Empty Nest Practice

A strange turn of events changed the dynamic of our Friday night:

It was supposed to go down thusly: Tracy had taxi service responsibilities that would take her and Kid2 out of any and all social engagements last night as well as for the first half of today. On Thursday, Kid1 worked out a sleepover with a friend for Friday night, so she was on her own. This left me with an evening of hanging out on my own. The gym was on the slate, as was catching up on some TiVo'd shows and maybe grilling some sort of meat. An early night.

Then things changed right after lunchtime.

A friend called and asked if I could pick him up at the airport. Since my night wasn't highly structured, his flight arrival could easily be worked in. So I told him it'd be no problem at all. It really wasn't, either. Besides, when you live in FloMo, everyone is good at airport runs. There's an art to it, and we factor in internet updates and baggage pick up which affects your arrival time (if the pick-up person doesn't check luggage, you need to be there 10 minutes after flight arrival...if they did, 20). Everybody goes into the system on both sides of the equation--you do pick ups as needed and they return the favor when needed. Deposits and withdrawals into those accounts always seem to balance for our citizenry.

Then Tracy called and said Kid2 had arranged her own sleepover with a friend from her ballet studio who lives in Fort Worth, so that eliminated the need for her taxi service not only for Friday night but also for the half-day today.

All of a sudden we've got nothing that we have to do.

We're empty-nesters by 4PM on Friday. What to do? What to do?

One option was my friend Heath (who was one of the first students ever involved in my ministry in 1988, and we've kept in touch ever since) who is a stand-up comedian by trade (and, very clean & funny, too--and he's been on Blue Collar Comedy in their cast as well as on Roseanne Barr's cast when she tried to develop a show to compete with SNL) and got a surprise invite to play the Improv in Addison. Unfortunately, the reality of my airport pick-up eliminated both the early and late shows on that deal and we'll wind up missing him this trip through Big D.

Now, if we're going to make the airport pick-up, we'd need to get to dinner by a certain time. The first restaurant we chose had a line outside so we went with a local favorite, The Village Grill. We had dinner...well, I had the healthy choice and Tracy had a piece of mousse pie for dinner as she'd had a late, big lunch. The best part was that we had good conversation and weren't pressed for time. We talked about serious things and funny things. And, we ran into other full-time empty-nesters who go to our church. They were amused that we were so excited about our night of empty nesting.

Since dinner ended a bit sooner than we'd anticipated, we drove through the new shopping center that opened last night. The place was packed even if all the stores weren't opened yet...there was a lot of energy and vibe and lots of families hanging out and enjoying a mild (well, 82 degrees) fall night by the fountains. It's one of those kinda cool retail villages with narrow streets and room for hanging out and stuff like that...if you're into that kind of thing. Which I'm not.

Then the airport run. We picked up our friends who'd been on a vacation and they filled us in on what a good time they had. We tried to talk them into a late movie (they're empty-nesters, too) but they were tired from a long day of travel so we just took them to their house. As an important aside: Their flight was on-time but their baggage claim took longer than expected so we actually had to sit for 10 minutes outside the doors to pick them up. I viewed this as a failure of sorts...kind of like when you get there too early and have to drive in circles in Terminal C for 15 minutes, or if you arrive too late and your pick-up has been standing outside for 10 minutes. Dangit.

And we called some other friends of ours at 9:15PM to see if they wanted in on the late-night movie. One couple did. One couldn't.

We had a good time at an "okay" movie. Kinda preachy. But stuff exploded and there was lots of suspense.

And, then we slept in. Sleeping in for me is 7AM. Tracy's better at that than I am.

But here's the lesson I learned from last night:

Mine eyes have seen the emptying of the nest. And, while I'm sure there's some emotional stuff that comes with that reality when it happens for real, and while I'm sure it isn't as easy as it looks, and I'm sure it's a big--and maybe even difficult--life adjustment...

...it was good.

It was very good.

Even in (or especially because?) the understated nature of it.

So, empty nesters, is it really all it's cracked up to be?