Filling Time: TwinLife Empty-Nesting

It’s event season at work, which means the university schedule is on overdrive and work days spill into nights. I’m used to it; it’s been my life as an educator. But I had set an intention about a month ago to take back some of my time that I have so freely given to my job. I recognize that by continuing to try to hold all of the pieces together myself, I was starting to break. I told my husband that I was committing to working only a 40-hour work week moving forward so that I could see what happened.

I lasted exactly one week. This past week, my days spilled into the evenings, and that time was filled mostly with heavy conversations about the future of higher education that aren’t theoretical anymore. My meetings were filled with hard questions. Real implications. Lingering thoughts that sat with me long after the conversations ended. My days working from home were punctuated by non-stop laundry as I worked diligently to remove the “dorm smell” from every piece of cloth that my son brought home.

In the middle of that, I planned and led a curriculum design workshop for colleagues. Workshops are one of those things that looks like just a few hours on the calendar on a single day, but they actually demand days of thinking, shaping, and revising. I care about that work, so I gave it what it needed, which is how the hours kept adding up.

At some point during the week, my husband said, “You really suck at working a 40-hour week.” He’s not wrong. I’ve been trying. But the work refuses to be contained.

On the other side of my world, Tuesday brought my son back to the house, and we spent the evening together. We started at the high school baseball game, where I half-watched the team and talked to the parents and half-wondered at the not-so-boy sitting on the bleachers. He was itching a little to be back on the diamond, but as he analyzed the game and talked to the fans, I knew he was too old to be there. He had grown a lot in a year.

We processed some of the growth together in conversation after the game, enjoying the hot tub under the stars. Reflecting on his time at college, he shared what worked, what didn’t, and what might come next. The time together felt like a pause in the craziness of the week; I was able to take it all in, bask in his presence, and just be a listening mom – not an intense educational designer.

And then, like that, the week came back into motion, and my son was off again. He was travelling with some college friends for a week of camaraderie and celebration, and I was left at home, figuring out how to fill time. It was a preview of what this next phase of life looks like.

Mother’s Day happened somewhere in there. I celebrated with my own mom at dinner on Friday before the big move out, but I spent most of the day on Sunday with my daughter. Like I did with my son earlier in the week, we processed her year as we shared time together. And then she went outside to help my husband put together patio furniture.

I dropped to the couch for just a minute, gathering my strength to go help.

And I fell asleep.

Not intentionally. I was just… done.

It was a long week full of a range of emotion. I was tired in that full-body way that comes from performing too many roles at once, all of them meaningful, none of them optional.

By the end of the week, I realized we were crossing into something new. The edges of summer break showed what it would be like when both kids were not home at the same time, each growing into their adult lives on separate planes. The house is still in transition from the move-outs and the pieces haven’t settled fully into place, yet I can feel it in the rhythm of the week.

Time is changing again.