The sound of silence !

They came; my daughter, grown and flown, out of the nest, and a few of her friends from her university. They are part of a dance team.

They came to perform at an event locally. They came to our house after the performance and spent the night at our house.

They ate, they talked, they included my husband and I into their conversation.

They went out on the deck, the temperature was in the 40's.

They made s'mores, they started singing," down by the bay, where the watermelons grow".

My daughter told her friends how much I used to love singing that song to them when they were little. I had completely forgotten; the lyrics would not come back to me no matter how hard I tried ....

Then they came back inside, hovered over the kitchen island, had a long discussion whether to bake cookies or not, baked them, ate them.

Then they started dancing to Just Dance. (They are part of a competitive dance team, I already told you that, didn’t I?) It is one O'clock .

I said, “Aren’t you tired, don't you want to sleep?

They said, “it is only one o'clock, we are college kids, it is a Saturday. Who even sleeps at 1 o'clock?”

My husband and I looked at each other.

We stayed up with them not wanting to miss the fun.

At some point, we just could not stay up.

They finally slept, woke up early again, hovered around the island while I made breakfast for them.

One of them asked if they could take the bag of oranges.

I said," please, it’s fine, take whatever food you want." The others teased him about that.

They packed their stuff. They put away all the sleeping bags. They cleaned up. They looked around the house to make sure they did not leave anything behind. Then they left......

Sound of silence.

My daughter called to tell me that they reached, and they have 5 hours of rehearsals in the evening as they have a competition this weekend.

We started watching some movie, barely able to stay awake.... 8 PM, I texted my other child to see if he was planning to call me later and if yes, not to call. I was tired, I was going to bed as I stayed up last night. Sound of silence....

Welcome to the life of an empty nester. This is how it will be from now on until..........

Ramblings of an empty nester, tired mama who misses her children and a mama who never stops worrying.

"Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it's a memory." - unknown

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