With no kids left in the house, how’s a woman to fill her days? Just ask the wise cat
I’m approaching my first full year as an official empty-nester, and by official, I mean no children coming home for school breaks or summers. My kids are gone. Well they’re both still on my cell phone plan and the youngest is still on our health and car insurance — so maybe not gone, gone. Perhaps the better description would be that they’ve left the nest but are still enjoying a few freebies.
What has been the most surprising about this past year is how almost seamlessly time spent in the parenting trenches has been absorbed in other ways. I always thought once my kids were full-fledged adults, I would have gobs of time on my hands. Not so. I actually feel like I’m busier now.
That said, I’ve found that my brain does seem to have more space to ponder the mundane. For instance: Why are cats so smart? I’m wildly in love with my dogs, but compared to our cat they’re remedial in all forms of intelligence.
To watch my cat rule our home is to be humbled, thus provoking one of my latest deep thoughts: My cat is smarter than me, and he knows it. Hence the vibe that I’m constantly being judged and found inadequate beyond repair.
Some days I feel like I’m going through sorority recruitment and my cat is the mean girl at the door of the sorority house giving me the once over and finishing it up with a fierce side eye of dissatisfaction layered over a sigh of contempt.
It can be brutal and makes me cleave to my two dogs for emotional support. It’s like we’re the trio of dumb-dumbs in the house.
Another thought flitting through my head recently might be construed as rather shocking, and I don’t think mothers are supposed to admit this, but I’m not exactly mourning my children’s school days.
For example, I now actually enjoy the month of May. Back in the day May was hellish.
There were a ridiculous number of end-of-the-year school projects, from puppet-themed book reports to dioramas: aka the homework of the devil. Whoever thought up the diorama as a school assignment needs to live out eternity gluing Popsicle sticks to shoe boxes.
There were also a bazillion school assemblies in a hot, humid, foot funk infused cafeteria and a lot of forced fun activities from field day to “wilderness adventures.”
To quote my son from 17 years ago after a sports day in 101-degree heat where two kids fainted and a fight broke out over ice cubes:“Why do they hate us so much that they can’t just let us go home.”
I’ve also been pondering why my house isn’t staying clean. I assumed once my children left so would the chores. But no, I’m still in a scrubbing and vacuuming frenzy. The culprits, of course, are our pets.
Yesterday as I was furiously sweeping, my cat walked by me and fur bombed, as in a fur explosion of significant magnitude rained a vast quantity of Russian blue cat hair on the just cleaned kitchen floor. Mid fur bomb, the cat turned his head, meowed, swished his tail a couple of times and then slowly swaggered away.
It was as if he was letting me know that the kids may be gone, but he’s still here to mess with my mind and the house.
Reach Sherry Kuehl at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com, on Facebook at Snarky in the Suburbs, on Twitter at @snarkynsuburbs on Instagram @snarky.in.the.suburbs, and snarkyinthesuburbs.com.
