On the flight back from dropping off our youngest child at college, I started booking weekend trips for my husband and me.
It’s not as romantic or adventurous as it sounds. The first two flights I bought were for the parents’ weekends back to where we had just been. I also accepted out-of-town wedding invitations, committed to a work-related conference and planned a couple of girls’ trips.
I was anxious about facing an empty house on all the weekends that used to be filled with kids’ activities, performances and games. I tend to deal with anxiety-provoking situations by making myself as busy as possible. If you’re constantly moving, you have less time to sit still and be in your feelings.
I’m not saying this is a great coping mechanism. But it did give us something else to look forward to and talk about besides how quiet the house felt.
Over time, I realized that my unsettled feelings were about more than just missing the presence of the enjoyable young adults we’ve raised. It was about learning to let go of control, which is just an illusion anyway. I had no control over whether they would go to class or study for exams or be safe when they were out or eat enough vegetables or make good friends. That’s the whole point of sending them away for college, right?
Initially, I dealt with my lack of influence in their lives by redirecting this impulse to the nearest individual -- my dear, unsuspecting husband.
“We should do one new activity together every week,” I said over breakfast a few months ago.
“Like what?” he said, a bit skeptical already. Something new that we haven’t done together before, I said. I invited him to join me for a yoga class at my gym. He reminded me that he had accompanied me to one class 11 years prior, and he had not enjoyed the experience at all.
“This one is different,” I said. He reluctantly agreed to try it, since he knew I was unlikely to let this idea go easily. We went to a slow, meditative yoga class in which you hold poses for longer periods of time while the instructor guides you through the movements.
When we got into a forward-bending stretch in a prone position, known as child’s pose, I glanced over at my spouse. He seemed to be shaking a little. Maybe this was having a bigger impact than I thought. The instructor was talking about the changing leaves of autumn as a metaphor for the changing cycles in our lives.
What an appropriate message, I thought.
After the class, I asked him how he liked it.
I thought it was going to be relaxing, he said. “When she started talking about falling leaves, I couldn’t take it.”
It turns out his shaking body was him trying to contain his amusement over the instructor’s monologue. He said he was forced to bite his lip and tried to think sad thoughts to avoid bursting out in laughter.
“No one talks like that in real life!” he said.
We never went to yoga together again.
We have tried other small adventures. We went to the Soulard Farmers Market, where I bought two pink pineapples, which we’d never tried. The vendor said they are sweeter and less acidic than regular pineapples. When we tasted them at home, my husband asked how much I had paid for this novelty. They were $15 for two. He said they weren’t that much better than regular pineapples.
A few weeks later, we went to a talk from a visiting botanist at the Missouri Botanical Garden. My husband said it was about as interesting as a lecture on plants can be.
Our field trips have provoked some entertaining conversations.
More recently, we went to see an acclaimed Finnish film. Normally, I’m a fan of foreign films, but neither of us liked this one much. It was a slow, quiet story about two lonely people trying to build a connection with one another.
It was called "Fallen Leaves."
We laughed about it on our way home.