Filling Time: TwinLife Empty-Nesting

My husband and I started dating our first year in college, and for spring break that year, he took me to his family’s lake house in Vermont. It was a modest cabin not too far from Okemo mountain, and since “spring” break was still snowy season in Vermont, he took me skiing. I had only been downhill skiing one time in my life at that point (where I had no instruction and basically butt-slid down the mountain), and his way of teaching me was to take me up the lift and say, “See you at the bottom!” while giving me a little push. He is lucky (1) I was an athlete, and (2) I appreciated his humor.

That summer, we went back to the lake house, that time to enjoy the water. Our second adventure together came with instructions from his parents not to let the motorboat sink until the rest of the family could arrive with a new drain plug. Having never been on a motorboat before, I had no idea what that meant, but I quickly learned that we needed to manually eject the water (including bailing it by hand) on a regular basis throughout the night. Though I learned quickly that waking up to take care of the boat was about as fun for me as taking care of pets, during that weekend, I also learned that I loved the feel of the wind in my face as the boat sped across the water. I loved canoeing, tubing, swimming, and just playing in the lake. I was willing to deal with a broken drain plug now and again for that feeling.

I was only 18, and at the same time I was falling in love with my forever-mate, I fell in love with the lake.

Over the next twenty-five years, that lake became a constant in our lives. The modest cabin grew with us into a house that slept 22 people at once (that was the record!) and became a place for high school, college, and post-college friends to gather. It helped us celebrate weddings, birthdays, and the start of the next generation. I wrote peacefully there, learned to cook for crowds there, and stepped away from the craziness of everyday life there, content to drink my coffee while watching the sun rise over the water when nobody else was awake in the morning. Though the ski mountains never felt like my place, even when the water was frozen, the lake called to me.

Over the years, I learned to downhill ski and slalom water ski from that house, and I shared adventures with so many family members, friends, and, most importantly, my own kids. I watched my children tentatively play on the edges of the water, hit home runs off the end of the boat, and fly like a rag doll when the tube flipped. (No injuries!). It was both the place and the gatherings that made it special. But if I’m completely honest, it was the water. It wasn’t the ocean, which has never given me peace, but it was nature’s elements coming together in a calming way that spoke to me.

When my in-laws sold the house six years ago, I didn’t just lose a vacation spot; I lost a happy place. Perhaps this is why I’ve subtly dropped hints over the years that I think my husband and I should invest in a lake house. He’s done a good job of ignoring those hints — until now.

As we imagine the next stage of life, he and I have started to talk about what it might mean to have a lake home of our own — a place to gather, to play, to welcome our grown children and, someday, perhaps, the next generation. This week, we decided to fill time with a long weekend away, searching for a new shoreline. We called it a house-hunting trip, but really, it was something more. It was time to pause, to look ahead together, to imagine the kind of life we want to build.

We got up before dawn on Friday, hopped on a plane, and flew south, to a lake with a longer season than the one we knew in Vermont. We were giddy with excitement to make this last-minute getaway — the first we have done in over 18 years — and to seek new adventures in new places. We joked as we drove an hour from the airport to meet with a realtor. As we passed a sign that said, “Bridge freezes before road,” my husband asked, “Does anything freeze down here?” to which I responded, deadpan, “Well, the bridge freezes before the road.” He erupted in laughter that made me start giggling uncontrollably. Later that day, we rolled our eyes at each other as our realtor got lost on our trip around the lake. Then, we joked about the fact that the Mexican restaurant that was recommended by Find Me Gluten Free was barely edible (and we left our margaritas nearly untouched on the table!). The next day, we laughed as my husband started arguing with our rental car when it yelled at him for taking his hands off the wheel at a stoplight. Our easy banter from 30 years ago was still there, simmering beneath the surface of our adulthood. This adventure was helping us to see it again.

We filled time gathering information, reflecting on what we wanted — both in a house and in our future — and focusing on us (just us) for the first time in a long time.
In our TwinLife message thread, I sent the kids a picture of the rainbow we saw at the end of our second day of exploration.

My daughter asked, “Did you get a house?”

I responded, “Can you ever find the pot of gold?”

We don’t know yet if we’ll buy a lake house — or when. We don’t know if we will actually agree on what we want or where we want to retire, if that is indeed the quest. But I do know that the lake calls me. As I saw on a t-shirt in one of the shops we visited, “Lake life – cuz beaches be salty.”

Like the seemingly unsolvable debate of “pie or cake,” it’s not even a debate for me. Lake (cake) wins. Hands down. I/we just need to figure out where the lake is that will deliver our pot of gold.