Heading towards the empty nest

The past few months have been such a flurry of activity. Aside from my own work stuff, our house has been full of end-of-senior-year events. Yes, my younger daughter Sophia has now graduated high school. Somehow, my once snuggly, cherub of a 6-year-old has officially walked in her cap and gown, and I think I am in some state of denial.

Those adorable glasses came into our lives when she was four. She kept falling, face-planting and bumping into things at home and in pre-school. We had gotten an evaluation for early intervention services because she was delayed in several areas of her development, so we figured the falling was a coordination issue that needed PT or OT. Of course, at her 4-year checkup, the doc said she was far-sighted and suggested we get her eyes checked by an eye doctor. Turns out, she was very, very farsighted. We fit her for those adorable glasses and the falling was done.

Throughout her childhood, she tried a bunch of things: violin, dance, karate, musical theater. They all fell by the wayside eventually.

What seemed to stick over the years was visual art. She took some private classes throughout the years and decided to continue taking art classes in school all four years. Painting, drawing, graphic art, ceramics; she studied them all and turned out some really beautiful work. She was inducted into the National Arts Honor Society in her junior year and was invited to display her collection of work at the Senior Art Showcase. It’s funny, we spent so many years seeing all the bits and pieces coming home and storing them in various corners of the house. Seeing so much of her work displayed amongst that of her peers was so special. Despite feeling like so much of her educational experience was an uphill climb, art was an activity that endured through it all.

Over the years, that bespectacled smile would give us so much joy. As the gleeful innocence of childhood was traded for the emotional weariness of adolescence, the smile often went MIA, sometimes staying away for extended periods of time. I longed to provide the simpler times of her childhood so that her teenage years wouldn’t weigh so heavily on her. Unfortunately, growing up is not synonymous with simplicity and her high school years were fraught with challenges: academic, emotional and social.

Despite all that, what has always impressed me about Sophia was her desire to stay on schedule in school. Missing a day was a rare occurrence. Even when she had a cold and I insisted she could stay home and rest, she got out of bed, put on a mask and got on the bus. Even leaving school early for a college orientation was a mental battle. She really leaned into the regular structure of the school day, and while it exhausted her, it also centered her. The daily grind was familiar; she knew what she had to do, and even if it was hard, she got her work done.

Throughout high school, Sophia was in a program that gave her a lot of support, both therapeutically and academically. Even through the pandemic, which hit during her freshman year, she learned how to navigate the virtual platforms, attended every class, and turned in all her work. She showed up, which is much more than I can say for a lot of students at the time. She ran back to the school building as soon as she was allowed, and was one of very few who actually made the effort to return as COVID was receding. Because she had great relationships with her teachers and valued the structure of her schedule, she did well in school; that, it turns out, was crucial to her success.

Probably her biggest leap was the decision to apply for college. Sophia’s learning curve has always been pretty steep. From the time she was little, it took her a long time to grasp new concepts, and the more complicated they were, the longer it took for her to have any sort of comfort in her performance. When she started talking about wanting to go to college, we were naturally wary; she never tested well, she got frustrated easily, and she needed a lot of support to get her to the next step. In college, she would need to be a lot more independent. At the beginning of her senior year, we knew there was a long road ahead of her to get there; she needed to gain more confidence to self-advocate, organize, make plans and follow through.

What I believe has always gotten her through to her next steps is her long-term perseverance. As slow as her progress sometimes was, there would be these “aha!” moments when she’d take a leap forward. There was always intelligence and desire in that brain, but they often got masked beneath easily-triggered frustration. Nevertheless, throughout her senior year, she always kept her eye on the prize; she wanted to go away to college. Since her high school program was not particularly geared towards college-readiness, we knew it was our job to help carve out her path.

Like many seniors, we started the search in September. My main parameter was that the school must be within an hour’s car ride. I wasn’t sure what her first semester would look like, so I wanted to make sure that if she needed a break, have a family dinner or come snuggle with her animals, we could accommodate that. Hers was to stay on campus, so the local community college was unacceptable for her, despite my numerous suggestions to consider it. We came up with four local colleges: Manhattanville, Dominican, St Thomas Aquinas and Ramapo. Her GPA was a 3.3, so we figured she’d get an acceptance from at least one of them.

We worked on the applications throughout the fall, but it wasn’t easy. Sophia had no idea just how involved the college process was. We went to a few college fairs, which exhausted her, and I remember her asking why we had to do all of this. In that moment, I thought this was the opportunity to give her an “out” if she wanted to reconsider. Insert teachable moment: I told her that this was all part of the process: the fairs, the application, the college essay, and getting the recommendations. She would have to do it all in order to get to college. Though I was partially expecting her to walk away and just watch videos in her bed, she sighed heavily and said “okay.” It was a moment when I realized she was committed to the idea and would have to figure out how to withstand the exhaustion that the process would create.

Another obstacle was writing. In school, she had never written a term paper. Heck, I don’t even think she had written a 5-paragraph essay. Expressive language and making inferences was always a major struggle for her and was part of what her IEP was there to support. Writing a 500-word essay about herself must have felt like a climb up Mount Everest. Just getting started was an emotional trigger, but at some point, after making bullet points on a page, something connected and she started clicking away at her keyboard. When I read what she had written, I was floored. Her thoughts were eloquent, concise and reflected her experience. I wanted to cry; that girl could write.

In December, the letters came. Not only did she get the big envelopes, but all four colleges gave her academic scholarships to attend their school. What a confidence boost for her, and for us. The first hurdle was done: getting accepted. The next hurdle was to make the decision where to go. We did campus visits and she eventually landed on Ramapo College, about 15 minutes from home with a beautiful, smallish campus with a great community and a support program that would help her navigate what would certainly be big challenges for her.

Though the big college mountain was conquered, there was still another high school challenge to contend with: Participation in Government. Her biggest assignment to date was a 6-page research paper in MLA format, with scant little writing experience. She (and many of her classmates) failed her first go-around. I thought for sure, this could very well be the thing that would derail her college aspirations. Fortunately, I was wrong. She was given the opportunity to edit and resubmit the paper and she passed with a C. Though this assignment probably caused more stress than any other assignment in all four years put together, it was another good teachable moment:

College is hard and you will be
writing many papers like this.
Get ready.

The last quarter of her senior year was a slow downhill slide. She even wanted to go to the Senior Prom, something that was surprising to me, considering she wasn’t really engaged in many school activities. But for all of the concerns we had about her social connection throughout high school, part of her senior year was about building a small friend group with whom she felt comfortable. It was a collection of kids from different grades who met every day for lunch and met up once in a while outside of school. When she started talking about it, I realized she was taking another step towards that independence that we had been so concerned about in the beginning of the year.

Seeing what people wrote in her yearbook made me cry; the reflections of what a cool person she was, even though she didn’t talk a lot, how talented she is and how hard she has worked. The truth is, she made a satisfying little world for herself at school that we didn’t get to see at home. As her mom, that’s all I really want for her: to have the strength of character and confidence to choose her path and follow it to a satisfying end.

Because I’m a proud mom who loves to chronicle the good stuff of life, I am including the obligatory photo dump of my youngest child’s big day.

The empty nest

As Sophia progressed through this year, one thing became clearer with each day that passed: my husband and I would soon become “empty nesters.”

That term, indicating that all baby chicks have flown the coop, is something I hadn’t fully grasped. I probably still don’t. Honestly, I barely can grasp the reality that I watched the younger kid graduate from high school. I’ve been thinking and talking a lot about retirement four years from now, but that’s still in the somewhat distant future. Both kids in college; that’s just around the corner.

The empty nest thought process is complex. On one hand, we are excited to recall what life was like without kids needing us in the immediate present. Meals together will be for two; to be honest, we’ll probably eat more cereal for dinner. We’ll be free to decide to go out on our own, or stay in and watch what we want to watch, rather than random TikTok videos or Dragon Ball Z. It will be quieter; perhaps weirdly so.

On the other hand, not having those two extra beings in the house, breathing your air, forgetting to fill the water pitcher, leaving dishes in the sink, leaves an empty space that I’m not sure we will ever get used to. As parents, we have created mental and emotional habits relating to those extra people. We always needed to consider how our moment-to-moment decisions and actions were going to affect them. Now, we’ll only have to think of the furry children, at least, until the birds that have flown the coop return for a visit.

Of course, the Gen Z set is likely to return to the coop for some time after college, so I’ll consider the two-in-college time a gift.

For now, I’ll live in this moment of anticipation. There’s still college orientation and all that new stuff that she’ll need some support for. I’m excited to see how she figures things out and adjusts to this new phase of independence. We’ll be there, ready to respond if she needs, but encouraging her to rely on herself and her resources. I’m ready to turn the page, and I hope we have given her everything she needs to do the same.