Member-only story
In a week I’ll be 55. Seems like a perfect age for change, or at least for a shift in perspective. And, as luck would have it, this momentous birthday also happens to coincide with the impending empty nest in my home.
In just a short month and a half, my youngest baby bird will launch into college where his sister has been for two years already. And, coincidentally, both of them will be out of the country for that fall semester. So, not only is the nest empty, but there won’t be any visits home or drives up for Parents’ weekend. I do hope to travel to visit them both, but mostly I’m looking at wide open vistas and long days to call my own. I just don’t know whether to be thrilled or freaked — so I’m kind of both. I keep telling my friends and relations that I’m taking it one day at a time, and mostly I am, but my brain doesn’t always cooperate.
I do have plans, dreams unfulfilled that I will pursue with greater vigor. I have a novel making the query rounds now. I write here on Medium. I am writing a second novel and submitting short stories to various and sundry lit journals. So I’ll have time to write.
But for the first time in 20 years, my days will be fully my own to share with my husband, much like in the days before kids. Only then we were looking toward the “when” of children and now, well, I’m not exactly…
