that if he can’t get home for Christmas, then we’ll go to him. And if that can’t happen, then we’ll find the next best thing. We will do the same thing for each of them if that comes to pass.
In this new era of our empty nest - each time we reconnect as a family will be an opportunity to celebrate our own version of the prodigal son’s return. We are each on our own journeys in our own versions of the wilderness, and our return, our re-connection, will be a re-affirmation of the ties that bind us together, the comfort of understanding, the solace of support.
Wherever we are, whenever we gather, we will kill the fattened calf, we will laugh, and if warranted, we will cry. And we will be, simply be, with each other.
In his book 10% Happier, Dan Harris writes: “With one foot in the future and one foot in the past, you’re pissing on the present moment.” It is vital to be present in every moment, every season, every arc of our lives - to be mindful and respectful and supportive of each other’s unique path. We don’t want to straddle the moments but be immersed in the moments.
We had a send-off party for Joe this weekend. It was cool to see the co-mingling of extended family, our friends, and each of our kids’ friends. Joe came to Dani and me during the party, when we were alone in the kitchen, and hugged us - with true feeling - and thanked us. He stuttered as he approached me as if he meant to extend his hand and shake mine (instead of hugging me), or maybe that happened the other way, and I was the one who stuttered. Either way, I’m glad we hugged, and I’m glad he recognized our appreciation for him, and I love him.
That night there was laughter and music and storytelling, and games (and other activities) that went on until the early morning. The following day, the house and the neighborhood were resoundingly quiet. We were sitting under the rented party tent, the dogs napping at our feet. We were reminiscing about earlier times in our house. One of us had to leave early to run an errand, and there was a noticeable hole in the fabric of our collective being. There were no kids out. But there haven’t been kids out in our neighborhood for some time now. They’re all about the same age as our kids - all going on their own paths.
For years, each backyard rebounded with the cacophony of kids running from house to house, pool to pool, game to game. There were popsicle wrappers, towels, and assorted game balls strewn across all of the yards.
But it was quiet now. I was reminded of the closing scene from The Wonder Years, and I could hear the adult Kevin Arnold's voice: “Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you’re in diapers; next day you’re gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place … a town … a house like a lot of other houses … a yard like a lot of other yards … on a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is … after all these years, I still look back … with wonder.”
We’re empty nesters now, Dani and I, and we’re going to be okay.
It feels like reading Harry Potter, it’s been a long book - over seven hundred pages of wizards and characters and backstory and villains and plot. Harry has grown - just a bit - and there have been lessons learned and battles won and lost, big and small. And now there are just a few more pages to go in this volume: a few last lines of wisdom from Dumbledore, a last joke or two from Ron or Ginnie; Voldemort, in whatever iteration he was in this volume, has been defeated for now but looms just off the page.
The next book, the next volume, is sitting right there. We know that there will be new characters, new foibles, and new challenges. We know that Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, Hagrid, and all the rest will be returning as well. We know that we’ll have to get through the missteps of the muggle world and journey with Harry back to Hogwarts before the real plot begins.
But first, we have to finish the last pages in the volume we’re in. We have to sit with that and be present with that.
And then we can turn the page.