Last times

Yes, yes, I KNOW it’s exciting that I’m about to be an empty nester and my child is flying off to experience independence in Melbourne.

But it’s also knocking me around a bit.

Last night I did my last major grocery shop as a mum who needs to feed children living under her roof.

It was bloody expensive … which I won’t miss … and my granny shopping trolley was bloody heavy to haul up the stairs .. which I also won’t miss … but I felt sad as I meandered down the supermarket aisles.

I collected his preferred snack items and ingredients to make his favourite meals.

The last dinners on the list are steak with blue cheese sauce and sweet potato fries, roast tomato soup and taco salad.

The eldest’s bedroom is slowly being emptied of 21 years of accumulated stuff. Childhood soft toys are being tossed, the crumbling bedframe has been dismantled, boxes are piled in the hallway.

His dad will arrive on Friday morning with a trailer. I will hug him tightly, they will drive off to a different state and I will go upstairs to mourn.

I am not alone in feeling this way. Emma Beddington spoke to a devastated bloke called Ben for an article in The Guardian on how to survive empty-nest syndrome.

He said: “I still think he’s in the house. I still think he’ll come out of his room, then it hits me: no, he’s gone.”

The house is quiet and empty.

“It’s like someone turned off the music,” he said mournfully (breaking my heart a bit, Emma noted).

I’d better crack out my CDs and turn them up loud.

I’ve written about “last times” a few times before, musing that you don’t usually know its the last time your child will reach their arms up to be carried … the last holiday you will have as a nuclear family … the last hug you will give your grandmother …

Then there are the times you know will be the last and mourn them as they approach.

I’ll never forget the last time I breastfed my youngest child. I was back at work full-time, we were down to a feed before bedtime and another first thing in the morning. There can’t have been much milk left, it was more a special time we spent together in the rocking chair, just the two of us.

I was surprised by how sentimental I was about ending those feeds. I never enjoyed breastfeeding. It was agonisingly painful in the first weeks/months: bleeding nipples, mastitis, attachment issues.

I’d finally found my rhythm when the youngest was nine months old. But it was getting too tricky with my long work hours and it felt like it was time to stop.

As I held her during that last feed I was filled with unexpected emotion. I would never breastfeed a child again.

I felt the same emotion the night before my ex and I told the kids we were separating.

He announced on a Monday that he was leaving, but Dr Google said it was best to tell the kids on a day they weren’t going to school. My husband worked on Saturdays, so the next Sunday morning was chosen.

We kept up the pretence that nothing was wrong until then. I can’t begin to tell you how difficult and awful that was. It was particularly rough going to bed on the Saturday night, knowing what lay ahead the next morning.

My daughter was so upset by the news that she slept between us on the Sunday night. I was gutted, both because we had caused her so much pain and because I wouldn’t get to sleep beside my husband for the last time.

I was scared.

And I didn’t want him to go.

It felt like the end of the world, but it turned out to be just the beginning of an exciting new life for me.

Now the eldest is leaving. He will be back to visit. It is not the last time he will sleep under my roof.

I am not scared, but I don’t want him to go.

Song of the day: The Communards “Don’t leave me this way”