Going Gypsy: One Couple's Adventure from Empty Nest to No Nest at All

by David James

  How in the hell can kids moving on with their lives be a syndrome? Shouldn’t that be like breathing oxygen syndrome? Shouldn’t we be excited about this portion of life? Most of us have made more than a few sacrifices to get here, so we say stick a fork in us, we’re done. It’s not only not selfish to take a little time out for ourselves after surviving three teenagers; it’s insane not to.

  While clicking onto page after page of empty nest lamentations, an idea began to germinate. A plan to have no plans. Veronica and I could be the kids for a change. The time had come to get back to just the two of us, to resurrect what brought us together in the first place. We could cut loose and go wherever we wanted, be untethered and free. Wander the globe. Veronica could finally see all of the places I’d seen while singing for my supper. We could Go Gypsy. Gypsy Empty Nesters. GypsyNesters.

  The theory sounded great in my head, but in real life there were logistics to being footloose and fancy free. We would have to untangle ourselves from all of the possessions and responsibilities that held us down. We couldn’t travel by telekinesis and would need lodging of some sort along the way. These things require funding and a modicum of preparation.

  While I babbled on about these ideas, my mind was beginning to formulate some viable modi operandi. Veronica’s mind, however, was going in an entirely different direction.

  Could a homebody mommy who’s been totally engaged in her kids’ lives really just cut and run? I think her inner voice might have been whispering, “What are you thinking?”

  2

  Fear Conquering

  David made it sound so simple, but after I took a little time to think about it, I had to confess to some anxiety concerning this GypsyNester stuff.

  It didn’t help that most of the family and friends to whom I’d mentioned the plan-is-no-plans idea found it harebrained. Frankly, I’m not quite sure it wasn’t.

  I’d become a bit of a worrier over the years (okay, a lot of a worrier) and had morphed into quite the homebody. I wasn’t convinced that homebody was my natural state, or even what my natural state was at that point. I’d liken it to my hair—I’ve dyed it for so long, and in a rainbow’s worth of different colors. I’m not really sure what would come out of my head if I let it grow without intervention.

  The cold hard fact was that my kids had become my life. I’m not the first person to say this—but I’m not just saying it. My purse became a diaper bag. My car became a minivan. My me-time became their-time. I even sold my thriving web design business in Nashville and took a job at their school when we moved to St. Croix. When I called myself a helicopter mom, I wasn’t kidding. No one hovered like me. My rotor blades were sharply honed.

  My job at the school, which had begun as designing their website in exchange for tuition, became a rewarding career involving all of the school’s technology systems. My best friends were my colleagues—The Spawn’s teachers, deans, and advisers. I was entrenched.

  By working at the school, I probably knew way too much about what was going on in my children’s lives, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  I knew all of their classmates by name. Some of these kids even came to me to sob on my shoulder, tattle on The Spawn, share dreams and goals, or just hang out to have a laugh or two. I was their room mother in junior high, mother-confessor in high school, and the one they begged to go to Chicken Shack for after-school SAT prep session snackage. They brought their lists of prospective colleges to me, seeking my opinion of their choices, and excitedly stormed my office when the acceptance letters arrived.

  The idea of The Boy and his classmates moving on and leaving me behind at my desk was heartbreaking; I wouldn’t be able to bear it. It was time for me to move on as well. I just needed guts.

  Could I give up my home and embark on an undefined mission? When I think back to The Beanpole and The Valley Girl, and their willingness to take life as it was thrown at them, I can still feel the excitement of it all. The joy of new love, the world before us, tethered only to each other. We were broke and naive, yes, but we were free—and fearless.

  I needed to believe it was possible to become like that again, to return to what David used to call it, our Nation of Two. A magical land with closed borders and no foreign policy. A realm where nothing and nobody outside its boundaries mattered. A country with only two citizens, a Nation of Two. The blissful State that Kurt Vonnegut so eloquently proclaimed in Mother Night.

  That’s the place—if we could find it again—where we could shut out the world and reconnect as a new childless, or more correctly—as much as I hate the term—empty nest couple. A more stable and smarter version of what once was.

  I was not that fearless young girl anymore, not by a long shot. Motherhood knocked her right out of me. Fear was my constant companion. I feared for my children’s safety, but my concerns went way beyond any normal mommy protection instincts of diseases, injuries, accidents, afflictions, or tornadoes in Tennessee and hurricanes in the Caribbean. No, I took it to the level of solar wind and magnetic storms. I stressed about the prospect of massive meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, and tectonic shifts in the earth’s crust. What if the world spun wildly off its axis? I anguished over nuclear annihilation and possible alien invasion. Was Soylent Green really people? It got to where I was even afraid of zombies terrorizing the neighborhood. I was a big sloppy mess of fears.

  Then, for the first time, I started to fear the world’s perception of me. I not only needed to be the best mother in the world—I was terror stricken that I wouldn’t be perceived as such. I was mortified by every mistake I made, beat myself up when things didn’t go right, and I replayed anything that could possibly be seen by the outside world as less-than-perfect child rearing over and over in my head.

  The more I reflected on these things, the more I realized that I had some serious issues to deal with. This had to happen soon if we were going to abandon our island home and wander the world.

  So, in an attempt to alleviate my apprehension for the unknown and scary, I decided to take a self-defense course. I saw huge growth potential there. I wanted to be able to protect myself from what lurked in the dark alleys of my mind.

  My friend (and The Boy’s biology teacher) Kate was on board with me, which was great because when Kate gets on board about something, she gets balls-out on board. Kate’s husband, a karate guy (and The Boy’s chemistry teacher), knew of a class at his dojo, so he signed us up.

  Beautiful, slight, middle-aged Alda was our class instructor. My first reaction was gimme a break, even I could kick her butt. How can this woman teach me to be brave?

  We started off with some breathing exercises, and Alda explained that the first line of defense for any woman is to run away. This made perfect sense to me—by nature I’m not a hitter; I’m a runner. We worked on body awareness, muscle memory, and strengthening exercises. We talked about trusting our instincts and keeping our cool. That was good, that was very me. I could do that.

  But that Alda chick was a wily one. As the class progressed, I learned some surprising (and slightly disturbing) things about myself.

  At one point I found myself looking down at Kate in stunned confusion after throwing her to the mat in a rapist-repelling maneuver. The objective of this exercise was to learn to use the momentum of the defensive maneuver to spring to our feet and run like crazy women.

  Running was not what my adrenaline-charged brain and body wanted to do at all, though. What I wanted to do was rush at my fictitious rapist and kick him in the face. How dare he treat me like a victim! Luckily for Kate, I decided that kicking her in the face was not a nice thing to do. I do have manners, after all.

  Being the pacifist (wimp) that I am, I was in total shock that I could have such a violent reaction to a circumstance that would normally turn me into a puddle of melted Jell-O. This was not the growth I had expected, and I didn’t know I had it in me. It rocked.

  My confidence grew. Maybe I could try new things and step outside of my co
mfort zone. And knowing how to kick a little butt couldn’t hurt if the need should arise.

  On the drive home, I resolved to begin a project I’d been putting off for a while. Rockin’ my new confident self, I strutted into the house, a woman on a mission.

  I dug out a desk calendar and a red magic marker; the time had come to officially commence the countdown. I wrote cheery notes to myself on each day of the week leading up to June 8, The Boy’s Dreaded Graduation Day.

  “Keep your chin up!”

  “Thirty days ’til freedom!”

  “Your ovaries may be dead, but you’re not!”

  I deserved this dirty little secret. I’d spent a quarter of a century raising The Spawn. I’d gotten all three of the buggers to maturity alive and relatively unscathed—it was high time I started celebrating a job well done. A new and exciting chapter in my life was about to begin, and by God, I was going to look forward to it—with as little guilt as possible. I’m a fairly guilt-based person. I was raised Catholic, so it’s in my DNA.

  For The Boy’s sake (and to avoid horrified looks from house guests), I would keep the calendar under the mattress and yank it out first thing every morning to cross off another day, like a jailbird awaiting parole.

  It occurred to me that this new outlook would not make me impervious to emotional milestones along the way. I glanced over at The Boy’s graduation announcement, emblazoned with his cap and gown photo. My heart almost stopped when I saw it. I had spent many moments in the privacy of the bedroom staring at it and bawling, wondering how my baby got so big.

  Learning from prior graduation debacles, I knew that it paid to plan ahead if I wanted to avoid public emotional outbursts. The Piglet and Decibel might never forgive me for the coyote-like howling from the coveted front row aisle seat at their graduation ceremonies. So I markered in “Convince Dr. Feelgood to write happy pill prescription” on June 1 and “Sleep like the dead” on the boxes for June 5, 6, and 7. I added to the June 8 box:

  Do not sit in the vicinity of these people

  1) Other mothers graduating their youngest child

  2) Single mothers graduating their only child

  3) David

  The school community at large would thank me (I’m kind of notorious).

  I wrote in similar notes for The Boy’s last Tuesday with us, the last macaroni and cheese dinner, his last dentist appointment, and, of course, the last time he’ll throw off his shoes and socks in the middle of the living room floor (another June 7).

  As I knelt down next to the bed to tuck my crutch safely into its hiding place, I prayed that my newfound resolve would hold.

  3

  When Hurricanes Blow

  As much as Veronica’s prison countdown calendar seemed to help her cope with the last chick flying off from our nest, I couldn’t help but notice that her marking off the days was harboring a small boatload of denial. She had circled The Boy’s high school graduation as her release date, as if there wasn’t one last major undertaking awaiting. Her helicoptering self had been fully engaged in the process of selecting a college, so she knew full well what was coming. But just as with the girls, the mother in her was bound to struggle with the finality of actually sending The Boy off to his new life. It would be the last flight of the helicopter.

  She had avoided some of the sting of good-byes with the girls by sending me with them when they left for school. That way she could stay home with the remaining siblings and still be mommy. But this time, she would have to find her solace somewhere else. I hoped that somewhere else would be the sanctuary of our Nation of Two, pride in our offspring’s accomplishments, and in our role as parents of adults. After all, we weren’t through being parents, just through being parents of children.

  During The Boy’s transition we would still be involved in his life and education, and certainly affected by his decisions. There were some valid concerns. Would this be the right college for him? A good fit? A place where he could thrive and hopefully excel? Would he get there all right, or could there be another stormy adventure like Decibel’s? There was no way of knowing until after the fact.

  We did have the comfort of knowing that our excursions into the university admissions process had worked out well so far, even if not always as planned. The kids had taken the task extremely seriously. Choosing a school was the biggest decision they had ever made. We feel that each time the final result was the proper match between school and student, even if there were some storms along the way.

  All three prospective students had been very good about pursuing scholarships, taking the tests, making their lists, and submitting all of the proper paperwork. Each eventually chose the respected school in their desired field of study that made them the best scholarship offer. Even though those offers never came from the college that was their first choice, they ended up in very good schools and understood the finances involved.

  We had made a deal with our kids well in advance. They would give us one thousand dollars toward tuition, and then we would pay the balance and their housing expenses. Everything else was their responsibility. They had all saved up before heading off, and then found jobs to cover their food, books, and spending cash. We felt strongly that it was important for them to have a financial stake in their education, as well as not bankrupt their parents. They all agreed and made their college selections accordingly.

  Ultimately, through fate and possibly an act of God, I am convinced that each of our scholars ended up with a better experience at these runner-up schools than they would have at their initial favorites.

  The Piglet had her hopes set on going to New York City but got a huge scholarship award from a Washington, DC, school that gave her opportunities in broadcasting she probably wouldn’t have had in the Big Apple. Now, after a great education, she lives in Manhattan, just like she pictured it.

  Decibel’s best offer came from Tulane University in New Orleans, not the exclusive theater school she had dreamed of, but she gladly accepted. We were thrilled—a great school in a great city. However, she never attended a single class there.

  In late August of 2005, Decibel flew up to New Orleans to embark on her college career. Just as I had done with The Piglet, I tagged along for moral support, for a couple of last good meals, and to break out the credit card for the stuff she’d need to get settled into her dorm. One last weekend with Daddy’s Little Girl.

  That time of year is the heart of the hurricane season, and we lived on an inescapable island on the buckle of the Atlantic Basin’s hurricane belt. We had learned to keep a close watch on every storm, so we had been following Katrina since it was a tropical depression off the north shore of St. Croix. All of the forecasts had it headed for Florida, and we boarded our flight confident that everything would be fine in Louisiana. But we had also learned from experience that those predicted paths are subject to change. And change it did. By the time we checked into our hotel in New Orleans, the clerk handed me this nugget of news along with our key.

  “Looks like we got a storm comin’ right at us.”

  “No, it’s gonna hit Florida, isn’t it?”

  “Nope, they moved it. I just saw it on The Weather Channel. Turn it on when you get up to the room.”

  Sure enough, that mother was coming right at us. This was Friday night, Decibel’s registration and orientation were the next day, and she was getting a little nervous. But it was late and we were beat, so all we could do was wait and see what it looked like in the morning and decide what to do then.

  Early Saturday, Katrina was still coming right at us, up to a category three now, a little over a day away from landfall.

  “Let’s go get you checked in, then come back here and see about getting out of here before it hits.”

  I could see the disappointment on her face. Decibel had been chosen from all of the incoming musical theater students to perform a vocal solo at the orientation ceremony, and she really wanted to do it.

  “Maybe they’ll still have the ceremony
, honey. Let’s go over and see what’s going on.”

  What was going on shocked both of us. No one was acting like anything out of the ordinary was looming. Just a typical welcome-to-­college morning, with long lines of excited freshmen registering and the football team, sporting their kelly green jerseys, helping kids carry their stuff up to their assigned dorm rooms. Go Green Wave. Nobody seemed to think that this was anything more than a pleasant late summer day. Decibel lost it.

  “Don’t you people realize there’s a huge hurricane coming this way?” came flying out of her mouth at the top of her lungs.

  We don’t call her Decibel for nothing.

  The Caribbean kid couldn’t believe what she was seeing. By the time a hurricane was a day away from us in the islands, we had boarded up all the windows, laid in several weeks’ worth of supplies, and battened down ­every hatch that could be battened. There is no choice but to hunker down. It’s not like we could drive away. But here, there were no visible signs of preparation, and not just at the school—the whole city seemed oblivious.

  I was confused by this lack of concern, but not confused enough to get caught up in the nonchalance. I told Decibel I didn’t think we should put any of her stuff in her dorm room. She agreed. It was on the sixth floor, with a big picture window overlooking the quad. Great room, but not for riding out a hurricane. We both knew that window was toast. Everything stayed in the trunk of our tiny rented car.

  Decibel really wanted to hang out on campus until the orientation at two o’clock. It was nearly noon. I convinced her to come with me back to the hotel. The last thing I wanted was for us to get separated.

  “We’ll come back for the ceremony.”

  She reluctantly agreed. Driving across town, we saw that the roads were starting to fill up, and every gas station had a line several blocks long. At least some people were planning to leave, but that looked to be the sum total of any preparations. From the hotel, I called our airline to see about getting tickets home. That wasn’t going to happen, as everything was full or canceled, along with the trains and buses.