Are You Grieving Your Empty Nest, or Are You Grieving The Clarity of Who You Were?

Empty nest grief is real.

When your kids leave. That hurts. It leaves a big gap. But that’s not the whole of the grief. What leaves with them was the version of you that had a clear job to do. The role was clear: raise them up to be adults.

Once they leave that role leaves too.

You were the provider. The caretaker. The nest builder. For eighteen years, maybe more, that role answered every question before you could ask it. Why the well-paying job? For them. Why the house in the good school district? For them. Why the early mornings, the late nights, the version of yourself you kept sharp and reliable and available? For them.

That was the contract you signed without question. When you’re needed you don’t have to wonder what you’re for.

You ran the practice pickups. You sat at the kitchen table over the homework. You did the laundry and packed the lunches that never ended. You showed up, and showed up, and showed up.

The Silence

My oldest is already 27 years old and master of his own universe. The 23-year old is still assembling the parts of his life in ways that have me both hopeful and concerned. My youngest, just 10-years old, is still living in my world. That will change too.

If you’re an empty nester already, the house makes fewer needing sounds. During the day, mostly silence. At night, questions.

At first you rejoice. Yay! Freedom. You turn to your partner, “now we can travel and get to know each other again.”

Travel is fun. But you can’t travel forever. The questions you outran for two decades are all still standing there, waiting to be answered.

Who are you when no one needs you like that?

What’s the well-paying job for now?

What’s the purpose that used to be so obvious you never had to name it?

These aren’t just questions about what to do with your time. These are questions about who you are. What your identity is without the title of parent.

The Purpose

This isn’t the end of your purpose, but for many adults, it’s the largest shift of purpose you will ever go through. Before kids, maybe you had some idea of who you were supposed to be. When you had them, you knew for certain. It was about them. No debate. That clarity was a gift. It was also a place to hide.

Do you know what living means to you now?

You planted, you tended, you fed a whole life into the ground and watched it grow up and walk away, which is exactly what it was supposed to do.

That was your first act. Your first harvest.

Now comes the second harvest. If you’re in your 50’s by the time your kids have flown the nest, you’ll still have decades of active life ahead of you. If you take care of that body, you’ll add another decade to that. In many cases, that’s more years that you spent at school or working. That’s a big chunk of time. You’re going to need some clarity about what to be in that time.

With age comes experience, wisdom, resources, and a potentially a wide network of connections. These are the foundations of all good endeavors. It might surprise you to learn that the average age of a founder in in the US is 42-years old. And that a founder in their 50’s is twice as likely to succeed than their younger peers.

Without question, empty nest is the end of something precious, but it is also the beginning of something amazing.

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