I have a huge dilemma.
And it’s one I’ve never quite dealt with before in the 13 years I’ve been a mom. All three of my kids are going off to sleepaway camp this summer, and for the first time ever, I’m going to have vastly fewer distractions, obligations, and concerns.
For two whole weeks I won’t have to deal with the following daily parental responsibilities (i.e., all the mundane and grandiose tasks and jobs and to-dos that make up being a mom and that are why we can never truly explain how complicated it all is to someone who is not yet a parent):
- Schlepping people places.
- Having 125 requests per child, per day.
- Signing permission slips.
- Putting everyone to bed but myself.
- Navigating fighting matches.
- Dealing with complaints about bad snacks.
- General noise and mayhem.
- Stepping on trinkets and Shopkins.
- Planning play dates and their social calendars.
- Nagging everyone to do their homework and practice piano.
- Etc.
My husband and I have been talking for months about how cool it will be once they leave — having sex on the kitchen floor (well, just because we can, of course), drinking cool beers on the porch, going to a movie and new restaurant every night. We delight that we will be able to have full conversations with each other without constant distractions — we’re even going on a four-day trip to the Berkshires!
One would think I’d be elated beyond measure at this newfound freedom. And I am — but it comes at a cost.
Never before would I have imagined the polarizing and conflicted emotions at my children going off to camp. There is a part of me that desperately wants them to leave, so I can finally get even a small reprieve from the crazy pace of this life as a parent. And yet an equal emotion, demanding to be felt, is my sense of longing and yearning for them to stay home with me.
Quite frankly, our kids are the life force and pulse of our home. The frenetic pace, the chaos, and the joy have become part of the gestalt of our home, and without it, we’re left with a searing void.
While it’s temporary, of course, I can’t help but feel the remorse and guilt of willingly sending my kids away, albeit by their choice as well, when immigrant children are being forcibly removed from their parents every day right here in the U.S.
While my children frolick with friends and eat watermelon and relish in all the joys of camp, the adults back home still worry about them, still miss them and long for all the messiness and joy that fill our home each day.
And yet, I cannot be more grateful for the solitude, the freedom, and the ability to schedule my days on my terms and at my own cadence.
I imagine I’m getting a little micro-taste of what empty nest syndrome feels like. The push, the pull, the gratitude, the melancholy. The identity crisis, the freedom, the joy, the longing, and the epiphany of the passage of time.
Come to think about it, this polarity is familiar. It’s what mothers experience every single day in the quest to balance both parenthood and their own independent paths and passions and community. I just never anticipated quite the pastiche and tapestry of emotions to swirl around concurrently inside me.
Do you relate? How do you feel when your kids go off to sleepaway camp?
