At 50, I Left My Home of 30 Years So I Could Be Closer to My Kids
My new apartment — seven hours from the town where I lived for nearly 30 years — doesn’t look like I live there, not yet.
A friend came a few weeks after I moved in and called it “elegant,” which is not me. It’s all-white walls and brand-new appliances, tall ceilings and clean, clean, clean. Ironically, I don’t have enough furniture yet even though I’ve owned enough furniture over the decades to fill several apartments. In the early years, it was too many kids and too many toys, plus too many dishes with too many cracks. Too many pillows and not enough sheets.
I whittled it all down when my youngest son moved out and I guess I shaved off too much, because now I only have one wine glass. I have three big, soft stripey beach towels that I use as regular towels. I have a small patio where I set up some lights and a climbing plant and two chairs even though I only need one. (For now, though I hope that changes.) When I drink my coffee out of a new mug on my new patio, I picture wine parties out here. Book clubs. New friends who like my cookies. How I will make these friends is a mystery that I didn’t consider solving before I moved.
I am 50. I lived in the same county for most of my life as a single mom of four boys. I have friends there. I know where to get a good coffee and a good egg sandwich after a good hike in some good shoes I bought at a good local shoe store. I have a doctor, a mechanic. A hairdresser. I know when peony season is about to kick into high gear, which beaches are quiet on the weekend, and where to see fireflies on a warm June night. I fit in pretty well when my kids were young, made mom friends and work friends and friends of friends, but I always felt like a bit of a chicken. Too scared to go somewhere new. Too scared to find us a bigger life.
My kids moved away straight after graduation, as fast as their legs would take them. Bigger cities, fewer fireflies, better takeout, younger people. I didn’t blame them.
Five years later, I followed them.
Before I moved, but after my kids left, I lived in a small apartment. Whatever you're imagining, cut that space in half — it was that small. So small my kids couldn’t come stay with me. Instead, I spent every holiday for the last few years traveling with a cheesecake in the back of my car, bags of presents, poultry seasoning. Extra toilet paper. The embarrassment of never being the host at this time when moms are supposed to be the host was always diminished by how much fun these visits had grown to be.
Last Christmas, I stayed with my third son for two weeks, and this was when the shift happened. When I saw that all of my days spent alone at home were nothing compared to an afternoon with them.
Going out for drinks and table fries on Christmas Eve. Shopping at the mall for stocking stuffers together with fancy coffees and rosy cheeks. I baked cookies in my son’s kitchen, I watched movies with my daughter-in-law. We played cards and board games and talked politics and went for walks and I thought, Why do I live seven hours away? They said they thought the same.
It surprised me that they wanted me to move closer because they are sons and I didn’t think they were allowed to want to be my friend. It surprised me that they still wanted to hang out and get food, which is our love language. That they wanted to buy me a ticket to see Across the Spider-Verse with them or hit up IKEA on a Sunday.
It surprised me even more that I wanted that, too, because I thought I had moved on from such things. When they first moved out, I lost my identity so completely that I became a new person. A traveler. An Independent Woman. A woman of substance who was finally ready to stop being defined by my kids. I gave up living in a nice house to travel. I gave up time with my kids for time with myself. I’ve become a nomad, heading off to Paris and Vienna, to California and the Caribbean. On my own, as my own person. This is who I am now.
But I am starting to think I can be the other person, too. The mom who makes a Sunday dinner and puppy-sits for a few days. The new girl in town. I think maybe the travel has helped me with that. I’m not so scared of people as before. I signed up for a few classes. I hang out at the local cafe. Make too much eye contact. I might still make those friends.
I am 50 and finally all of these versions of who I am are getting married inside of me. I think maybe I can move here without giving up there. I can go home for firefly season. I can hang weird art on the white walls of my new apartment and go to yard sales to find fun knick knacks. Maybe even make a friend along the way if I don’t smile too hard. I can hop on a plane to go hiking in Spain and come home to make a Sunday casserole for my kids. I can be the host and the traveler, the new kid and the hometown girl. I forgot that I could be me and still be their mom.
Good thing they never did.
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