Reply to Is this depression or normal in seeing my kids grow up and start their own lives?

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[quote=Anonymous]I am 50. I was an empty nester at 45. My kids are all out of the house and making their way through the ups and downs of young adult life. (They are all girls). I was a SAHM too and have zero regrets on that front at all. That is what helped me to let go. I was confident at 45 that I did everything I could to give them the launch in life that I wanted them to have. So when I look back at the memorabilia from days gone by, it's with a sense of the sweetness of those days and years, not a sense of acute sadness. I do feel like "job well done!" and that I am being promoted now, as one poster said. I did grieve, for sure, but I handled it by being available to my girls when they wanted to connect. Annual mother/daughter weekends with each, visits to their campuses now and then, texting to the extent they want to (each is different that way). I also slowly added things into my life. I work two days a week now, exercise more, and have pursued other hobbies more in-depth. My marriage has blossomed in ways we never foresaw and ways that weren't even there as young honeymooners years ago. The empty nest has been awesome for our marriage (read the previous post from the widow and you'll get a sense of some of the ways it gets better!). Really, I am so looking forward to the decades of adventure ahead, as much as I enjoyed the decades of caregiving behind. Being 50 and an empty nester, I do feel like I am on the brink of a decade of discovery and adventure. I plan to be a hands-on grandparent down the road, if that is what my kids and their partners would like, as I didn't have that when raising my own children. But the grandparent years are far away and they may never come. Who knows. But right now, I feel like I am in the harvest years and my DH and I are thoroughly loving it and loving each other honestly more than we could or did while we were raising kids. There were only so many hours in a day.

I do wonder if OP's kids are boys (I think she said that) and maybe they are in a stage of young adulthood where they aren't in touch with their parents much, which is totally normal and has added to her grief. Sometimes girls may stay in touch more at that stage (?) and drift away later (or earlier, or never). In my small sample size of empty-nester friends, the boys are somewhat less in touch with their parents than the girls. It's an old stereotype, but seems to have a bit of truth in it.

Anyway, the sun is still shining, OP. Let it shine in your life and model for your kids that you are able to reinvent yourself! We are all unfinished people as we go through life and each stage gives us new opportunities. Seize them![/quote]

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