Filling Time: TwinLife Empty-Nesting

Time Collapsed

December 23, 2025

“Where is it?” I muttered to myself as I looked around the attic, mentally checking each pile of boxes. I had uncovered my teaching files, the kids’ early pictures, Tae Kwon Do trophies, and even my wedding basket. But the one box I wanted wasn’t appearing in my visual scan.

I knew it was there. I had looked at the pictures briefly when I had cleaned out the photo closet in our guest room during Covid. I had added them to my “teaching memories” box in the attic. I only had a few minutes to find the box before I had to change out of my “cookie party” outfit and into something more suitable for a 20th reunion.

I had started my day baking “crack,” what my friends and I jokingly have named pretzel bark. Most people at the annual cookie exchange agree that it is addicting, and typically, as soon as I walk in the door, someone asks, “Did you make crack?” I always do. This year I baked two trays, determined to bring home enough to satisfy my cravings while also giving everyone else a chance to take their fill.

Then I went to the party, decked out in my rainbow tree Christmas shirt. My husband, who thought I was going to wear an ugly sweater to the party, remarked “That’s not an ugly sweater. That’s a cute shirt!” I enjoyed the compliment, smiling as I headed out the door.

After some easy conversation with the cookie ladies, I headed back home, knowing I had just an hour to change for the 20th reunion of one of the first classes at a magnet school where I was one of the founding teachers. It was a school focused on STEM, and I ran the humanities program, combining English and social studies into a team-taught course. I taught this group of students their freshman and sophomore years, which meant I knew them well. It was a small cohort, but we had big conversations. It’s the kind of teaching experience that stays with an educator.

The reunion almost didn’t happen. Months earlier, while my son was navigating his own college process, I reached out to one of these former students who had attended a school my son was considering. At the end of the conversation, my thoughts drifted to 20 years ago, and I asked, “Remember the time capsule your class made freshman year that you were supposed to open at your 20th reunion? Shouldn’t that be this year?”

That question, it turns out, planted a seed.

This former student—who is no longer particularly young, who has children of his own, and who is now a university professor—nudged his classmates. Messages were sent. Plans were made. A reunion took shape. A few teachers were invited, and I was honored to be one of them.

I was excited to see them, even though it was my second social event of the day. As an introvert, I had to dig deep to face the social inputs. I knew that bringing the old pictures would give us something to talk about, a way to ignite easy conversation. I was frustrated that I couldn’t uncover them. As I scanned the attic – and sifted through the rollerdeck in my memory – my eyes landed on the back corner. A tickle in my brain told me that there was a good chance the box was back there. I started digging, and squealed with glee when I finally uncovered it, clearly labeled “Teaching Memories.” I hauled it down from the crawlspace and realized that the box contained so much more than the pictures. There were several artifacts that would inspire conversation and unlock memories.

Having spent so much time unearthing the box, I didn’t have a lot of time to change, so I was pleased when, for the second time that day, my husband complimented my outfit as I walked out the door. When I got to the restaurant, I immediately bumped into one of my former colleagues in the parking lot, followed immediately with greetings for the first of the students I would see that night. Everyone looked the same in my mind’s eye. We hugged, we laughed, we shared stories prompted by scenes in the pictures and artifacts I had scattered across the tables.

Ultimately, we didn’t have a time capsule to open, but we filled time sharing memories and life updates. There is something profoundly grounding about seeing former students as adults, not as the people they were, but as the people they became. It reminds you that the work you did mattered in ways you couldn’t see then and that the relationships you formed didn’t end when the class did. In some ways, time collapsed, and 20 years both existed and was erased as we reconnected, reflected, and shared time together.
15,000 Steps of Volunteering

December 16, 2025

I was moving Christmas trees to be loaded onto a delivery truck when my phone rang. “We decided to head to my parents,” my husband said. My heart did a little flip-flop because I knew that I would not be able to say a proper goodbye to my son, who was heading back to college to take a final exam.

He and his sister had come home after classes were finished since neither had exams scheduled until the end of finals period. Between his social schedule and my schedule, we had barely seen each other since I had picked him up at the train station and spent an hour in the car debriefing the end of the semester.

His train to go back to school was scheduled to leave at 7:55 Sunday morning, and Saturday we realized that a snowstorm was likely going to hit the area. My husband’s parents live much closer to the train so I suggested that they head there Saturday night. Because I was volunteering for the local Festival of Trees, a large fundraiser for the Senior Resource Center in our town, getting to the train station was on my husband.

“I think that’s a good idea,” I responded, glad I had hugged my boy as I left the house earlier.

It was, in fact, a good idea. Sunday morning I woke early to over 6 inches of snow. Though my son would be able to get to the train station, I was left facing the challenge of getting to my volunteer responsibilities without our SUV, which was with my husband and son.

I have been volunteering for the Festival of Trees for 15 years. I started decorating trees with my mom after attending the event when my children were little. As a decorator, I focused entirely on the trees we were making, paying little attention to the effort being put in behind the scenes to make the fundraiser happen each year. My job was to prepare my trees, and if any did not sell, to show up on breakdown day to undecorate the ones we created. With young twins at home, I didn’t have much more time that I could devote to the process. I would sneak in, pack up my decorations, and sneak out as quickly as possible.

But as my kids became more independent, I started to notice all of the work that other people were doing on breakdown day. As the seniors in charge of the event struggled to carry tables, platforms, and boxes to the moving truck, which would take everything from the event location to the storage location, I started to help. In talking to one of the committee members, I learned that they really did not have a lot of people working to plan the event and that the back-breaking labor of setup and breakdown was – quite literally – breaking them.

So I joined the committee. My primary role was to recruit and organize teen volunteers to help with the manual labor, but I quickly realized that I could also help the committee to digitize and centralize its operations. My kids and mom joined me in volunteering more of our time to the event, and over the last few years, we have been able to streamline and improve the process of setup and breakdown.

With the kids going to college this year, I not only lost my two best helpers, but I also lost some of the time I could give to the committee and the process, as parenting college students has proven to be a time filler I was not necessarily expecting! However, this year I still organized teens to help, and I was scheduled to run the breakdown day – now blanketed by snow.

As I stared at the white blanket outside my window, I made the decision to delay the start of breakdown day, giving teen families and myself time to dig out. And then I sighed heavily because dealing with our long, hilly driveway in the snow has always been my husband’s job. In the 18 winters we have lived in our house, I’ve only started the snowblower twice.

Luckily, my hubby gave great instructions over the phone, and the machine started on the first pull! Unfortunately, the snow was so wet and heavy that the snowblower packed itself up and started to overheat before I finished.

Figuring I go to the gym six days a week for this exact purpose (this is not why I go to the gym), I abandoned the snowblower with its mechanical stench and stomped through the snow to the shed to find the shovels. About an hour later, I had dug out the car and cleared a path to the street – which still hadn’t been plowed. Yes, I beat DPW to the finish line!

About an hour after that, my husband arrived home with the SUV at the same time the plow came through our street. Off to the Festival of Trees breakdown I went. 15,000 steps later (not counting my work on the driveway), the hall was clear, and I was bone tired. My body ached from 8 hours of physical labor, and my muscles screamed at me. I capped off the night with an epsom salt bath and glass of wine, the satisfaction of filling time by testing my physical limits and supporting a great cause sending me to bed before 8PM.
Putting the Crib in the Attic

December 10, 2025

When my daughter was home at Thanksgiving, she told me that she didn’t fit in her bed anymore. I was surprised because I thought she had already stopped growing (taller) even though I knew at the same time that she had grown so much since she had gone to college. It was a moment of mental paradox.

What made me wobble even more, however, was the fact I needed to get her a new bed. You see, I haven’t bought either of my kids a bed since they were born.

Having to buy two of everything made me both frugal and a future thinker. Back then I told my husband we needed to spend just a bit more on the convertible cribs in order to get the most use out of the furniture. Cribs became toddler beds, which turned into full beds. Both kids slept in their full-sized beds until my son jumped too hard and broke his. After spending a few months sleeping on the mattress on the floor, he decided he liked that layout, so I never bought him a new frame.

But the Black Friday sales called to me, and I quickly decided to make my daughter’s home sleeping arrangements as comfortable as I could. I mean, after all, shouldn’t she love sleeping at home more than in her dorm?

The box arrived, and I was surprised at how small it was. How could a bed fit in there? Then, I opened it, outwardly groaning as I saw how many pieces there were. It was Sunday evening, and I had been away for the weekend, visiting with my parents and watching my daughter dance. It had been a long week at work (more on that to come in a future post!). Needless to say, by the time Sunday evening rolled around, all I wanted to do was take a bath and watch TV. But instead, I faced the challenge of creating a new bed for my grownup daughter.

When she got home from college yesterday, I asked her to help me move the pieces of her old bed to the attic. “Why are you keeping it?” she asked. She thought I should just donate it since she clearly wasn’t going to need it anymore. I made a joke about needing a crib if she ever had a baby and a more serious quip about the fact that the bed matched the dressers she was still using. But what I really meant, and didn’t say, was that I wasn’t ready, just quite yet, to let my own baby go. So we put the crib in the attic, where it will fill time until I’m ready.
Permission Not to Have Thanksgiving

December 3, 2025

November was a full month. Between visiting my kids at their respective colleges and my professional commitments, I had little time to fill. In fact, this year I backed off of some volunteer commitments that normally fill my time Thanksgiving weekend simply because I knew I could not physically (nor mentally) handle them.

I also gave myself permission not to have Thanksgiving.

For most of my adult life, Thanksgiving has been a holiday that has not consumed my time and energy in terms of planning and execution. I attend a professional conference the weekend before the holiday, where I typically present multiple sessions and participate in many meetings. The four days of the conference are long ones, and by the time I get home late Sunday night or sometime on Monday, I’m beat. Since my students also need my attention, especially after having been away from campus for a few days, the short week before Thanksgiving is filled with professional obligations. I have never had the capacity to plan a meal or to host family. On Thanksgiving, we travelled to others who took care of the prep work.

This year, however, my kids would be home for only a few days, and they wanted to be in their own beds with opportunities to see their hometown friends. Of course, they also wanted to see their grandparents, who are important influences in their lives.

I struggled with what to do. How could I maintain my sanity – and quite frankly, my physical health – if I did what I said I would never do and host everyone on Thanksgiving? How could I give everyone what they wanted and still relish in the short time I had with both kids in the house?

The tension between “mom who gives” and “mom who needs” was palpable as I went back and forth in my head about what to do. And then I let it all go and gave myself permission not to have Thanksgiving. Instead, I’d take that day off completely – no work and no family responsibilities and absolutely no kitchen prep – and come up with another way to bring people together.

Common politeness in American society requires people to ask, “How was your Thanksgiving?” And with each time I was asked, I was able to answer completely honestly, “It was great. I did absolutely nothing!” In reality, my daughter and I went to see Wicked: For Good while my son and husband watched Stranger Things. We ate whatever each of us found in the fridge or freezer and just turned our brains off for the day. Both kids needed it. My husband and I needed it. And we were thankful for the low-key holiday.

Of course, the next morning we were out of the house at 8:15 to head to the Christmas tree farm for our annual family adventure, and I spent the day prepping for the Friendsgiving we planned for Saturday that would bring some of the kids’ close friends, some of my husband’s and my sideline parent crew, and all the grandparents together to celebrate the season. By then, I had the energy to prep. And it was good to fill time with my kids in the house, celebrating the start of the holiday season.
Overcoming Exhaustion

November 25, 2025
November is always a full month, and this year was particularly busy. I spent the first weekend with my son, the second weekend with my daughter, and this past weekend with my professional family at a conference in Denver. I’m currently reflecting on my last week from a hotel room in Virginia, where I’m waiting to drive my son home for Thanksgiving.

I’m tired.

I was tired even before I got on the plane to Denver last Wednesday. I’ve had a lot going on at work that required a lot of time, and I was facing six presentations ahead of me at the conference. Prepping for them had also required time, so I had basically filled most of my time in November outside of my weekend trips with work – something I have been trying not to do in my empty-nesting life.

But last Wednesday was a travel day, and I committed to myself that after I cleared out my email and spent a few hours collating my professional notes from the past few weeks, I would enjoy the day as much as possible, focusing on the little moments more than on the jobs to be done.

Here are some of those moments:
- Brittany, our flight purser, clearly loved her job. She used the cabin phone like a microphone, her hands as emotional magic wands, and her voice as a mood lifter. Her partner Takako was Robin to her Batman. It was one of the most enjoyable flight experiences I’ve had, even though I spent most of the flight collating those notes!
- The weather in Denver was lovely when I landed, and the rooftop bar at my hotel presented me with a view that made me smile.
- I had one of the best drinks I’ve ever had as I chatted with a friend on that rooftop. I liked it so much that I went back later in the weekend with a different friend and had it again.
- I met up with some extended family members who are definitely “my people.”
- My friends and I stepped out of the conference and into a Bluegrass jam session that was inspiring.
- I wandered the city with a former student and again with friends I typically only see once a year – at this conference – yet somehow they are family. Denver was decorated for Christmas, and it was magical.
- While waiting for my plane home, I met Graeme (pronounced Graham), a precocious five-year-old who definitely knows how to spell his name. He and I became buddies pretty quickly, which gave his mom a short breather. It felt good to give her that peace, and I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Graeme.
I got home around midnight on Sunday and then left yesterday morning with my daughter on a road trip to pick up my son, closing out nearly a week of small moments that helped fill my time within an otherwise professionally dominated space. And now I can relish in the time I will have with my kiddos for a few days. I don’t feel quite so tired today. The infusion of TwinLife is just what I needed.
Same Stage, Decades Apart

November 19, 2025

I’ve been watching my kid dance since she was born. Because she always had rhythm and she couldn’t stop moving around the house, I found a studio that welcomed 2-year-olds for their summer programming. That fall, at age 3, she started ballet at the local YMCA, and we have never looked back. She waited patiently for the premier studio in our town to allow her to enter at age 4, and she continued there until she graduated this past spring.

For years she has loved ballet, contemporary, hip hop, and being in the studio’s company. She went on pointe shortly before Covid and practiced faithfully in our basement. That same year she became the studio’s “tech support,” as well as an assistant teacher. By the time she graduated, she was a full staff member, teaching mostly hip hop and cutting the music tracks for performances. If they had wanted her to, she would have taken over their marketing and done a great job. Basically, dance was a given in her life, and her studio was a second home.

So it was no surprise when, of all of her creative activities, she decided to keep dance at the center of her life when she went to college. It was a criteria for selecting the right school, and ultimately, it was what provided her with a scholarship. Because of her commitment, I knew that watching her dance would continue to be part of what would be filling my time during her college years (and I was secretly glad she chose a school that was drive-able so I could be at every performance!).

This past weekend I had the chance to see my college dancer perform for the first time. And while I have always been amazed by her on stage, this time was different. She had grown as a dancer, just as she had grown as a human. Doubly special to me was that for the first time, she was dancing on a stage where I had also performed.

Because, you see, my daughter’s right fit college is also my undergrad alma mater. Decades ago I chose it as my best fit, and it continues to be special to me. This fall I’ve been able to visit as a parent and as an alum, and it’s been magical. This past weekend, I watched my daughter dance on the stage where I performed in a musical my freshman year. It was both full circle and a forward launch – as I know she will continue to grow in her artistic life on that stage.

And watching her is one of the best ways of filling time.
The Right College Fit

November 11, 2025

There’s something special about seeing your teen become an adult – almost right before your eyes. This past weekend my husband and I travelled six hours to see our son in his new home. While I filled time in meetings with the parents’ council – and yes, of course I’m joining the collegiate version of the PTA at both my kids’ colleges – my husband filled time walking a proverbial marathon with my son. They toured the city, the campus, and my son’s new favorite haunts, comparing step counts at dinner. My husband loved seeing our boy in his element, even if he complained for the next two days about how tired he was from all the walking.

We met his friends, and he has a lot of new friends, and they were clearly fans of my kid. We hung out with parents, and they were people we’d want to see again. We went to a football game, and it was exactly the kind of “fan experience” my son had hoped for when searching for the college fit. The place, the space, the people – it was all right. It was him. It was the fit.

At the same time, we listened to him talk about his classes, his attempts to balance academics and extracurriculars with work and a social life, and the antics that rise up in life with the first tastes of decision-making freedom. He walked confidently, shared openly, and navigated his world with an adultness that was both new and exciting.

And although I’d probably prefer not to fill time with a 12 hour round-trip drive to see him, it was – and will continue to be – worth it to be a part of his new world, even if just for a little while.
A Weird Halloween

November 4, 2025

Last week started with laser focus on work. It was time for the accreditation site visit that we had been working over a year to accomplish successfully. I spent Monday and Tuesday on Zoom, being interviewed by the review team. Fortunately, our power didn’t go out until Thursday, when I was on Zoom in a meeting with my boss, telling him how great the visit had gone. Friday was Halloween, and we were still running on a generator.

It was not the first Halloween we have been without power. In fact, when my kids were 4, we had a Halloween snowstorm that knocked it out for multiple days. The next year, Superstorm Sandy hit just before Halloween. We didn’t have power for 15 days that time (and the Internet came back on day 21!).

Since then, everyone in our neighborhood has invested in a generator, so being without power on Halloween this year was neither a novelty nor as disruptive as it was back then. However, this year was different for another reason.

My kids were not home.

And when I say they weren’t home, I don’t mean that they were out with friends on Halloween night, which has been the case for many years. However, my son, in particular, had a tradition. All the way through senior year he and his friends would trick-or-treat in our neighborhood and the surrounding streets and end at our house for the ultimate candy swap. I was one of those parents who said “I’d rather teens choose trick-or-treating than drinking on Halloween!” And they did. They’d start the evening by playing football or whiffle ball in the front yard, and they’d end with either a candy draft or trade. I always got a few Rolos and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in exchange for hot apple cider or hot chocolate.

This year Halloween was Friday, after a long week at work, intensified by the accreditation site visit and on-again-off-again power and Internet. By the time my last meeting ended at 3PM on Friday, I was ready for my kids to show up and start getting ready for the night.

But they weren’t there. My husband arrived home early to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters, whom we expected to start arriving around 4PM. By 3:15, I was walking aimlessly around the house, my body humming with anxiety.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I don’t know what to do,” I responded. I knew if I went back to my computer I’d get interrupted by the doorbell at the worst time for making any progress on anything, and honestly, at that point, I really didn’t want to work any more. But that wasn’t really what was bothering me.

I finally stopped pacing and said, “It’s weird, not having them here. This is the first time it’s felt weird.”

It was a tradition disrupted – not by the power outage but somehow the break was deeper because of those power outages of the past being reflected in the current moment. This time we weren’t together, facing a new situation, creating memories. They were off on their own, creating their own fun, their own memories that we wouldn’t share.

As I stood there, feeling weird, my husband said, “Well, I’ll answer the door.” His words freed me to tackle my “clean up” list, knowing I could do it uninterrupted. And I knew just the task to do.

I pulled down the attic stairs and started carting boxes and boxes of “costumes” that had moved from my mom’s attic to my own. Fifty years of original clothes and various costumes, neatly stored and labeled by decade, genre, or character had been sitting up there, waiting for one of my kids to need them for a production (which happened often) – or for Halloween. Though my husband had always been willing to take our kids to the Halloween store to find a store-bought costume, I loved the years when we dug into the boxes and made our own. During that first Halloween snowstorm, my son became a “Mardi Gras cowboy,” and during the pandemic, the “adventurer (my son) found a lamp and out popped a genie (my daughter)!” We had so many options in those costume boxes in the attic.

But my kids weren’t home anymore, and even without digging into the boxes, they had each come up with at least three costumes for their various events at college. I knew it was time to purge.

So I did. I filled time by emptying about 15 bins into bags to donate, and in the process I was able to organize just a few bins for them to look through next year before they go back to school. Who knows, maybe they will take a vintage 1970s, 80s, or 90s outfit back with them to wear as a costume! I have some from each decade, tucked away, remembering the past this Halloween.
24 Hours!

October 28, 2025

Imagine this: it’s 7 PM on a Friday night. A group of writers gathers to find out what they will be writing that night. Each takes a starting and ending line home to write a 15-20 minute scene that will become part of a larger play. By dawn, the scripts are complete. The next morning, actors arrive at the theater, get their lines, rehearse all day—and at 8 PM Saturday, they perform.

This was the 24 Hour Theater Project held at a local community theater this past weekend. When I saw the advertisement for tickets, I was intrigued. I wanted to know how it would work, so I grabbed a friend and went for a wild night on the town. (And by wild, I mean that we had a martini before going to the show.) I was incredibly impressed both with the quality of writing and with the acting, especially because the actors all had their lines memorized. Throughout the performance, my mind wandered to what the last 24 hours had been like.

I could imagine it pretty viscerally because I have been involved in theater since I was young. I was three when I first stepped foot on stage. Family lore has it that I cried when my parents tried to have me sing in the Bible school choir, but I begged my mom to let me perform in the high school musical she was directing. I wanted to be with “my friends,” the seventh graders who were pseudo-babysitting me at rehearsals every day. So she put me on stage with the “big kids.” I was in one chorus number in Oliver! and one in The Wiz, but it was enough to start bringing me out of my quiet, timid shell.

When I was nine, our local community theater posted audition announcements for Annie. My Nana and mom had taken me to see Annie on Broadway, and I loved it. My parents got me the record (yes, the record), and I played it constantly, singing at the top of my lungs, belting out “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow” and “Maybe” and all of the songs that Annie is known for. To make a long story short, I was cast in the title role, and by the end of the first decade of my life, I had been bit by the theater bug.

Through high school and college, and even post-college, I kept finding my way back to theater. I performed, directed, and wrote. I learned I really love the back side of theater – the production of it all. When I was producing and directing, I got to unleash my creativity, encourage people to do their best no matter their role, and help it all come together to entertain the audience. It’s something I do professionally when I create conferences or other spaces that help people come together, but there is something magical about theater – where life is suspended for a beat and I can inhabit another space, character, or timeline.

So when I saw the advertisement for the 24 Hour Theater Project, I knew it would be a great way to fill time. Hanging out with my friend was bonus time. And now I’ve got all kinds of ideas of how I can bring 24 Hour Productions to my job and my career context!
Everyday Advocacy

October 22, 2025

Part of my identity involves being an advocate. I’m not usually the shout-into-a-megaphone kind of person, so my kind of advocacy might be called everyday advocacy. It involves showing up, organizing, and listening in spaces where voices need lifting. In the last week, I’ve found myself in three very different spaces that reminded me what advocacy can look like in practice.

I started my Saturday like I usually do – at the gym. But this past week, most of us in attendance were decked out in pink. My gym organizes an annual workout to support breast cancer awareness, and whenever I’m in town, I carve out time to attend. Facing a weekend of FillingTime after my kiddos went back to school, there was no question where I would be Saturday morning – sweating for a cause!

Getting there was a little tricky because I had committed to join a friend at a local rally that same day. In fact, several of my gym friends did not go to the workout because they were headed to the rally. But it was important to me to do both – and in my mind, the two causes were connected. Women’s healthcare is important. And its availability has been under attack lately. As I said to my husband before I left the house, “As a man, your rights do not change when you cross state lines. Your daughter’s can.”

It was important to me to show up in both spaces that day, to join in solidarity with my local gym community and to join a crowd in a public space to take a stand for justice. The larger rally called out the importance of being an American who values the humanity and lives of all. Equity and justice for all. It was an event filled with speakers from a variety of organizations, clergy who led us in a spiritual togetherness, and, always my favorite, singing. Being in community with others fueled my soul and reminded me of the importance for aligning ourselves with others’ and showing up to stand up for all.

Then yesterday, I got a second dose of soul-fuel. For the last three years I have organized an AI and Writing Symposium at my university. Educators from across the state have come together to think critically about the impact of generative AI on writing, thinking, and learning. This year’s event was even bigger than the last, and the energy hummed through the rooms. At the end of the day I asked each participant to use an old-fashioned tool of writing – a pen and piece of paper – to jot some thoughts from the day. Then, I invited them to turn and talk to someone they hadn’t talked to during the day, not necessarily the person next to them. I asked them to be human, to engage in conversation, and to create community in a space that was intended to help them be advocates for their students. My hope is that they are inspired to go back to their schools and make changes that will lift up access, engagement, and, ultimately, learning for all.

The day itself was a success, in part, simply because it brought people together in the same space to talk. Just like the event at my gym and the larger rally, it was a space where people could take a stance, listen to other viewpoints, and think about how to organize others to the cause. Advocacy isn’t just political; it’s personal, physical, intellectual, and communal. And everyday advocacy is a great way to fill time.

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