I was having a conversation with my mom (Luza, who, by the way, is 100 years old) and I was telling her how weird it was to only have 1 of my kids left at home.
Technically, even Jonathan is not here, because he's gone most of the time with school and auditions and driving to LA and rehearsals for the play he's in. So I find myself rethinking making meals. I'm so used to cooking for a crowd and now it's just me and Eric.
Which is awesome. And completely weird to me.
So I am telling this to Luza and she suddenly she asks, "Is your kitchen clean?" Which at first I thought was an issue with her synapses mis-firing again because that seems to happen more often lately. She's 100, after all. I thought she was changing the subject.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, it is."
Which, now that she was mentioning it, I realized was pretty unusual for my house. There are always dirty dishes and leftover-from-last-night's-party cups and serving dishes that I was too lazy to wash out yesterday. And glasses with some sort of liquid in them on every available surface in the kitchen and dining room and living room. (Shut up. Don't judge.)
But here was my kitchen, with everything in its place and the counters wiped off. Hmmm.
Or mostly clean. But still…
Then she dropped this nugget on me:
"You spend years cleaning and straightening and discouraged that no matter how hard you work it doesn't seem to last for more than a day. Then suddenly you surmise that everything seems to stay neat and straightened and clean and you find yourself missing the mess."
My mom has lived 100 years. She has a lot of life experience. I guess I shouldn't be surprised when she has these amazing moments of lucidity.
"Go ahead and grieve. It's not the mess you miss, it's the messy people."
And so, here I sit, in my pretty-clean-for-a-Monday house, letting the tears fall. I think it's just part of that whole pesky empty-nest thing happening and I just need to embrace it.
Just when I think I need to soldier on through this alone, I get a text from Amy in Miami:
It turns out that the Messy People miss me, too. Who knew?
As an added bonus, it's also pretty nice to have a clean kitchen.
Tamera Beardsley says
November 3, 2014 at 12:53 amBeautifully poignant my dear. It is with great irony … that it has taken me having just one at home … once in a while … to see how much home cooked meals are appreciated. I think i might have lived too tidy and… all these years!
luisarodriguez.nina@gmail.com says
November 3, 2014 at 6:40 pmFeeling the same here. Only now it is just me. I cried as I read this. It explains how I feel precisely. Thank you.
Cathy Callahan Roze says
November 3, 2014 at 11:35 pmWe had a brief experience with this during the one school year/away from home/Sonoma State experiment by our daughter,Denise.(She bounced back home,goes to El Camino). I don’t really remember overwhelming cleanliness,sadly,but I was struck by the quiet. No laughing,yelling,loud music,clattering doors,no wondering who was getting pulled in the house with the briefest of intros…Frankly,it was kind of dull!
Vivienne says
November 4, 2014 at 10:34 pmI too can relate. As a Cuban mamma, I love cooking for my boys and since joining the empty nest club a year ago. My kitchen which by the way we remodeled in order to entertain, is hardly used, only when the troops come home and even then they spend lots of time out with their friends. The way I embrace it all is its my goal to continue to spoil them when they come home so they want to come home and so they experience homesicknesses!! Hang in there Marta!!!