The nest is getting a little emptier

When my daughter was about eight or nine, she ran away from home.

Embroiled in some silly dispute with her parents — likely over undone chores or a messy room — she stuffed a backpack with clothes and electronics, defiantly announced she was leaving and walked out the front door.

She made it as far as the stop sign at the end of our street.

Her mom had trailed her in a car, just in case, and so was right there when the hard realities of independent living set in for our first-born child. She got back in the car without a word, unpacked her stuff, cleaned her room and that was that. (The incident has since become a long-running joke about her homebody instincts.)

Now in her early 20s, our daughter will soon leave home for a second time. This time, it’s likely for good: she’s moving to Ottawa to live with her girlfriend, work and go to school part-time.

I’m both extremely excited for her and a little sad for me.

After following the typical teenage trajectory of thinking her parents were the dumbest people on earth and rejecting pretty much everything we said out of hand, she’s matured into a lovely human being.

She’s smart, funny and can spout a dazzling array of facts about plants, animals and yarn (she’s a science major with a penchant for crochet.)

But as much as I like having her around, she needs to spread her wings a little. A number of her bestlaid plans — a trip to Europe in her gap year, moving to residence to start university — got waylaid by COVID. She needs a little adventure in her life.

Living on her own is a good start. Having to do your own grocery shopping, cook your own food, manage your finances are rites of passage for any wannabe adult. We’ve tried not to coddle our kids but … let’s just say I doubt either of them know the price of milk right now (never mind electricity rates.)

With one kid moving out and the other having just turned 16, the nest isn’t empty but the baby birds are certainly peering over the edge.

Our youngest, more independent by nature than his older sibling, has already announced he’s moving out at the first reasonable opportunity. We’ll see if that’s just the teenage brain talking, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

Even as it slowly becomes a reality, it’s still hard to envision a dayto-day without my kids around. They don’t require the same intensive parenting they did when they were younger — these days it’s more like living with messy roommates who don’t pay for anything — but they are still a constant, mostly pleasant, presence in my life. I’m going to miss that and them. Assuming, of course, they make it past the stop sign.