 | No, I’m not saying we should move back in with our parents. Hear me out. |
You, empty nest women, have been taking care of everybody and everything for decades. You’ve worked hard, managed kids or husbands or parents, helped your loved ones study and move, bailed people out of jail, and cooked a thousand casseroles that you never got to eat. You scrimped. You saved. It wasn’t all bad, though. You made good friends and your people loved you and you had some fun and you got really, really good at what you did.
Now you’ve got some extra time on your hands, and your mental load is a little lighter. What are you going to do with all that free time? Scroll through your phone? Watch the soaps? (Hey, no judgement if that’s what you really want to do, but let’s look at your options first.)
Empty nest women, we might have forgotten who we are deep down. It’s time to get back to You. Those millennials are really good at a few things, and I think we should learn from them.
Self-care. Millennials are all about self-care. They meditate or exfoliate or marinate or oxygenate. They know about organic food and nano-free makeup. They will look someone straight in the face and tell them the relationship is toxic and must end now. Mad respect!
We, on the other hand, are terrible at self-care. Once, I complimented a mom-of-four on her svelte figure and she said, “I just don’t have time to eat.” I dealt with that problem the other way, by driving with one hand and holding a buttered tortilla and a cappuccino in the other. I ate while I cooked so I got two dinners. When stressed, I stood in the pantry eating chocolate chips out of the bag. The phrase, “I have to keep my strength up” got really blown out of proportion. Either way we handled the time/food issue, we weren’t taking care of ourselves.
Now we’ve got time. Let’s think about how we want to take care of our body and soul and just do it.
Take a nap. Read a book in the tub. Go to the farmer’s market. Roast some fresh Brussels sprouts, knowing no one is at home to complain about the aroma. Go for a bike ride. Write in a journal. Do some yoga. Go to a podiatrist and get that nagging ingrown toenail taken care of. Find your method.
You’ve only got one you. Take care of it.
Hobbies. Millennials love their hobbies. Knitting, playing the ukulele, coloring, making kombucha. Why do they do this stuff? Don’t they know you can buy sweaters and kombucha at the store? I think it’s because they have remote childhood memories of playing with real, tangible things and then as they grew up those tangible things gave way to the virtual. Messy art projects gave way to MacPaint. Talking on the phone devolved into texting. Family movie night turned into everybody watching their own thing on Netflix with headphones. They want something with some texture that’s not metal or plastic. Progress is great, but we lost a few nice things in the past twenty years.
What about us? Do we have hobbies we gave up, or are there hobbies we always wanted to try but couldn’t squeeze in? What do you want to do? Did you give up a craft space when your teenagers needed separate rooms? Do you miss making pies with your grandmother? Is your saxophone that you haven’t played since college calling to you? Did you take German in high school and wonder if you still remember? This is your time. Do your thing.
Now you’ve got some extra time on your hands, and your mental load is a little lighter. What are you going to do with all that free time? Scroll through your phone? Watch the soaps? (Hey, no judgement if that’s what you really want to do, but let’s look at your options first.)
Empty nest women, we might have forgotten who we are deep down. It’s time to get back to You. Those millennials are really good at a few things, and I think we should learn from them.
Self-care. Millennials are all about self-care. They meditate or exfoliate or marinate or oxygenate. They know about organic food and nano-free makeup. They will look someone straight in the face and tell them the relationship is toxic and must end now. Mad respect!
We, on the other hand, are terrible at self-care. Once, I complimented a mom-of-four on her svelte figure and she said, “I just don’t have time to eat.” I dealt with that problem the other way, by driving with one hand and holding a buttered tortilla and a cappuccino in the other. I ate while I cooked so I got two dinners. When stressed, I stood in the pantry eating chocolate chips out of the bag. The phrase, “I have to keep my strength up” got really blown out of proportion. Either way we handled the time/food issue, we weren’t taking care of ourselves.
Now we’ve got time. Let’s think about how we want to take care of our body and soul and just do it.
Take a nap. Read a book in the tub. Go to the farmer’s market. Roast some fresh Brussels sprouts, knowing no one is at home to complain about the aroma. Go for a bike ride. Write in a journal. Do some yoga. Go to a podiatrist and get that nagging ingrown toenail taken care of. Find your method.
You’ve only got one you. Take care of it.
Hobbies. Millennials love their hobbies. Knitting, playing the ukulele, coloring, making kombucha. Why do they do this stuff? Don’t they know you can buy sweaters and kombucha at the store? I think it’s because they have remote childhood memories of playing with real, tangible things and then as they grew up those tangible things gave way to the virtual. Messy art projects gave way to MacPaint. Talking on the phone devolved into texting. Family movie night turned into everybody watching their own thing on Netflix with headphones. They want something with some texture that’s not metal or plastic. Progress is great, but we lost a few nice things in the past twenty years.
What about us? Do we have hobbies we gave up, or are there hobbies we always wanted to try but couldn’t squeeze in? What do you want to do? Did you give up a craft space when your teenagers needed separate rooms? Do you miss making pies with your grandmother? Is your saxophone that you haven’t played since college calling to you? Did you take German in high school and wonder if you still remember? This is your time. Do your thing.
Internet usage I’m sure we could all use a little less screen time, or maybe we just need better screen time. You know how those millennials are learning how to knit and play the ukulele? Youtube! You can learn anything with Youtube. Drawing, language learning, dragon training, souffle making, it’s all there. It’s free. Look up your thing and learn it, and then you’ll spend less time on the internet because you’ll be doing your thing.
Social justice Why do millennials care so much about social justice? I think it’s because with the internet they have seen horrible sights daily most of their lives, and they don’t like knowing what humans are doing to each other and to the earth. In 1988, my college friends and I saw a news report on the burning of the Amazon rainforests in Brazil. We were up in arms, ready to do something to stop the pollution and the loss of flora and fauna and the devastation of native cultures! For two days. Then it didn’t show up on the news again and we forgot about it. Same with the Rwandan genocide and the Ethiopian famine and Anita Hill. I never even really knew what We Are the World was all about. Now we have 24/7 coverage of everything bad that is happening on the whole earth, and I don’t know about you but I feel horrified and vaguely guilty every time another terrible story pops up.
Now is our chance! You have a big, caring heart. Let’s pick a cause that is important to us, and do something. Send some money, volunteer, march in a parade, knit a blanket for some cold children. You can’t fix everything, but you can fix something. You always have.
Social justice Why do millennials care so much about social justice? I think it’s because with the internet they have seen horrible sights daily most of their lives, and they don’t like knowing what humans are doing to each other and to the earth. In 1988, my college friends and I saw a news report on the burning of the Amazon rainforests in Brazil. We were up in arms, ready to do something to stop the pollution and the loss of flora and fauna and the devastation of native cultures! For two days. Then it didn’t show up on the news again and we forgot about it. Same with the Rwandan genocide and the Ethiopian famine and Anita Hill. I never even really knew what We Are the World was all about. Now we have 24/7 coverage of everything bad that is happening on the whole earth, and I don’t know about you but I feel horrified and vaguely guilty every time another terrible story pops up.
Now is our chance! You have a big, caring heart. Let’s pick a cause that is important to us, and do something. Send some money, volunteer, march in a parade, knit a blanket for some cold children. You can’t fix everything, but you can fix something. You always have.
So, make yourself some avocado toast and a cup of roobios and put together a plan. This is your time. Have fun with it!