#empty nest

I don’t know how I feel right now.

Boy23 has moved out. He graduated from University on Monday and drove his final load of stuff up to his partner’s apartment in Portland on Tuesday.

In September, he starts a two year program to get his ASL interpreter certification. He’s only two hours away, and he still has friends here, so it’s not like I will never see him.

But still, I have become a typical empty-nester, feeling all the grief, the loss, the quiet of it all.

I had my first child at 30, and for the vast majority of the last 36 years, I had at least one child at home.

The rational part of me points out that I’ve been here before. That I have waved goodbye many times to my kids and have survived.

I have even had two dry runs to practice and prepare for this. After the divorce, each time my youngest went to live with his father, it broke my heart.

But grief is funny. I can’t rationalize it away. Objective reasoning won’t stop the tears.

With Father’s Day coming up soon, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a dad when your kids are no longer kids. As the father of two children in their twenties, I’ve learned that parenting changes. Many parents still see their grown children as kids who need direction, but they’re adults now. They’re capable of making big decisions, big successes, and yes, big mistakes. So what do…