It was wonderful while it lasted.
Three years ago, when our daughter moved into her own home with the boys, I wasn\’t sure I\’d make it. I missed them, and I worried about them. Over time, though, we got used to them being gone. It was right that Jenni and the boys should be in their own home.
Life settled into a comfortable pace for us. I came home each evening to a house that was in the same condition as when I left it that morning. I also had a chance to decompress from work without walking into a different maelstrom at the house.
That all changed about a month ago. A very tearful daughter showed up at our house on a Sunday evening, distressed and afraid. It appeared that the situation at her apartment, which she was sharing with her boyfriend (!), had gotten uncomfortable. Within three days, she and boys had moved back in our house. Let the party begin!
It took a couple of weeks for us to fully accept that we were no longer going to enjoy a nice, quiet evening for a while. Readjusting to the new house dynamics was a challenge for all the adults. The kids, on the other hand, were celebrating the bigger space and the stress-free ability to now be kids.
But you know what? It\’s a bump in the empty-nest season that I can live with. When I go to sleep at night now, I know that my daughter and my grandsons are SAFE. I know that she\’s not being kept up until the wee hours of the morning by an alcoholic, narcissitic man who doesn\’t care about her responsibilities or how she\’ll be able to function with so little sleep, just so that he can rant about some perceived \”disrespect\” to him. I know that my grandsons aren\’t being stuck in a little bedroom with a t.v. for a babysitter, because he\’s busy with his noisy friends in their living room; or because they just don\’t like being around him. My little grandsons can now speak to their mother without having to watch out of the corner of their eye to see how he\’s going to react.
Empty-nesting is great. We\’ll get back to that. Hopefully, when that happens for us, we will also sleep well knowing that the kids are all in a better situation.
It\’s all good.
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