What To People Do Who Don't Have Kids?
So we dropped 3 kids off at camp yesterday, and the other one decided to remain on campus working for the summer. What this means is that hubby and I are going solo, for the first time in 19 years! True, last summer we did get away for 3 days to New York without kids, but we have never been alone together in our own house without one or more offspring for more than a couple of hours.
After we dropped them off, we took a very leisurely drive home, stopping in the somewhat dreary town of Meadville for lunch. I wanted to show hubby Allegheny College, where son #2 is applying this fall. We drove around campus, then stopped at a quaint little place called The Artist's Cup for lunch. Then we wandered around what passes for downtown in Meadville, bought some cookies, then drove the rest of the way home, stopping once more at our library to pick up 5 movies to watch this week.
We walked into the house, so quiet, and more remarkably, just as we had left it 6 hours earlier. There were no new dishes in the sink, no new laundry in the laundry room, no more shoes to trip over on the way in. There were no video games being played, no telephone calls taking place. No one was calling "Mom...what's for dinner!" or "Mom, can you take me to Cody's?" or "Mom, can we go to the pool?"
Hubby and I had a nice dinner of leftovers on the deck before the storm rolled in. We drank some wine. We watched a movie (They Shoot Horses, Don't They? which I rented after reading about it in Sydney Pollack's obituary. It received something like 9 oscar nominations, so I thought we'd like it. It's a depressing story, and melodramatic, about a dance competition during the Depression, that was supposed to be a metaphor for life's miseries. If you want to feel happy happy joy joy, rent something else.) We were asleep by 10:00 but first I lay awake (while hubby snored) listening to the quiet. The week to come seemed like a huge void that I would decide how to fill. It wouldn't be filled with doing things for everyone else.
So my question is, What Do People Do Who Don't Have Kids? Do they wallow in the luxury of time to themselves? Do they think of that time as luxury? I don't want to get too gleeful over all this time to myself (which I will have no problem filling, by the way. I have numerous home projects to accomplish, in addition to preparing for our coming week at Chautauqua). We really only have 8 more years until all the kiddies are out of the house, after which I anticipate 20-30 years of empty-nesting. I know I will miss having the kids around.
But just for now, just for this one week, I think it's okay for me to wallow. It's only one week in 19 years, after all.
After we dropped them off, we took a very leisurely drive home, stopping in the somewhat dreary town of Meadville for lunch. I wanted to show hubby Allegheny College, where son #2 is applying this fall. We drove around campus, then stopped at a quaint little place called The Artist's Cup for lunch. Then we wandered around what passes for downtown in Meadville, bought some cookies, then drove the rest of the way home, stopping once more at our library to pick up 5 movies to watch this week.
We walked into the house, so quiet, and more remarkably, just as we had left it 6 hours earlier. There were no new dishes in the sink, no new laundry in the laundry room, no more shoes to trip over on the way in. There were no video games being played, no telephone calls taking place. No one was calling "Mom...what's for dinner!" or "Mom, can you take me to Cody's?" or "Mom, can we go to the pool?"
Hubby and I had a nice dinner of leftovers on the deck before the storm rolled in. We drank some wine. We watched a movie (They Shoot Horses, Don't They? which I rented after reading about it in Sydney Pollack's obituary. It received something like 9 oscar nominations, so I thought we'd like it. It's a depressing story, and melodramatic, about a dance competition during the Depression, that was supposed to be a metaphor for life's miseries. If you want to feel happy happy joy joy, rent something else.) We were asleep by 10:00 but first I lay awake (while hubby snored) listening to the quiet. The week to come seemed like a huge void that I would decide how to fill. It wouldn't be filled with doing things for everyone else.
So my question is, What Do People Do Who Don't Have Kids? Do they wallow in the luxury of time to themselves? Do they think of that time as luxury? I don't want to get too gleeful over all this time to myself (which I will have no problem filling, by the way. I have numerous home projects to accomplish, in addition to preparing for our coming week at Chautauqua). We really only have 8 more years until all the kiddies are out of the house, after which I anticipate 20-30 years of empty-nesting. I know I will miss having the kids around.
But just for now, just for this one week, I think it's okay for me to wallow. It's only one week in 19 years, after all.
posted by calabresewoman | 1:29 PM
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