They Come Home for Break and Treat the House Like a Hotel

You counted down to this. You bought the snacks they like, the ones you'd stopped buying because nobody was here to eat them. You put the good sheets on. You may have vacuumed a room nobody had messed up in weeks.

Then they walk in, drop a duffel bag the size of a body in the hallway, hug you for one whole second, and vanish into their room to FaceTime somebody named Kayla.

You make the favorite dinner. They eat it in eleven minutes, say "this is so good actually," and leave the plate right there on the table, like the table comes with staff. Congrats. You're the front desk now. They gave you four stars.

They sleep until noon. They start one load of laundry that becomes, through a process science cannot explain, entirely yours to fold. They eat the yogurt you were saving. The one with your name on it. In marker.

Then at 10pm, right as you're fading, the whole personality comes back online. Suddenly they want to talk. And you stay up for every second of it, wide awake, nodding, because you missed them so much it's a little embarrassing.

Then they announce plans. With friends. For basically the whole visit. You knew it was coming and it still lands sideways, like you threw a party and the guest of honor keeps leaving your party.

Here's what nobody warns you about the visits. They're wonderful and they're weird. This person you built entire years around now has a whole life, and you're a guest in it. The house goes loud for a few days. Then the duffel bag by the door gets packed again and you're driving to a drop-off all over again.

So you take what you get. The eleven-minute dinner. The 10pm download. The wet towel on the bathroom floor you're pretending to be mad about. Because you'll be at that door in four days watching them go, and you will not say one word about the towel. You missed the towel. God help you, you missed the towel.

Dr. Jené Verchick, PsyD, has written about the empty-nest transition and works with women and couples going through it at her Los Angeles practice. A clinical psychologist with 26+ years, she sits with people in the strange quiet after the kids go.