 |
| Back of the boy at Christmas |
So, it is the third full day without my youngest child in the house. On Monday, I did a full-on deep clean of his bedroom along with rearranging the furniture. Holy moley, there was a lot of garbage in there, collecting dust. Two whole trash bags full of old school papers, empty boxes, and all manner of junk. Yesterday, I went through his clothing and another trash bag has been filled for donation. Thankfully, his brother had already purchased storage supplies so I was able to put his dress shirts and nice polos in an enclosed bin, tucked under an unnecessary piece of furniture.
I’ve also been doing his sister’s laundry to get her ready to go back to school herself. That will happen this weekend, and then the deep-clean of her room will commence. Following that, I intend to move to the basement workstation for deep cleaning. That’s a bit daunting, as I don’t think it’s been cleaned (really) in a couple of years.
But it is really quiet in the house now. The girl is only home for dinner sometimes; the oldest comes home to sleep. There is no muffled shouting coming from the basement well into the night; no reason to shut the bedroom door in the morning so as not to wake the boy. It’s strange not having him home when his presence was constant.
After Saturday, the opening and closing of my daughter’s bedroom door will stop for another three and a half months – and the quiet will deepen further.
The pandemic has seen to it that we are more home-focused, that we’re stuck here, really, with nowhere to go; cleaning the house is actually something that can be accomplished. Unfortunately, I cannot sustain the cleaning energy; past experience shows that after a few days, my interest in tackling challenging tasks wanes dramatically. So, today, I am not doing anything challenging – I took a break and actually made some yummy vegetable soup. Later, I *might* attempt to make sense of the girl’s clothing strewn across her bedroom.
So, I reluctantly enter the empty nest period of my life. And I know it is temporary – those kids will be back – but for now, other people are overseeing my youngest children. I am not crying at the drop of a hat these days, thank goodness, though that may change on Saturday. The best I can do right now is stop, take deep breaths, and soldier on. It will all be okay.
Yes, we are gonna be okay.