Since the end of May, our nest has been anything but empty. First Anne came home from college the weekend before Memorial Day. Since all her summer sewing projects were of the large variety, she was into weekly baking extravaganzas, not to mention her constant concocting of environment-friendly hygiene products, her flotsam and jetsam gradually oozed into every cranny of our nest. Of course, her sweetie came for several weekends between then and their wedding, so for much of the summer, the spare bedroom was occupied, too.
Then there was the wedding shower for both couples in mid-June. That weekend, Allen and Abbey were in the spare bedroom, Anne was in her room, and her sweetie slept on the sun porch until the mosquitoes drove him into the living room.
Mom kept the nest hopping, too. She used the spare room a night or two before we drove to an all-school reunion Fourth of July weekend, one week before the wedding.
I barely had time to change the sheets before the influx of wedding house guests hit: Anne’s sweetie on Thursday, Allen and Abbey on Friday, five girl cousins on Saturday night. Add to that crowd friends and family – the groom’s immediate family, the groomsmen, bridesmaids, Anne’s personal attendant, my extended family – but somehow, the nest expanded to accommodate the masses.
Two days after the wedding, which wasn’t enough time to tend to our nest, Hiram and I went to Idaho for a week of R & R in the cool, mountain air. When we got back, Anne and her new husband were packing their vehicle with a mountain of wedding presents and boxes of Anne’s possessions.
Over the weekend, we put set things right, and this morning, Hiram went back to work. So today, for the first time in months, I’m alone in our empty nest.
Anne’s room is vacant. Most of the pictures are gone. All but three dresser drawers are empty. The closet is clean and organized. There’s no thread, fabric scraps, or stray pattern pieces on the floor. Strange toiletry concoctions aren’t perched precariously on the sink or bathtub rim. The bathroom floor isn’t littered with dirty clothes. No wet towels hang from doorknobs.
For a minute or two, it weirded me out.
Until I remembered the unanswered emails waiting for answers in my inbox, the thank you notes waiting to be penned, the www.DifferentDream.com blog posts that need to be written, the workshop to practice for next week’s International MOPS Convention, the research to be done so I can write Different Dream Parenting by deadline, the weeds in the flower beds, and everything else on the to do list in my planner. Then I realized I don’t have time to mourn our empty nest. God has given me a very full life.
Now’s the time to live it.
