Filling Time: TwinLife Empty-Nesting

Singing has always been my escape. High school presented a lot of challenges for me – especially socially – and my choir class was the one place where I could get lost for a while, sinking into the choral music or the show choir or the spring musical. As I dealt with academic stress, relentless bullying, and the general angst of being a teen out of place, singing wasn’t just a hobby. It was survival. Every day for four years, first period was my escape. Don’t tell my athletic coaches, but that class was better at soothing my soul than all the hours I put onto the fields or the court.

I knew I wanted to keep singing in college – to bring that space of escape along with me when I left home. I joined the university select chorale, and I was surrounded by talented musicians who could read music, stay in tune, and tackle difficult pieces. It was a good space, but it was missing something that my high school (somewhat misfit) choir, with its attention to theatrical performance, had given me. In hindsight, I think what I was seeking was camaraderie, a sense of team that worked together to build something new and entertain at the same time.

I saw that kind of community in the male and female a cappella groups on campus. I attended all of their performances, and I wished that there was a place for me among them. I certainly could not join the male group, and to be honest, I didn’t want to sing in a group that did not have male voices. So I was left with the more structured choral group, missing a piece of me in the process.

One day after chorale practice, I confessed to my friend that I wished we had something like the all-male and all-female a cappella groups that performed on campus. As a musical theater person herself, my friend lamented with me. Our conversation led to a question: What if we started a co-ed a cappella group ourselves?

Not long after, the headline “Love to sing?” appeared in our printed campus newsletter — yes, the kind on real paper that we plucked by hand out of our mailbox each week. It invited anyone interested in forming a new co-ed a cappella group to come to a meeting. It was kismet. Needless to say, I showed the invitation to my friend, and we showed up at the informational meeting. After auditioning, both of us were selected, and just like that, I became one of the founders of the university’s first co-ed a cappella group. Thirty years later, that group came together to celebrate its history.

That history started with the group’s founder, who wanted to break out of the rigid, formal traditions of campus music. He wanted to create something that crossed cultures, brought together male and female voices, and celebrated diversity — both musical and human. That vision has guided the group for three decades, and as we have come together across generations through reunions and karaoke outings over the years, we have cultivated and solidified lifelong friendships that are more like family. Our 25th reunion was disrupted by Covid, so for the last two years, we have been planning an event that would both reunite the family while also inviting newer, younger members who did not know the strength of the alumni connections.

In this planning, I ended up taking on the role of Executive Producer. This basically means that I wrote the script for the performance, wrangled the alumni to get back to campus for the weekend, facilitated the schedule with the university, made sure the logistics were set, and sent all the emails. And there were a lot of emails. It was a huge lift, especially while sending my twins off to college this summer. But this past weekend, it all came together. About 50 people took the stage to sing across generations — representing eras from 1996 to the present day. We performed our favorite hits from each decade, sang the original songs that started it all, and closed with our traditional final number, “Still of the Night,” just as the group has done for 30 years.

Offstage, the magic simmered throughout the weekend. We rehearsed a new arrangement in our Airbnb, performed karaoke at the hotel bar, shared drinks, and told stories. We laughed until it hurt. The weekend wasn’t just a reunion; it was a rediscovery — of music, of friendship, of belonging.

People have told me I’m good at bringing others together, at organizing, at making things happen. This event reminded me again how much joy it brings me to do so – even if I have to sleep for a week after it’s over! It was volunteer work, yes, but it was also something deeper: a way to reconnect to the parts of myself that matter most.

So where do I go from here? Do I volunteer to find connection, or follow connection to find where I’m meant to volunteer? Maybe it doesn’t matter which comes first. Maybe it’s the mix of memory, music, and meaning that will help me to find the purpose in filling time.