Empty Nest Guilt

Over the next few months, I will be checking out apartments and hopefully launching myself into living away from the parents. This was the plan pretty much from the day I moved back in under a year ago. I had finished grad school and wanted to save up some cushion money.

The year went a lot better then I thought it would actually. I have a very good relationship with my parents, always have even in the bitter horrible early teen years (I stopped showering for a while, how they made it through that little phase I'll never know). I have some issues with them, of course, because who doesn't? But I don't think they messed up in any irreversible way either which considering their backgrounds is beyond impressive. For the most part they've been loving, supportive and growing more awesome as I become a real adult type person.

So why do I want to move out?

The real, not at all funny, reason is that I can tell that if I stay I will stop thinking for myself. My parents are very reasonable and very persistent people. I'm an only child. The combination is that they can often talk me around to their way of seeing things without either of us realizing this is what is happening. I stop functioning in a lot of ways and it isn't fun.

But I feel guilty leaving. Mom's starting a new job that will make her commute much more complicated and much longer. If I was still living at home, I could drive her to the train station in the morning to ease this a little. Not that I would stay home for this, but I actually felt so guilty that I bought my mother an IPod Nano. That's right, it wasn't even her birthday, anniversary or mother's day or hannakah. Just bought it for her. The worst bit is going to be teaching her to use it. Oy Gevault.

So there it is, I have empty nest guilt. Maybe it had a name before, but I'm giving it a new one.


Catch you on the flipside,
CGL