Identity, Lost and Found

After her youngest son moved away, Cathi Kennedy had to relearn who she was meant to be.

I didn't realize that 2023 would be the year I lost myself. It started as a year of to-dos, a seemingly never-ending list. Our youngest son was graduating from college, and there were things to get done.   

Then it was May, and we celebrated all he had accomplished. We were as proud as peacocks, and it was pure joy. 

Now what?  

The years of watching your children grow and change into adults are like nothing else. Being ringside to watch their personalities develop as babies, then toddlers, then kids — it was amazing to watch. And they turned out to be lovely humans: something I'm proud of, although I don't know how much credit I can take for the transformation.  

When our oldest moved across the world to start a new adventure, I missed him terribly, but our youngest was still in high school, so my focus turned there.  

And then, last June, it seemed that the past 25 years had come and gone, and I was staring at my son's all-but-empty room, wondering who I had become.   

How do you mother adult children? How do you cook for two? The space in his room, the kitchen cupboards, and the refrigerator were like holes where our family used to be. His spot on the couch. In the car. Next to me at church.   

It was like there was a gap everywhere I looked. And I wasn't sure what would take its place. 

Beginning again

I needed to learn how to be someone who wasn't cooking meals for her family, managing schedules, or advising on daily life events. I had spent so many years tending to the needs of others, caring for and loving my family through each day. What was going to fill my days now?   

I struggled. I figured out how to cook for two. To pass by my son's room without being overtaken with sadness. To talk with him on the phone and hear how he was settling in, how well he was doing, how self-sufficient he had become. And it brought me so much joy.  

How could I have this joy but so much grief at the same time?   

To raise well-adjusted humans is the goal, right? To have our children succeed and go out and live their own lives. That was a huge accomplishment, and I was so proud of them both.  

I knew it would be a transition. This empty nest that we hear so much about. You'll have so much time for yourself and for your husband. You can do everything you didn't have time for before.  

Appreciating a new rhythm of life

Gradually, I started to come out of the fog. A new rhythm came into our lives. Slow walks to the park, simple dinners, more reading, and some planning for the future. Rearranging rooms now that we had fewer people in the house. The physical space grew and then collapsed to our needs.  

And the phone calls from our youngest did come. How to find a doctor. Budgeting spreadsheets. Hanging curtains. Art for his empty walls. Taking trips to Williams-Sonoma and Ikea and finding a local bookstore. My opinions and advice were still needed. I was learning to mother him as an adult.  

I had begun to figure out the parenting part. But I was still unsure who I was becoming.   

I spent time writing and reading. I started seeing a therapist about deep-seated insecurities long repressed. I booked therapeutic massages. And I focused on my relationship with my husband for what felt like the first time in more than 20 years.  

Christmas came around, and we were all together under one roof for the first time in years. The laughter, the crowded kitchen, watching Harry Potter movies, going to church: It filled my heart to bursting.   

When the house was again emptied of children and the decorations down, I sat with my coffee and contemplated the year ahead.   

Maybe it was the emotional high from Christmas or the perspective I'd gained in the past six months, but I was no longer afraid of whom I'd lost.  

She was still here. All the women I'd been — a daughter, a wife, a mom — were still here. Each chapter unfolds right on cue. The happiness, the joy, the losses: it all shapes us.   

Life is constantly changing. And more change in my life is inevitable. I shifted my mindset from fear to acceptance and now to openness for what will come. A new me. Here we go. 

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Copyright 2024 Cathi Kennedy
Images: Canva