Empty Nest

It feels so normal today.
Even though it's so far from normal.
My older son is on his lap-top in the living room. My younger son is splayed out on the sofa, chatting with his older brother. The radio's on.
I'm in the kitchen. My husband's at work, but he'll be back later.
This is what life was like for years. Some variation of this.
Although in another locale. In another house.
The four of us.
That's why it's comforting. I know it. I'm used to it, even with its struggles. I like it. Everyone's close by, to be protected.
But it's all coming to an end tomorrow.
My younger son is flying back to the States. When I suggested he could actually stay another couple days, since school doesn't start for almost two weeks, he replied, "I gotta go home, mom."
We looked at each other.
"D.C. still's home for me, mom," he said.
Neither of us knew what to say after that. He'll stay with a friend for a couple days before heading back to his college town in South Carolina for his last semester of college.
My older son is moving to Italy in five days. He's thinking it's going to be for awhile. He's hoping anyway.
He lived here with us for three months. I was worried about what he would do here, but the truth is, he did just great.
He had fun at his internship; he jumped in with both feet.
The other day he likened his sojourn here with us to a semester abroad. It was about the same length, I guess.
College is over, honey, I reminded him.
You know what I mean, he said.
Yeah, I do actually.
Kids are only loaned to you.
I know that.
I've told friends that.
But letting go hurts.
And every time you get them back -- even for just awhile -- you get to go through it all again.

The Italians are Right

The Italians may be right after all. (funny that).
Maybe I'm not that well. Maybe that is why I've wanted to be alone. To try to make sense of things. Although it hasn't worked that well, I guess.
Just apprehensive about the future now -- like I never really was before. It's that no road map, no clear idea of where me -- or my family -- is headed any more.
That feeling of being on a flying carpet that never lands can reappear at any moment, when I least expect it, like an Italian traffic jam.
Is it just my age, the empty-nester, mid-fifties, what do you really do with yourself when you're done raising kids problem? I thought I had done with that, but it comes back, I've found.
Is it my newfound, not that satisfying, state of unemployment? And the money worries that go with it? Not used to that. Been working a long time.
Is it the shitty global economy, which has narrowed my options (like everybody's, I know), and scared the hell out of me for my son, who just graduated from college? We've still heard nothing definitive from his Milan interview -- they tell us to have patience, it could still come through -- but right about dawn, I can really start wondering about that. It's been months with no resolution.
I feel bad that we're not in Washington anymore, that he can't just come live at home, our old spacious home, the one we're lucky to have sold, with his own bedroom, closets galore -- and American basement. Near where his friends live. With enough room for us all to breathe -- and live together too.
We're thinking he's going to come and stay with us in London now, but that scares me, although there's nothing more I want than to have my boys nearby. Does that make any sense?
There's not much room there -- I have to clear out a closet somehow to make room for his stuff. Not that he has much stuff. But even the little he has.
He doesn't know a soul there. I know the young'uns are much better at meeting people, but I've hardly met anyone, so is that the best situation for him too? It's been hard enough for me.
And the British economy is in dire straits, no matter how many stories you read about "green shoots." It's a bunch of crap, if you ask me. I'm no economist, but I see more unemployment -- and more misery -- coming there. And nobody quite does misery like Britain, especially in the winter. (It's the rain and the really expensive everything).
And in Britain, you don't pick up a decent job being a waiter or somesuch, like my son has done in the past in the States to fund his life. Being a waiter is not a decent job there. No money.
There's "The City," of course -- the financial section of London that used to have plenty of good jobs with great salaries and good prospects. That's what's collapsed actually, and caused a huge ripple effect throughout the British economy. And my son is a Finance major.
He could come here, of course, to Italy. We've got plenty of room here for his stuff -- and he would like to end up in Italy for awhile. Hence the Milan job hunt. But if that doesn't come through, there just isn't much in Italy, let's be serious.
As an expat friend of mine said on the phone to me the other day, "he's coming HERE (from the States, she meant) to look for a job?". Silence from me. She was right, of course. What are we thinking?
I guess that's where the rubber meets the road for me now -- right about dawn.
Isn't the States the best place for this family to be again? Do we really have time to waffle around trying to make this European experiment work? Shouldn't we just cut our losses sooner rather than later?
Almost everyone at my old newspaper who took the early retirement buy-out seems to have found another job, from what I can tell.
And isn't the U.S. the place where my son needs to launch his career, since he's American and all, and just graduated with an American degree?
But then my British husband is the only one employed at the moment. And his company just transferred him to London (at our request). He certainly can't ask for anything else for awhile.
And I have found a bit of work in London.
And it would be great if it could work out for my son in Europe for awhile. He would like that. And ultimately it would be good for him -- and his career.
But will it work? Who knows? Could easily not. So many people are having dreams quashed all over the world at the moment.
I try to be optimistic -- just think positive. It's not easy though.
Sometimes I feel as trapped as a bee squirming around inside one of those glass pens beekeepers use.

Flying Out

      My youngest son, who's been here on the side of our Italian hill with me for five days, is leaving tonight -- going back to London for a night with his dad, and then back to Charleston, his college town, for his senior year.

      It's been so special to have him. It just hit me last night that we've never spent so much time alone together. We're almost always together as a family, the four of us.

      I know other families divide the kids up occasionally so they can spend individual time with their mothers, or their fathers, but we've never done that except for the odd movie or dinner. 

      Maybe we should have, because it does make for an unique bonding time. I can't speak for my husband, but I'm just guessing the five days our son spent with him in London before he came here were special for him too. 

      Anyway, that's it for awhile. I probably won't see him for about four months, until his Christmas break.

      I hate that.

      Last night, at dinner by the lake, we were talking about all his high school buddies and how much time they had been home this year too. It seems the only time I've really missed with him, compared to them, was Easter, when my son said he wouldn't have come home anyway (if he had had a home to come to) because they didn't get any time off school -- and we lived several hours from Charleston.

      That made me feel better. I hadn't really missed out on anything. But that's going to change now.

      Everyone will go home for Thanksgiving in November, my favorite American holiday.  And flying them to London for Thanksgiving is just not feasible financially, so close to Christmas break.

      I didn't want to broach Thanksgiving last night. It just makes me feel sad. He'll have plenty of invitations from his friends, of course, so he won't be alone, but still. We will be. Will we be every year from now on? 

      While we were talking about his friends, and his looming graduation next May, my son said, you know, most of them are going home, for awhile anyway, after they graduate. Until they find jobs.  

      We've spent a lot of time discussing what he's going to do after he graduates -- and coming to London to work is one of his options. Just one of many that he's tossing around.

      I've told him there's no pressure for him to do that -- and he knows that. It would be good for him in a lot of ways, building on what he studied at college, but it's something he needs to decide for himself, of course. 

       My face fell, I was jealous, it was obvious, when he told me a lot of his friends would be moving back home, even if that's not really what they want to do, or what he would want to do, he told me.

       I have no right to feel that, though, something he quickly pointed out.

       "You're the ones who moved, Mom," he said.

        My eyes welled.