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Top Comments: Empty Nesting Summer Hiatus Edition [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-05-05

It was a mere 8.5 months ago Mr. Brillig and I were in Jackson Hole Wyoming and K2 was being dropped off for his first year of college by K1 and partner. As I type this, Mr. Brillig is just outside New York City, helping K2 get his stuff sorted into Store For The Summer and Bring Home, so they can drive back tomorrow for summer break. It feels simultaneously no time at all has passed, and it’s been forever. And as I sit on the couch with a laptop and the above-pictured pup, I’m reflecting on how the experience of sending K2 to college has been different than when K1 headed off and then home that first summer.

When K1 headed off to her University, we knew exactly where she’d be… after all, both Mr. Brillig and I attended (and met at) the very same campus. While her experience was of course different than ours, we could imagine the scene. She also kept in touch and we felt we knew what was going on in her life… not intrusively so, but enough to keep us connected. Still, I missed her terribly- it took me a MONTH to move a single item left behind in her bedroom.

In addition, as K1 was heading off to those first young adult experiences out of high school, K2 was entering middle school. He had homework and club soccer and all of the drama associated with middle school. Mr. Brillig and I barely changed our routines, and while there was a hole in our day to day family structure, in general it didn’t reeeally change so much.

Eight years later, we came home from Wyoming, I spent a week getting over covid, and we realized we were… Empty Nesters. We didn’t have to get up early in the morning to make sure K2 had a lunch or got off to school on time (he drove most days but we had to make sure he left with enough time to get there safely). We had dinner, and the following day at lunch *the leftovers were still there*. Our food bill no longer covered an elite teenaged athlete, and we didn’t need to buy family paks of every protein we ate to make sure there was enough. We could forget a bathrobe when we took a shower and NOT need to worry. It was… entirely different.

K2 has had a fantastic year. He’s made so many friends, is connected to his soccer team as well as numerous clubs and affinity groups, he’s registered as a New York voter and went with friends to vote last November (don’t worry, he’s one of us :-)). Mr. Brillig reports packing is mixed with emotional goodbyes and see-you-soons. He’s grown SO much and is a genuine joy to have conversations with about all sorts of topics. He sends US book recommendations he thinks we’d enjoy. I’m really excited to have him home and learn to navigate our evolving relationship, as he adapts to having parents around after three seasons of relative independence.

And yet… as we temporarily put our empty nester habits on the shelf for 3.5 months, I’m thinking about having to negotiate timing in our single shower, and hearing the microwave ding as the smell of pasta sauce wafts upstairs at 1am. It’s going to be a fun, exciting wild ride and I’m sure you’ll be hearing about it as the summer progresses!!

Anyone else have thoughts to share on either having your fledgelings come back home for a bit, or what it was like when YOU came home after those first heady experiences out in the world.

But first, tonight’s Tops!!

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