It’s quiet at my house. I have the windows open and the sounds of birds and children drift in, but it’s quiet inside. Eerily quiet and I’m not sure why.

My daughter left two weeks ago for her final summer working at a  residential summer camp. She’s worked there for the past six years and I’m used to her being gone. And I’m used to her being away for months at a time when she’s at university, half way across the country. But this time it feels different.

I sent her off last week, in her brand new car, with the sudden realization that the three weeks she’d spent at home was probably the longest time  she will ever spend here again. When I drop her off at teacher’s college in the fall (mother-daughter roadtrip to BC twill be epic!), I will be leaving her where she intends to build her adult life. “Home” will be somewhere to come briefly for Christmases and maybe the occasional summer week. 

This weekend, after neighbourhood Canada Day festivities,  I attended a celebration for my son and daughter-in-law – a quasi wedding reception / bon voyage party as they get ready to spend two years abroad, with few expectations that they’ll be home any time soon. It was, as expected, a loud and joyous celebration and it was so nice to meet new family.

And now it’s quiet at my house.

It’s all got me feeling a little lonely. Which is weird. It’s not like being alone is new to me. My kids all went away or for university with my blessing (and my encouragement, for new experiences). And while COVID meant that my daughter spent some time at home over the past few semesters, she was thousands of kilometres away at school for her final year of her undergraduate degree.

Maybe it’s the excitement of my novel being published (hop on over to KatherineWardAuthor on Instagram, or katherineward.ca for details), and the realization that there isn’t someone “just inside the door” to share that excitement with. Maybe it’s just knowing that it really is “just me” in the house. Maybe it’s a feeling that I’m at a place in my life where things are shifting and changing and just I don’t know. I just know it feels quiet. Eerily quiet.

There were years when I would have given anything for quiet. The years when my sons would fight like cats and dogs. They years when my daughter wouldn’t let go of me. The years when the stresses of work and single-parenting felt like they would crush me. 

But now its quiet at my house. And I’d give anything to have the noise back.