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Empty  Nest Syndrome

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The single parents of almost adult children often live through a painful reason for living alone. Not all but many do.  When the child leaves home for college life, or for the military, or for just wanting to be independent somewhere scary like a big city then the parent often suffers in this new aloneness.  

This empty nest syndrome is often spoken of humorously, but it can be real grief for some people.  Especially the mother who has raised a child by herself.  She can have a difficult time getting used to living alone, sometimes for the first time in her life.  Here is one mother's solution to her grief.

Telling my own experience, my daughter left for university at the age of twenty, old enough to manage her own newly independent life.  But after she was gone I sat on her bed in the evenings for two weeks sobbing my heart out. I grieved in the newfound silence. And I still had her younger brother for company but I was almost alone and mourning her absence.

Coming to terms if living truly alone in this situation is harder than just setting up a new home of your own, all by yourself.  This new life has a child's room not needed anymore.  And an emptier fridge with less milk, coke, and pizza.  A home no longer the gathering place for your child's friends.  

So, if this has become your life you can make cheerful changes.  Redecorate her or his room into a guest room, then invite a friend from another state to visit. 

 

You can wise up and realize that the refrigerator has more room now for yogurt and tofu or all the veggies your child would not eat. You can cook what you want, or not cook at all.  Order out more often than not.  

 

In short, you now have the time to make your living space exclusively your own.  And find out, maybe for the first time in your life, just what you do like surrounding you, what colors and furniture styles, a see through shower curtain now that you're alone?  The possibilities are as endless as your budget allows.

It's up to you to end the grief as soon as possible and begin to enjoy.  

And I did survive and even thrived on my first venture almost living alone.  A practice period for later life with both grown children long gone.  And a husband gone too soon.  I survived again, and grew into a new life of my own.

If living alone due to an empty nest, then you will survive, too.

 

 

 

  

My Own Empty Nest

Your Empty Nest

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