Copyright 2004 Margie Ingram. All rights reserved.
Blogger’s Note: This article was written in the Spring of 2004. Since the only constant in life is change, we wanted to share this timely and timeless article with you.

Transitions: they’re a part of nature. They are all about us. Seasons change, and this time of year, children are graduating, young couples are marrying and people are selling their homes and moving.

Transition is also a natural part of our human world and is a topic that I have been leading programs on for the last 24 years. Along the way, I have realized that “learning about,” “teaching about,” and “living through” these experiences can go hand-in-hand-in-hand.

“The years go by so quickly; it’s the days that can pass slowly,” I once heard. This has certainly been true for me since our two children were born, Adam in 1981 and Alyssa in 1985. It was hard to believe, in 2004, Alyssa was already a senior in high school contemplating which college she would attend. Having already been through Adam’s senior year, complete with college search, last school concert, and last high school basketball game and tennis match, I thought I knew what to expect.

It wasn’t long, however, before I began to realize that this time was indeed going to be different. With Alyssa’s leaving for college, there would be no other child still at home. My husband, Joel, and I would be facing an “Empty Nest” for the first time. Now we would have a chance to fully practice what I had been teaching about transitions: “the only way out is through.”

ADMITTING AN END

Facing an “Empty Nest,” we needed to acknowledge the ending of life as we had known it for the past 21 years since children had entered our lives. Every parent facing an Empty Nest with whom I have talked has been aware of a pending doom.

At the same time, each has said that the worst part was anticipating it…. imagining the house empty, wondering what it would be like to not have kids in the house each night for dinner or homework, knowing that getting kids off to school in the morning would no longer be part of their daily lives.

And it doesn’t end when kids head out for the first time. One friend and her husband have had to go through this loss several times. Both of their children went away to college, then her daughter returned home temporarily and just recently moved overseas to teach for a year. I had a chance to talk with her the day after her daughter left.

“How’d it go?” I asked.

“Well, I was a mess yesterday, but I’m better today,” she confided. Ah, the need to say good-bye once again.

I found talking with friends who had already been through having their kids leave home or who were in the midst of it at the same time as me so helpful; confirming that I wasn’t alone and that what I was feeling/anticipating was normal was helpful in itself.

FINDING ANCHORS

Identifying what anchors exist for us in our lives help, too. What are the things in our lives that keep us centered, focused, grounded? For me it was continuing to do puzzles (Oh, thank those of you who brought Sudoku to our lives!), walking and talking with close friends, and digging in my garden. These all helped me to ground myself as I anticipated Alyssa’s leaving in the fall.

Books were my friends as well. While reading The Launching Years during Alyssa’s senior year, I first came across the concept of reframing an “Empty Nest” to one of creating a “Roomier Nest.”

I liked this more positive focus for the coming year! It reminded me of the television commercial where parents are upstairs rearranging their son’s bedroom as he is just getting in the car to drive off to college for the first time. Maybe there are opportunities here.

Shortly after Alyssa left for college, I was reading a newsletter from a good (and very wise) friend of ours, Sam Horn. Sam’s youngest son was leaving for college that fall as well and she had reframed the seemingly negative concept of “Empty Nest” to an “Open Nest” where each person in the family is free to come and go as their lives led them.

As I contemplated these new perspectives, I began to notice that my perceptions were starting to shift. Joel and I both began to catch glimpses of possibilities that would indeed be part of this transition in our lives. We no longer just had to “trust” that opportunities would emerge, we now “knew” they were awaiting us.

We began to be intentional about writing this next chapter of our lives. What didn’t we have time for before that we can now do? What have we been longing to get back to but just couldn’t find the time? Where had we dreamed of traveling? We began to do Purpose-full Planning. We took control of that extra energy and time in our lives, not letting it slip away into routine dailyness. We wanted something positive to look forward to while Alyssa was experiencing her new life adventures at college.

CHANGING OPPORTUNITIES

We decided to change our paradigms. At work, for example, we decided to create a new event, “Humor Cruise 2006” to the Bahamas in March with Carol Channing, to celebrate The HUMOR Project’s 30th annual programs.

At home, we began to incorporate more fun travel into our lives and to take time after dinner to do crossword puzzles together. We have created opportunities and experiences that we couldn’t have done with our daily responsibilities when our kids were still home.

Several of my friends found themselves being intentional about creating this newfound time for themselves as well. When my friend Gail’s daughter left for school, she quickly signed up for exercise and yoga classes. Finally she felt enough space in her life to commit to being involved with a particular committee at her church that she’d been wanting to join for quite awhile.

Another friend and her husband looked at the space in their lives before them and realized that it would be really easy to continue to each get immersed in their work lives even more than they were and lead basically parallel yet separate lives. They committed to “date night” every Wednesday, going out to dinner and often to a movie they wanted to see. This became the sacred time they created for themselves to reconnect and continue growing together as a couple.

During a program I recently led on creating a fulfilling life after retirement, one of the students in the class declared that she didn’t want to continue doing what she had been doing for much of the last 30 years. She really wanted to break free of all of the restrictions she had put on herself while she was working and raising her children. She was ready to go back to her childhood and plan on doing things that she used to love to do “way back then.”

As she spoke I was taken back to “playing at” the piano when I was young. I could pick that up again…. when Alyssa leaves to study overseas next fall. I anticipate that I will be a bit uneasy with her so far away, so playing the piano again can be something that I have to look forward to.

Ah, so many opportunities in this one life transition. Now I relish this new-found freedom—where shall we go to eat tonight, honey?

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Margie Ingram and her husband, Joel Goodman, are directors of The HUMOR Project in Saratoga Springs, NY. Margie facilitates workshops on “Managing Stress,” “HUMOResilience,” “Creating Effective Transitions in Our Lives,” and “Graceful Aging.” She is also a Life Coach helping people facing transitions to create gratifying lives for themselves.

For more information on her Life Coaching services, call 518-587-8770.

The Launching Years: Strategies for Parenting from Senior Year to College Life by Laura S. Kastner and Jennifer Wyatt, page 138.