Page 18 - Leisure Living Magazine: June 2020 Edition

Ever since my kids were young I have dreaded the empty nest. I know many parents who are just the opposite, and have been looking forward to uninterrupted peace and quiet ever since that first cry in the middle of the night. Not me. As hard as those years were, they were also the best, and as we moved through all the glorious stages of family life, the knowledge that it would one day come to an end never left the back of my mind. Waking up to an empty house was just about the worst thing I could imagine,
so I did my best
to pretend that
it would never
actually happen.
not gotten off the ground. On top of that, the kids we thought had moved out keep showing up, apparently to make sure that the status of their rooms has not changed, and to give updated instructions to their army of microorganisms and living, breathing “inanimate” objects standing guard over their domains.
So this transition to an empty nest is taking longer than I expected. I had always imagined it would occur over, say, a weekend, like menopause.
But now that
day has come, and
to my surprise
I am finding
that my biggest
difficulty with
this adjustment
is ascertaining
whether or not
my nest is actually
empty. You see,
my daughters
strategically left behind a thriving ecosystem of living and nonliving organisms including clothes, bacteria, books, fungus, hairballs, grime, products, viruses, games, random piles of papers, and hair-altering appliances whose job it is to protect their rooms from us in case they ever want to return. And they are doing their job. My wife and I have donned layers of protective equipment and descended into these jungles several times to clean and throw out garbage bags full of junk, only to discover later that everything is back, as if we had never been there. There are only two logical explanations for this: The living organisms hauled back the inanimate objects, or the inanimate objects are, in fact, alive.
Either way, the new gym, office, and elegantly furnished guest bedroom we had plans for have
But I have since been educated on these types of important time frames. It took me twelve years to notice that my mother- in-law had been going through menopause the entire time I knew her. So I’m a little slow, but I catch on eventually, and
I now know that this empty nest transition will probably take at
least that long.
But actually, that is fine with me, because the
thought of the best years I will ever have in my life being completely over is still the saddest thing I can imagine. So if an annoying pile of junk or occasional hairball gets me a little steamed, it also reminds me that the spirit of those wonderful years still permeates my home, and that my precious girls are not gone for good.
Mark Salamon is a physical therapist with twenty-five years of experience making people laugh while simultaneously inflicting pain. He honed his sense of humor by raising three hilarious daughters with his wife Melissa. More advice and humor can be found on his website marksalamonpt.com.
18 |LeisureLiving June 2020
www.LeisureLivingMagazine.com
Is The Nest
Really Empty?
By Mark Salamon PT, Humor Writer
The author with wife Melissa, front, and daughters Hannah, Kyra and Katrina.