Growing Up Again
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Many years ago I read an article by Ruby Zaman, author of Invisible Lines, on the 'empty nest syndrome' – the state of helplessness many parents are in when their children leave home. At the time I was touched by the sadness so well articulated by her lucid, evocative writing. But I was not at the stage in life to be able to really relate to the emotions expressed. Now after so many years I know exactly what she meant, how she felt.
When you're young and clueless you think you have a monopoly over heartache. Nothing seems remotely more devastating than being disappointed in love, nothing more heart wrenching than being away from the object of your romantic affections.
But then you grow up and have kids. And then they grow up. That's when you get the real McCoy, that's when you know what heartache is. It's that strange, hollow moment when they cut the cord and leave home, sometimes for good. When they come back it is to visit – spurts of happiness for you that turn into knots of more heartache when they leave, again and again.
You don't realize that while your child seems to have grown up all of a sudden and about to start a new phase of life, you too are now forced to reach a new level of maturity. You must accept that your child will, from now on, have a life separate from you. She is no longer within the parameters of your control. It is more the idea that she no longer needs you like before, rather than the physical absence, that is so hard to accept.
“It's like your heart is being ripped out of your body”, said the British woman next to me on the flight back home. With two grown up sons, each of them living far away, she should know. “But it gets better and it will give you more time for the two of you to treat yourself to holidays to nice places” she added, perhaps seeing the look of despair on my face. Treats? Holidays? What was she saying? How could we possibly enjoy a holiday without that one person who formed the core of our existence? The idea seemed preposterous like it must have been for this woman at an earlier stage and millions of other child-obsessed parents faced with the reality of separation.
As I enter her room where everything is just as it would be on any given day, the feeling of emptiness hits me like a thunderbolt. There are all her little knick knacks, those pictures of her at different ages, the shoes she left behind because she couldn't fit them into her bursting suitcase, the cupboard door refusing to contain all those unnecessary garments she just had to buy during random shopping sprees. Everything waiting patiently for her return.
I cannot feel the same thrill of coming home after a tiring day at work, just to know that I would in a few minutes, see that sweet face break into a smile, acknowledging my presence and her approval of it. I cannot go through a single inch of street in this city that she has known as home all her life, not a single stoplight or corner, without remembering that these are the exact paths that she took only a few weeks ago. I cannot visit relatives, friends, the shops, anywhere, without missing her and wishing she was here.
It all seems bewildering, this self-inflicted pain. For it was us, her parents, who did this to ourselves; and our parents did the same to themselves. Like millions of other parents all over the world who, out of pure love, agreed to this cruel separation, even helped make it happen, for the good of their children. So that their young ones may learn to fly on their own and explore the world, brave the dangers and embrace the delights that life has to offer.
So now, with enormous reluctance, we must join the club of residents of empty nests, waking up at odd hours, hoping, wishing, willing, for the phone to ring.
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