Shweta Bachchan Nanda pens her experience of coping with an empty nest
It was a rainy day in September. I distinctly remember driving away, having just dropped off my youngest at boarding school. I trained my eyes ahead, even though I wanted to turn around and watch my son—in his red and white rugby gear—walk away from the van we had packed to the gills with his suitcases as he headed off to his first ever try-outs for a game he did not know how to play.
It was his idea—of sucking it up, getting on with things, showing me that he could be a grown-up. He was only 13! Three years ago, I had dropped my daughter, just hitting her teens, to the same school—she shooed me away as I fussed around making up her bed and trying to help her unpack. Later, while I was driving back, I got her message: “I can’t thank you enough for giving me this opportunity, mama. I love this place.” She was only two hours into her first experience of living away from home.
I remember reaching my hotel room, empty of everything that was child-related. I sat in the bathroom and wept. By the time it was my son’s turn, I was a little more inured to the process. A few days later, while boarding my flight back to India, his little boy’s voice, apprehensive yet trying so hard to be brave, said on the phone: “Everyone else seems to know each other, mom. I’m the only new kid.” The tears that I knew had been brimming for days and kept under control by sheer willpower, came rolling. There is no way to explain a mother’s instinct, but I knew he was scared. I was, too. For both of us it was a new beginning. I was left with an empty nest.
HOME ALONE
Not just for tissue-holding folks, the empty nest syndrome is so pervasive, it can take over the most headstrong of parents. Quite simply, the origin of this syndrome is a school- or college-bound offspring, who thus leaves your ‘nest’ (home) empty. Psychology Today calls it a “feeling of loneliness or sadness that occurs among parents after children grow up and leave home. It is not a clinical diagnosis but a transition period in which many people experience feelings of loneliness or loss.” During this period, depression amongst parents is not uncommon. A sense of hollowness sets in, making you incapacitated to undertake even mundane activities.
At first, it’s the little things that get you. For me it was the absence of their footsteps on the staircase when they came back from school. How they would fake-faint on the sofa, muddy and sweaty, heavy backpacks full to bursting still on, and I would scream at them for dirtying the upholstery and send them to wash up. Or the days they would come running to show me a misshapen red star on their tiny little hands, a testament that they’d been good in class. A test paper with an ‘A’ waved in front of my nose was accompanied with a look of triumph on their faces. Now, life moments comprised rushed FaceTime calls, pixelated and halting as they ran off, laughing, with their friends for class with a breezy “chat later.”
PARENTAL GUIDANCE
How do you survive the empty nest when that is all you have ever done—tend, nurture, heal, cuddle, fuss, cook, feed, cosset. After over a decade of putting someone else before you, how can you suddenly unlearn it in your forties (the halfway mark)? To reinvent myself, did I even know who I was if not my children’s mother? Over the years my identity had fused with theirs in an easy symbiosis that allowed me to escape defining myself. I was a stay-at-home mom, with an important job to raise the kids. I filled it into the occupation slot on innumerable immigration cards, looking at the officer with defiant pride. What was I then, now that actively raising my children was no longer my vocation?
It is a stage most women will come to at some point of their lives. The journey inward is daunting, but also the most fulfilling. Years of social conditioning come into play; it certainly did for me. Constantly plagued with a nagging, if overzealous, conscience, I was always hyper aware of indulging myself. Was it okay to travel on a holiday instead of only ever flying out to meet the kids? Having to tell them I’ll call them back because I have to hand in a piece and my deadline is looming is not negligent, is it? Do I need to speak with them once a day to know what they are up to? We all make up our rules as we go along but it takes some getting used to. But push through, I did.
CARPE DIEM
The empty nest is referenced across pop culture—in Gilmore Girls, when Lorelai’s daughter leaves for Yale, the mom-lead transitions from her managerial job to turn entrepreneur in a catering business. For me once this recharge was done, I felt empowered and decided I was going to embrace my new role and make it work for me. Writing, I soon realised, was cathartic. I had been a zealous writer of journals my whole life, and beginning my newspaper column gave me a huge sense of purpose while enabling me to understand my own emotions by reading them in black and white. In turn, the writing and search for new material every week nudged me to actively seek out new experiences. I joined a games group, reluctantly at first, but once I got into the swing of things, I became a rather vociferous participant. There’s nothing like navigating a room of competitive, screaming adults fighting for one more point to rid you of all inhibitions. Then there was travel; not having to adhere to school holiday timetables left me free to plan trips without the constraints of rushing back in time to finish holiday homework. And though my holidays with the kids are precious to me, not having to pander to anyone but yourself is glorious and addictive.
There’s nothing more alive and vibrant than a woman self-defining her purpose and meeting her goals (work-related or not). For me, it started when I reconnected with people who, as I ploughed through motherhood, fell by the wayside. This included my parents. Having moved away to another city after marriage, our visits revolved around school holidays and our equation, too, dwindled to everything grandkid-related. As your life is repurposed, attitudes also change but, most importantly, you begin to not just take each day as it comes, you also begin to live it.
NOTES TO SELF
Parents of adolescents often complain that they cancel all plans to spend time with their kids, who end up giving them a few distracted minutes before they rush off to meet their friends. My advice to you? Don’t cancel your plans. Your time should be respected as well as theirs. Come to a compromise; you’ll be a happier person and there will be less fraught emotions with your already-volatile teenagers. Be less judgmental—I always stop and think of what I was doing at age 17 and then approach a conversation with my children. That is how you get them to be open and confide in you. I cringe every time anyone tells me that my equation with my daughter is one of friends. I am always her mother; I have enough friends and so does she. What we are, though, is definitely a modern reworking of the traditional mother-daughter role.
In this age of obsessive parental control apps, it’s important to accept that you are never going to know everything about your child’s life—and you shouldn’t. Just like they do not know everything about yours. Continue to have a thriving life of your own. Do not try to relive your youth through them. Bombarding family group chats with pictures of them at their first prom, snowfall or date is cute to a point; after that it’s unhealthy, obsessive and, quite frankly, boring for everyone else.
“You’ll be comfortable in your own skin” is something my girlfriends told me as I sat on the verge of turning 40. Now a few years in, I can only say they were absolutely right. There is nothing like being shown a finishing line to spur you on, and at 40 that line is something tangible. By then, you know exactly what you want (and don’t want) without the rose-tinted sentimentality of your youth. The knowledge that life is flawed, there is no such thing as a soulmate and nothing lasts forever is so empowering.
Walk into this new phase of your life armed with knowledge. It’s never too late—Jessica Chastain, Vera Wang, Kerry Washington, all these women, and innumerable others, have managed to make a mark in their professions much later in their lives.
Vera Wang started her eponymous label at age 40—inspiration enough, I’d say. My own mother, a strong accomplished woman in her own right, when she met and married my father put her career on hold to bring up my brother and me. She kickstarted her life in her forties, after being dormant for two decades, first by getting involved with theatre, and later as a parliamentarian holding a 100 per cent attendance record—if she had to miss a family occasion here and there, there was no remorse. She had sat through her fair share of annual days and piano recitals to win her a free pass for life.
So the next time you go out for a meal and find a table full of 40-something women having a great time, instead of thinking “midlife crises,” send across a drink; God knows they’ve earned it! And then order yourself one as well and toast yourself.
The most fitting line that comes to mind is what Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine, who has lost everything, including the love of his life, says to Captain Louis Renault in the climax of Casablanca: “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
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