Last year, I wrote a blog about moving away from home. The article, Empty Nest, was about my own experiences of going off to college, but I wrote it because I was thinking about what my life would be like in the coming year when my own children went away and left me behind.
What I have more recently discovered is that it is pretty much impossible to have an empty nest when you have effectively raised a bunch of Homing Pigeons. They are never truly gone. They are just lurking around the corner waiting to see what kind of food I’m going to put out on the table. Like buzzards circling overhead, as soon as they see an opportunity, they swoop back in to take whatever it is that caught their attention.
That’s a lot of bird analogies in just one paragraph. Oh, well. Moving on.
Last week, I drove to Sonoma to move EM1 out of her apartment and bring her back home. I was able to get most of her stuff into the truck, but there will need to be a second trip to gather a few last pieces of furniture before her lease runs out and the landlord tosses it all to the curb. (Although, I’ve seen EM1’s furniture and the curb would not be a bad place for it.)
Two days later, I drove to Sacramento State University to move EM2 out of her dorm. I thought we got everything, but it turns out she forgot to grab her saxophone from her locker in the Music Department building. The saxophone costs three times the total value of everything else she owns, yet somehow that is the one thing she forgets to bring home. Sometimes I wonder who raised that kid.
Now, and for the next three months, I will never again have a moment’s peace. There will always be a kid or two parked on my couch, eating my food, and watching music videos and K-dramas. Not to mention all their excess furniture and stuff I have to trip over trying to move from one room to another. It looks like a yard sale that got relocated into the house.
I have tried asking them to do some chores. There is always shopping, laundry, and yardwork to do around here. But, EM2 looked me straight in the eyes and said, “But, Dad, it’s my summer vacation. I worked really hard in school this year and I need a break.”
I wasn’t sure whether I should laugh or get mad. I settled for turning red for a few minutes and stammering at the cat about ungrateful children and their total disregard of reality.
When I told EM2 that the real world did not have summer vacations, that when she got a job, she would need to go to work twelve whole months out of every year, she nodded at me and smiled as if I was on her side.
“Exactly,” she said. “So, before I go to work, I have to enjoy the time off while I have it. Thanks for understanding, Dad.” Then she went back to watching some boy band on her cell phone singing in Korean.
It wouldn’t be so terrible except for the fact that while they are on “vacation,” I am shopping, cooking and cleaning up for four people again, two of whom are complete slobs (I’ll let you guess which two). I am not allowed to use my own tv, I can’t keep snacks in the pantry for longer than eight seconds, and although I get yelled at if I go into either of the girls’ bedrooms, somehow I can’t get a moment of privacy even when I try to hide in the bathroom.
I know what you’re thinking right now. I’m doing an awful lot of complaining about having my kids back home with me. Sure, there are some adjustments to make, but aren’t there good things about having the girls around?
Well, if there are, I haven’t found them yet. Recently, I asked EM1 to run to the store and pick up a couple items that we needed for dinner. She came back home with three bags of garbage that she paid for with my credit card, stuck it in the pantry after telling me I wasn’t allowed to touch any of it, and then went to her room, leaving the items I had asked for on the kitchen counter.
I suppose I should be grateful she went to the store when I asked her to. After all, it’s progress over the personally hurtful answers I usually get to such requests.
In the distant future, when (if?) the girls finally move away and get homes of their own, get jobs and become self-sufficient, there may come a time that I look back on these days fondly. I might actually miss them and wish they were still home with me. I might call them up on the phone, just to hear their voices, or drive over to their places to have dinner or just spend a quiet evening with them. There might come a time that I’m sad they’re gone.
I mean, I’m not holding my breath or anything, but stranger things have happened.
For now, I’m stuck with two leeches fastened to my sofa while they enjoy their “vacation.”
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Summer job.