When empty nesting means leaving the nest too

Becoming homeless at 53 sounds bad, but for me, it was a blessing.

Because while I was technically homeless, I’d made a deliberate choice to be so. I sold the house I’d lived in longer than any other, with no idea when my planned condo would be completed.

When I sat on the floor of an empty living room looking up at the two-story tall windows that had first sold six-month-pregnant me on the house, the nest wasn’t only figuratively empty, it was in the literal sense, as well. That empty nest stage in a parent’s life can be filled with loneliness, grief, and a loss of identity. Or it can be an opportunity.

Leaving your own nest

It was my own little bird who had flown off to college that became the catalyst for me to see the opportunity. When she asked if I would caravan with her from Texas to Colorado, where she would be spending the summer working at a wilderness camp, I remembered Tina Fey talking about applying the “yes, and” rule of improv to life. So I said yes. And then I started thinking, “and…what if I just kept going?”

My employer was still in that post-pandemic phase where they said we could all continue to work remotely, with the only restriction being not more than 30 business days in any one state outside our designated home state (for tax purposes). So I found an Airbnb close enough that I could get to my daughter if needed, but far enough away that she wouldn’t feel like I was hovering, and booked a month in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

Then the real work began. To make what was starting to form in my mind financially feasible, I couldn’t be paying a mortgage and rent every month. So began the process of preparing my house for sale. I thought it would just take a few weeks, but 20 years of accumulated “stuff” is A LOT to sift through, pack, store, sell, give away, and ultimately pay someone to take away. I knew I would ultimately return to a condo more than half the size of the house, so I had to be ruthless about limiting what I kept.

Finding your fledgling wings

Simultaneous to deciding what would go into my future home, I had to plan what would travel with me.

First, there was my dog and my cat, and all their gear. That in itself took up much of the space in my small sedan, but I wasn’t ready to sell it and live the van life. So my own wardrobe had to come down to a limited capsule of color-coordinated necessities. But I realized along the way that if you need something you didn’t pack, thrift shops are a great resource for both buying what you need and giving away what is no longer needed. It was a reminder that the decluttering lessons learned when emptying my house can be carried through to the rest of my life.

But a physical thing I couldn’t carry through with when I no longer had an address was my mail. I had already gone paperless with most of my bills, and delivery services like Amazon would be easy to direct to wherever my front door was at the moment, but there were still some things that would need to be sent via postal service.

I knew other people before me had traveled full-time, so there had to be a way to do it. That’s when I learned about virtual mailboxes. I found a company that provided me with a mailing address, scanned all incoming mail, and then emailed it to me as a PDF. If it happened to be something I needed the physical version of, for an additional fee, they would forward it via delivery service to wherever I was residing.

Flying through the fear

When I set up that virtual mailbox, I didn’t know where, beyond the first month in Colorado, they might need to forward things. As I was facing the post-parental stage of my life, was I crazy to add the anxiety of not knowing where I would live after leaving my own nest?

My supportive friends didn’t seem to think so. While one admits she did have some concern for my safety on the road by myself, she was also thrilled I had the opportunity and resources to travel it – physically and mentally.

I indeed had a unique combination of circumstances that made this adventure possible. Remote work, a good market to sell my house, a future home in the works, no romantic partner, and a daughter mid-way through college and on her way toward adulthood. But while the letting-go process is fundamental to parenting, I was letting go of more than most.

And I’m so glad that I did. Empty nesting can be heartbreaking, but moving out of the house my daughter was raised in gave me a boost to shift my energy toward embracing a new chapter in my life. I got to see parts of my world I might never have seen and experience them as a traveler instead of a tourist. I rested in nature, reignited myself by pushing my limits, and readied myself to engage in new chapters.

If you’re struggling with the emotions of the empty nest stage of your life, perhaps the best thing you can do for yourself is to also leave the nest and embrace the opportunity of this stage of life. It doesn’t have to mean driving off into the unknown.

Maybe it’s just starting to declutter now with an eye on a future home that is perfect for your life after children.