Empty house

What will life be like for us with an empty nest?  Will our empty house be empty or will it still be full of life?  Will I feel alone and unwanted or will I feel very much needed?  Will I cry all the time or will I be the happiest woman alive?  Am I afraid of what is to come or brave for facing it head on?

These are just some of the things I think about from time to time.  Fear of the unknown, not knowing what is to come is something that we all think about at some point in our lives.  Some of us worry more than others and I have always been a worrier.  I have an overactive imagination along with an overthinking brain.

I'm not sure if there is a diagnosis for that but I have learnt to worry less this year and release my worry to the universe.  I take deep breaths all the time and focus on what I can control rather than on what I can't.

When so much of your focus is on your children, every day for 18 years, it's only natural to feel overwhelmed with the thought of them not living in the house anymore.  The focus has to shift from them to me now.

I don't doubt that I will miss him.  In fact, I will miss him immensely.  I have rather enjoyed his daily phone calls after work to ask me if there is anything I would like him to bring home for me.  I will miss our brief chats from time to time.  I will miss seeing him walk through the door after work each day.  I will miss him dearly.  I suppose it's like anything that is in your life every day for 18 years.  They will be missed.

I will certainly not miss the amount of tomato sauce he goes through in a week, nor will I miss his constant dislike for the meals I make.

To prepare myself for his impending departure I have started to focus on what I need to keep me from being a blubbering mess of tears and hormones.  Keeping busy will only get me so far and that is the easy part.  I am always busy.

Running Romantic Gestures™ NZ, Romantic Getaways NZ, Random Acts of Kindness NZ, having a part time job in Corporate Hospitality, the relaunch of another business, wife to Russell as well as being his biggest supporter as he works through his business degree while working full-time and running his own business should be enough for me to focus on for now.  Oh and don't forget we are house hunting at the moment and that keeps us fairly busy as well.

Our relationship

How will having an empty house affect our relationship?  3 - 1 = 2, and when there are only two people in the house the topics of conversation change slightly. 

Without any witnesses in the house will we scream and shout at each other?  I doubt it.  We very rarely yell at each other anyway.  Most of the yelling was to get favourite number one son to clean his room and bring out his dirty dishes that resembled a science project from high school.

I imagine our relationship will be centered around us and will be exactly as it is now, full of love and respect.  In fact, we will have more time to devote to our relationship without having to worry about what's for dinner and what time are we getting home.  Two questions that were a constant in our household.

"Think of all the mischief you two can get up to", said one friend.  True.  We can run around the house naked with the curtains closed, of course.  We can play our music up as loud as we want and dance the night away.  We can buy food that only we like and we can stay out as late as we want.

We can do whatever we like and that is probably the only changes that we will make.  Our relationship will still be the same, except from the fact that we might have more sex, which is always a good thing in any relationship.

This next phase of my life has been a long time coming and now I need to embrace it for all that it is.  This is my time to stand back and support him as he becomes an independent young man.