Years ago, in the final months of my first marriage I bought a lovely duck-egg blue tablecloth. A quintessential cheery cloth, the kind you might see in children’s books, or Disney movies.
I knew what I was doing, even if I never acknowledged it to myself. I was trying to save a relationship that couldn’t be saved.
It’s not complicated. Adding beautiful things to my home, making a beautiful home would make me happy, wouldn’t it? Surrounding myself with the accessories of the day, doing what everyone else, who was happy was doing, would work. Right?
And that house was beautiful. Bought when my twins were barely a year old and completely renovated by the time they started school at four. And I mean completely. New oak flooring throughout, hand-applied mosaic tiles and underwater photographs of the Great Barrier Reef in the bathroom. Painted, plastered, walls knocked down, blinds made to measure. A deck that flowed seamlessly from the kitchen to the garden and, when it was sunny, made it easy to believe you were in Spain.
But it was easier to believe everything back then. I hadn’t been through divorce. I hadn’t faced a decade’s worth of rejection in my chosen career. I didn’t have jowls and I still needed to buy tampons. Plus, I had so much energy, once I was done with the house, I started on the garden. A vegetable patch! I had twins, for heaven’s sake, in nappies.
And after all that effort, all that time, energy and expense, it was only a year later that I left. The hand-picked furniture, the mosaic tiles … I left it all without so much as a backward glance.
I’d like to say here, I learned my lesson. But I did not.
I moved into a new little house with my children, and on the first weekend went on a spending spree in an upmarket department store, coming home with gorgeous bed linen, and hand-painted pottery plates and cups. All the extras needed to make our new home cheery and happy and beautiful. This time I painted the house in colours that suited the more studious mood I’d adopted as I started my degree.
And barely three years later, I moved again. Exhausted now, and yes, a little wiser, I didn’t do anything. I left the walls in my new house just as I’d found them. White. I had no energy or interest in picking out furniture. A table? As long as it has legs. Curtains? As long as they closed. I remember friends coming to dinner very early on and the woman asking me, what I had bought with me. The TV, I said.
In over a decade that attitude hasn’t really changed, in fact it has only become more entrenched. And I know why.
Firstly, I have my work. I’m like the father in all those Famous Five books. Locked away in my study, ‘working’ while the mother sorts the house, four kids and a dog.
Secondly, I read the tealeaves early.
Don’t get me wrong. Women are natural nest-builders, and when there are eggs to hatch and living, breathing, bodies to fill that nest, it’s a joy to make it as comfortable as possible. But it leaves us so vulnerable, don’t you think? The day we turn around and realise that for one reason or another the children, the partner, the dog, has gone. The day we understand it really is just us. Perhaps for the rest of our lives. What to do then?
You may not like this, and you may not need it, but I’m going to suggest some practical advice. Before you start looking at colour swatches for that empty bedroom, which could possibly be a study now, and if you get a sofa-bed … STOP.
If you’re not already on it, join Facebook, or Meet-Up, or any social platform that facilitates groups, because we’re not islands and we don’t have all the answers and like the women we used to snigger at - you know those ladies sticking to the blue eye shadow and pearly pink lipstick of their youth, we too are stuck in ruts and circular ways of thinking we’re not even aware of.
I’ll explain.
I’m a member of a Facebook group called, Empty Nester Women Looking to Relocate
Don’t ask me how I stumbled across it, but I did and reading through the introductory posts in the group, has become the most joyous, inspirational, positive thing on my daily social media feeds.
Women in the middle of their lives, who are uprooting and relocating.
Women who have watched while husbands of thirty years plus, have started new relationships, weeks after divorce. Not just started, but moved in, stretched their size 43s under another sofa, relaxing while another hapless female sets about fetching twigs and sticks: building, building, building.
Women whose grown-up children never call.
Whose grown-up children never stop calling.
Women who have buried children.
Buried partners.
Buried parents.
Who have had enough of watching the world pass them by, and want to jump onboard before it’s too late. Who wouldn’t stop to leaf through a wallpaper catalogue if it had a full-size, naked picture of **** (fill in the gap) hidden inside.
And they’re organizing – into city leaders and country advisors. Fancy retiring to Portugal? Travelling alone this summer for the first time? No problem, there’s info and practical advice on hand. Spare rooms. Chats over coffee – real life chats over coffee.
I truly believe that we could be the first generation to fully understand and harness the formidable blend of confidence, experience and robust health that can be and often is, middle age. We are fast learning not to be defined by other people’s expectations of what a middle-aged woman, wife, mother, should be. How we should act. What we should look like.
I’m not quite an empty nester, but I will soon be relocating and I can honestly say that even if I never come face to face with a single one of these women, they have given, and continue to give me, confidence and companionship. Every day another one introduces herself and then lays out her flight-path. Because if the nest is empty, what on earth is the point of staying?
Until next time,
Cary
Hi Cary, this week’s essay really resonated with me. I tend to ‘spend’ rather than ‘eat’ my emotions so nest building is my forte! My firstborn left home for Uni 200+ miles away last September and I sought a lot of comfort in buying stuff…I have joined a female friendship group online and it made a difference.
I love your description of 'the formidable blend of confidence, experience and robust health that can be and often is, middle age.' Very inspiring 💪😃