Another Heart Piece

or is it a piece of my heart?

My adult kids live in Boston and hubby-Jeffrey and I reside on the west coast. I love visiting them but the goodbyes are so painful I almost wish we never made the visit. I know this doesn’t make sense. Emotions never do. Of course I love seeing them. But the ache of leaving shatters my heart and once home I must glue the pieces back together. And I’m inevitably missing a section that I know I left behind in my son’s apartment or my daughter’s car. I almost expect a phone call from them. 

“Ma, I was stripping the bed and noticed you left a chunk of your heart. Want me to ship it back to you?”

And I would say, “I’ll get it next time I visit.”

But I’ll leave it there again.

I’m under the illusion that the part of me I forsake will take care of them. As though it has eyes and ears and advice to offer. I also leave it there purposely because I’m not capable of packing my soul along with my toothbrush the night before I depart. The suitcase is already heavy with grief and longing. 

We celebrated my daughter’s Bridal Shower and the next day was Mother’s Day. I couldn’t remember the last time I spent Mother’s Day with my kids. Their college years were in another state and now they both work with limited time off.

Look how my daughter puts up with her goofy ma.❤️

Me trying to figure out how I will pack my kids in my suitcase. 🤔

The happy couple. 🥰

Mother’s Day— I would say I’m beside myself, but I’m actually beside my son. Hehehe. ❤️

When I fly on an airplane and look out the window I’m amazed that we’re at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet and I think to myself, ‘This isn’t natural. Am I meant to be up so high?’ There’s something unnatural when a parent lives 3000 miles away from their kids. There’s an invisible rope that knots parent to child. And the parent is forever hyper aware of its presence.

When I first became a mother I would bawl while watching a documentary about a lost baby bear or turn off the TV altogether if the fawn was captured by the leopard. While I’ve always been that person who feels deeply, an extra sensitive mess, motherhood wrapped its arms around me and squeezed me so tight my heart expanded. But sometimes this motherhood condition which I now call empty nester syndrome, is not embracing but overpowering. Distance is a torment, and I can’t just turn off the TV.

(emptynestersyndrome: an ailment for parents who have done a fantastic job raising independent kids but are feeling the ramifications of this success. A severe case results when a parent associates the job of caregiving to their entire identity.)

Science

It's not just me that feels the tug since inception, or, conception. I’m in good company with most mothers and fathers including same sex partners.

This fascinating article reveals that depending on the amount of time we spend with the baby “…we're all born with the circuitry to help us be sensitive caregivers, and the network can be turned up through parenting."

Multigenerational Homes

In the late 1800s my situation would have been considered abnormal. Most Americans lived in multigenerational homes due to the agrarian majority. Kids helped farm the land and would eventually take over the farm and their parents’ care. The early 1900s saw the rise of the “Mother In Law Unit” as a sales feature in a new home. “Starting right after WWII the extended family household fell out of favor with the American public. In 1940, about a quarter of the population lived in one (multigenerational household); by 1980, just 12% did.” (Read more here.) Recently, the trend has reverted. Because of immigrant culture and/or cost of living there has been an uptick of multigenerational families living together again. (That’s one hellova Christmas party.)

Note to my kids—Don’t worry. I’m not moving in.

I have arthritis, thyroid disease and Empty Nester Syndrome. I focus on my daily chores. My health. My writing. I work on funny essays or videos while my kids focus on their own lives. (BTW, I just started an IG account called, emptynestersyndrome. Funny videos to follow. But first, I’m learning iMovie. Oy.)

Of course I’m happy my kids are adulting and are surrounded by love and friendships. Of course. I’m supposed to say this to you otherwise I look like an unappreciative she-devil-mama. I’m not allowed to be a sad mom when my kids are thriving and I’m not there to bear witness. I’m not supposed to yearn to be in the same city, meet them for lunch at the Pru, go on a hike with them and their friends in the White Mountains or visit the Isabella Gardner Museum where the empty frames still hang as a reminder that great masterpieces once existed there. As an out-of-town visitor, I would stare at those ornate frames and panic because I’d realize I am that frame. My kids weren’t stolen while security guards got stoned. They left. They each have their own new unpretentious frames defining their brilliant creations.

They flew away naturally.

As I write this, I recognize that it wasn’t just a piece of me I left in her spare room. It was my whole heart. 

I flew home, unnaturally. I left my kids, unnaturally. And somehow, I live without my heart. 

We hope to move closer to them. We know there will be boundaries; no expectations, I promise. The proximity will loosen the twine.

Guess what cures Empty Nester Syndrome besides moving? Grandkids. Just saying.

When you first have kids your dog becomes a dog again. When you’re an empty nester your dog becomes your baby again.

Check out

Meg Oolders

Podcast with Moi. We had a fun chat.

Next Wednesday will be a Funny AF Interview with

Alisa Kennedy Jones

Stay tuned.

Tell me about you—

1. To quote a great question from a Seinfeld episode—Do you ever yearn?

2. I just ate a whole chocolate bar. What did you just consume?

3. How’s your day?