My eight-year-old son had his first sleepover party at someone else’s apartment this weekend, though I’ve been so caught up in a big work project that I hadn’t really stopped to consider what a rite of passage this was for him and for me. Until Sunday morning. Until I woke up conditioned to expect his noisy merriment and complaints about something or other, but all I got was silence and absence, an early taste of Empty Nest Syndrome.
It was so disorienting that a half hour into the morning, I called out to him, venturing again into his bedroom to ask him if he did his weekend homework–and instead, his older sister made fun of me.
My wife is also terribly busy right now, focused on work and on helping her mother close down her house and move into an assisted living center. We’re so crazed, we have babysitters helping us every night this week–in part because my wife is staying out in the ‘burbs helping her mom most nights.
Which brings me to this morning, when I woke up conditioned to expect my wife’s own routine merriment and complaints–and again, all I got was silence and absence.
I’ve grown accustomed to my life.
–Eric Messinger
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