{"id":18411,"date":"2024-02-29T05:00:51","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T13:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=18411"},"modified":"2024-10-06T09:31:33","modified_gmt":"2024-10-06T16:31:33","slug":"empty-nest-prepper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=18411","title":{"rendered":"Empty Nest Prepper"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Image taken at Luna Liquida Hotel, Puerto Vallarta<\/em><\/p>\n

I am married to a doomsday prepper. Our basement is filled with vats of powdered emergency food stuffs, oxygen bags, industrial outdoor gear, large plastic containers of water, hazmat suits, and more. There\u2019s even an ice pick hanging on the wall, which he used for mountaineering with a friend, but I\u2019m pretty sure that it\u2019s part of his apocalypse arsenal. He\u2019s researched generators and studied blueprints for bunkers. At one point he ordered numerous books on urban farming and off-the-grid how-to manuals in case the internet ceased to exist. This survivalist mentality started decades before the pandemic was even a sniffle in our collective nostrils.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to explain, but this quality is both disturbing and endearing to me. I don\u2019t subscribe to the intense fear that drives prepper-ism, but I\u2019m a planner by nature so I get it.<\/p>\n

In fact, I\u2019ve been doing my own doomsday prepping these days. My particular doomsday is tied to K\u2019s imminent transition from high school to college. In the fall, she\u2019ll be flying from the Pacific Northwest coop and going to the Midwest \u2014 Chicago to be exact \u2014 which feels so<\/i> far from Seattle. My identity is unapologetically ensconced in motherhood, and since she is my one and only child, things are about to get funky for me.<\/p>\n

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My new identity will be as an empty nester. It\u2019s interesting: K reported that according to her psychology teacher, empty nesters are the happiest people. I\u2019m willing to consider that as a possibility, but I\u2019ll have to go through a stage of deep grief first. For the last almost eighteen years, I have been perpetually tracking and managing her schedule, strategizing what to feed her, analyzing her needs and wants. There will be a giant hole in my brain and heart when the tracking and strategizing and analyzing become unavailable and obsolete.<\/p>\n

How am I prepping? For one, I\u2019ve been doing a lot of contemplating about who I am and who I want<\/i> to be without mothering at the forefront. Sure, I\u2019m a wife and daughter and sister and friend and creator of books and sewing projects and such, and these will continue to be important roles. And it\u2019s not as if I won\u2019t have any<\/i> maternal duties once K is off to college. I don\u2019t have definitive answers yet, of course, but I\u2019ve been dreading\/enjoying the contemplation. I also often wonder whether I\u2019ve equipped my daughter with sufficient life skills. And I worry that I’ve saddled her with my neuroses. Only time will tell.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been continuing to purge as well. As I\u2019ve mentioned M and I may or may not move when she leaves, but I\u2019m preparing nonetheless. K and I went through the bins with her childhood toys and stuffed animals and clothes. Oh, the clothes! Remember the hundreds and hundreds of garments I sewed? We\u2019ve kept only a handful. I am ridding the collection of cookie cutters from the days when I used to make cute pancake shapes (insane, now that I think about it). We have dozens of volleyballs from all the camps and teams she participated in. Do we keep any? A deluge of emotions\u2026and at the same time, liberating.<\/p>\n

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How could she have been so little! And oh, she was clearly meant to be a musician…<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m in the thick of prepping, and I may have more to say later but for now I\u2019m going to make a list of all the other items to tackle: K\u2019s schoolwork from kindergarten to high school; her music paraphernalia (what should we do with her piano?); her room! Will I finally stop sewing in my bedroom and use her room as a studio? Or maybe it would be a moot point if M and I move. He hasn\u2019t quite let go of the mobile home idea, but is keenly interested in boat-living now. I\u2019m not on board, pun intended. Not the least of which because I get seasick.<\/p>\n

Anyway. Empty nest prepping. It\u2019s happening. If you\u2019ve gone through it, I welcome any words of wisdom and anecdotes of the experience!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Empty nests and flying the coop reminded me: have you ever seen a peacock take flight? It’s startling and not as graceful as I expected. Quite shocking in its blustery-ness, to be honest. I guess all those feathers are somewhat cumbersome…<\/p>\n

In other news:<\/p>\n