The Empty Next

Actually, The Empty Nest. Have just come back from a visit to the kids at uni, four weeks into their first term there and an empty house here.

The Empty Next is more true than Freudian slip, though I'm not really feeling that at the moment. I know that a lot of women feel as if their life has stopped and they face an empty future, but it hasn't hit me like that.

I suppose I know they'll be back for holidays and I'm already used to absences lasting several months: both kids spent time on other continents during their gap years.

But the silence still hits me at times.

I remember the days I longed to be in a silent house, when even the dog had been taken out for a walk. Without him intruding his giant personality encased in a pint-sized terrier body, I could experience the peace of solitude.

Now, I don't like too much of it. Not too much emptiness.