Filling Time: TwinLife Empty-Nesting

About six months ago I told my husband that we should plan a weekend away after we dropped our second twin at college. I knew that we would need some time to process our emotions before we walked into our very quiet house. I wrote many years ago about how I tend to look into the future while my husband tends to wait until the future hits him in the face. Not much has changed since then. He pretty much ignored my suggestion, and I started asking my girlfriends to help me plan a weekend away in September.

Then, our kids turned 18, and the countdown to sending them both to college became a week, as compared to months. The future was staring at him, and he started to understand how empty our house was going to feel.

He decided to find us a resort for the weekend, a way for us to fill time between dropping off our son and going back to work on Monday. Let’s face it, it was also so we could delay the inevitable wallop to our hearts when we returned home to an empty house. So we stopped at a nice place on the way home, overcompensating for our emotional state by opening the wallet. It was a beautiful place in a quaint little town, the perfect weekend escape. We were able to hike, visit a winery, and generally enjoy each other’s company.

Because it was a last minute decision, we were limited in options for our dinner reservation on Friday night. The hotel restaurant – a fancy-pants dining experience – could seat us at 5PM. So we took it, embracing our exhaustion as well as our steps toward “senior” living. We joked with each other as we sat, alone, in the restaurant, and appreciated the accommodations the chef could make for our gluten free needs. As a few other early diners started to fill the space, we noticed the bread trays passing by our table. The warm rolls and corn bread looked delicious, and we wondered what the gluten free option would be. We have been to many restaurants that have figured out how to do GF rolls pretty well, and we were expecting a nice surprise.

Well, we definitely got a surprise!

We couldn’t stop laughing the rest of the weekend about the Wonderbread that the chef rolled out. This is gluten free living.

As we sat together after dinner that first night, I created a TwinLife group chat for the four of us to communicate, and then my husband starting spamming our kids with pictures, including asking “Was it Colonel Mustard in the conservatory? Or was it Mom in the library?” To which our daughter almost immediately responded, “Mom did it.”

I scolded my husband in the chat for spamming the kids, and our fun family banter continued for a few minutes before I made him put his phone away. We both let the chat sit for the rest of the evening while the kids went about their lives. The next morning we woke up to find that they had continued our family’s sarcastic banter later that night, giving us a glimpse into how they were filling their time, even as we wonder(bread) how to fill ours.