Empty Nest

Our fifth child moved out on Friday. She had been out before, but was back since December. This move includes a year-long lease and a very decent and kind roommate. So, for some reason this move seems real. The real one.

For the last two days it has been a frenzy of moving, cleaning, re-arranging. There are still closets jammed with god-knows-what and stacks of things to be given to Goodwill, to the long-sleeve-shirt-drive-for-Migrant-workers and bags of hangers to be recycled. There are boxes of books from childhood that can't be tossed, and boxes of books from a year or so ago that I can't find.

My legs ache. My sinuses are filled with dust. There are tears just behind my eyeballs.

Children moving out and getting on with things is a good thing! Trust me. This is why there is an "age 15" so that you can let go of them when the time comes. Gratefully!

But still. Cultivating a still heart, and seeking space in my insides, leaves me feeling the enormity of it as well. The time passing. The huge shift from keeping a house full of kids to living in a house without any.

The many birds - Cardinals, Indigo Buntings, Mockingbirds, Thrashers, hawks, chickadees and finches are all building nests. I watch them busy busy busy in my backyard.

And I, too, am building mine. But what a different type of nest.

And so it goes.