The Leaving Years

By the time you read this, I might be in a fetal position.

Right now, but not for long, there is a single wall between us. The same wall that has separated our rooms for the past 16 or so years, ever since you were ready to move from a crib to a bed.

I woke up today with perhaps the same pit-in-my-stomach feeling you described on Saturday when we were throwing items into a shopping cart—items that you never think about and would only buy when setting up a new life. I was too distracted then with my lists full of cleaning supplies, gadgets, and pantry staples to feel anything but excitement for your next chapter, as if I were trying to substitute a mother’s love with these inanimate objects.

But I haven't been so busy that I didn't notice you've grown more quiet in the last two days. I’m not sure what’s on your mind but I’m not asking either because I know you need space to sit with your your thoughts, your feelings. I know, because right now I too am contemplating the cruelty of life’s natural order when we reach an age where, one-by-one, the people we love begin to leave us.

I know you understand because both of you grew up knowing death at a much younger age than I did.

I am calling these years the Leaving Years and I’m now calling August the Leaving Season. We traded in first-day-of-school photos for a car packed with suitcases and Ikea poly duffle bags. Nobody told me how hard this stage of life is.

Now that there is nothing more to pack and no more lists to make, I sit here on my side of the wall that we have shared for the past 16 years. All the feelings that I’ve tried to push away with distractions of politics, food, mindless TV and my goddamned lists are still there waiting its turn for my attention. I know the sadness will wane after a month or so. It’s a common rite of passage, so even though I reserve the right to feel dramatic about this transition on the inside, I try to restrain my emotions because I don’t want you to see this emptiness.

Instead, I filled your last week in NYC with revisits to childhood haunts. We lay in hammocks on Governors Island reminiscing about all the hot and sticky summer days we spent here eating spicy jerk chicken from the Jamaican food trucks that make us sweat even more. You wanted to take a photo under the giant hanging whale at the history museum and walk past your favorite playground in Central Park.

We filled your plates with food that you will pine for when you’re away from home, just as I did when I left the city around your age: cold Korean noodles so chilled that they’re served in a broth of ice; BBQ with perilla leaves picked right from our balcony garden; a NYC pizza; a sausage, egg, and cheese on a roll from the corner deli.

We spent the last evening together, the four of us under the same roof, quietly making necklaces from beads we bought this summer. We’ve rarely crafted like that and I still find it amusing that this was how we spent our last evening together.

As one last motherly gesture, I washed, repaired, and re-stuffed your two plush animals that you’ve had on your bed since birth: a yellow bunny that your grandfather brought back from Korea that you named Butter and a panda that we got from the National Zoo in D.C.

They are now ready to make that drive to their new home. I think you are too. I’m not sure what will meet me on the other end of that drive home when I look back and see not only one empty back seat, but two, but I also know that we’ll be fine, you and I. You won’t be the only one starting a new chapter. The excitement of new beginnings will eventually overshadow the emptiness of right now.

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Related reading

The many phases of empty nesting

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Links & things

• Human culture is changing too fast for evolution to catch up – here’s how it may affect you (The Conversation)

• How the Harris Campaign Beat Trump at Being Online (The New Yorker)

• The End of the English Major: Enrollment in the humanities is in free fall at colleges around the country. What happened? (The New Yorker)

  I’ve been digging deep about the value of a liberal arts education and there’s no denying that liberal arts colleges are trending downward in popularity vs. bigger university experiences where students enter into pre-professional majors such as engineering, computer science, finance, and business. It makes sense that kids today want employable skills coming out of college with a reasonable ROI against the absurd tuition in today’s college landscape. But even in liberal arts schools, the number of humanities majors have fallen by nearly half. This is such an interesting read.

• Japan sees rise of 'ramen girls' Women move in on the male-dominated world of noodle soup. (Nikkei Asia)

• The Sandwich Generation Can Also Mean Caregiving Adult Siblings (Dame)

• If you’re in NYC through October, Jenny Kendler’s site-specific installation on Governors Island, Other of Pearl.