Filling Time: TwinLife Empty-Nesting

Last week I straddled the line between past and present in a way I wasn’t expecting.

I started the week by attending the local high school’s baseball season home opener. The date had been on my radar for a while. I still follow the team’s social media, but even more than that, the change in season from winter to spring always marked a change in our family’s routine. My daughter had many performances that filled our weekends, but weekdays revolved around baseball. My husband and I spent many afternoons and evenings on the sidelines – usually freezing — cheering on our son and his teammates.

As February turned to March, my body knew that baseball season was coming. I also started to get more questions from the head of the baseball boosters about what we had done last year, so I was keyed into when tryouts were happening and when the season kicked off. When I saw that the weather for the day of this year’s home opener was going to be relatively moderate, I figured I’d attend. I wanted to cheer on the boys that I had gotten to know last year, sit alongside the parents who had become a baseball family during our Cinderella season, and, perhaps more than anything, fill the hole in my heart that was left after an abrupt end to 13 years of being a baseball mom.

It was a different experience sitting on the sideline as a fan without the pressure of having my son on the mound, playing short stop, or up to bat in a big moment. It was a little like how my mom explains grandparenting – all of the joy without any of the responsibility. All the hellos from parents on the sidelines made me smile, and watching the players I knew filled my heart (a little). I did not get to see them win in a walk off, however, because I had another past-related thing to do.

With my kids going to college and my work responsibilities becoming more complex, I had to step back from some of the volunteer work I have been doing for quite some time. One of those roles involved managing the digital aspects of a major fundraising event, including email correspondence, file sharing, and website updates. Because I had organized and/or created most of the systems related to these tasks, I needed to train my replacements. So after I stepped back in time at the baseball game to touch grass in my past, I stepped forward just a bit by shedding some of my past volunteer role by training people to take over my jobs.

It was an odd combination that made me realize I was straddling a line between past, present – and future. And, quite frankly, it made me ready for some forward movement.

Over Easter weekend, I spent time cleaning outside – wiping down deck furniture, picking up garbage that had made its way into our woods during a windstorm, and generally getting things ready for the kids to come home at the end of the semester. I texted my son to ask if we could throw away his old swing trainer. I sent a message to both of them asking who had left their lunch in the woods (super gross discovery, btw). As I cleaned, I thought about the fact that I was preparing for what might be the last summer I have everyone in the house for an extended time.

At this point in the story, you would think that my outdoor cleanse would be a metaphor for cleansing my past while I discover who I am in this year of FillingTime. Perhaps that was my intent for deciding to spend my Saturday scrubbing, sweeping, and making a welcoming space for my kids.
Clearly, it wasn’t. Because when Monday came around again with another home baseball game on the schedule…

Well, I decided to drop by to see how the team was doing. It wasn’t in my plan, so I wasn’t prepared to face the cold and wind that typically whips by the field, but I figured that I had nothing waiting for me at home, so I’d stop for an inning or two.

The game was close, and unlike the game the week before, I felt myself getting truly invested in the outcome. I was nervous for the pitchers. My heart raced when the bases were loaded. I cheered loudly when one boy battled to a full count walk. I was in it, despite my frozen toes, and I high-fived my parent-friends when we won in a walk-off.

I was fully living, just a little bit, in that past that I still haven’t fully let go.

I felt something similar when I took my daughter to the high school musical while she was home over spring break. As we drove to the school, I asked her if it felt weird. She said it didn’t, but it did to me. I said to her, “There is something missing, and I’m just not sure what it is.” In hindsight, I think what was missing was watching my kids do their thing in a place that had become a second home to all of us.

Just as I felt watching the kids I knew perform on the stage few weeks ago, I was happy for the boys on the baseball field this past week. I was present, fully present, in the now. But there was a part of me still living in a year ago, when it was my kids. I felt it viscerally, as if I was straddling a line between past and present, a delicate balance as I prepare to jump into my future.

Every year I move on with the change of seasons. And yet this year I still live, just a little, in the past as this spring begins.