Category Archives: Surviving an empty next

Dad’s Super Secret Recipe Vault

It all started when my wife, Julie, returned to the paid workforce. My kids had been used to home-cooked meals, but her lack of time had them dining on fast food, delivery pizza, and frozen entrees. I thought I could kill two birds with one stone by starting a family cooking day that I labeled, “Cooking With Dad Thursday.” My goal was to provide my kids with more than a meal, I wanted to teach them how to cook and have them experience the fellowship of sharing a group-made meal.

The task was multi-faceted. We would plan, shop, cook, and clean up together. Each cooking Thursday culminated with a Facebook post where I would upload a photo of the plated and completed meal. Naturally, I tried to present our dishes in their most favorable light on Facebook. I would always ask my kids, “Reality or Facebook reality?” when I posted the photo in an attempt to emphasize that most things that you see on Facebook are highly curated. Another effect of posting the picture surprised me; friends started to post pictures of their homemade meals. Also, “Cooking With Dad Thursday,” spawned a mini-movement of others preparing real food from scratch.

I grew up eating great food. My mother magically threw things together in the most delicious ways. She didn’t teach us how to cook, but she did write down some of her recipes in a ledger style notebook, which was passed to my brother when she died. Her musings provided her with the information that she needed to remember a recipe but they were incomprehensible to anyone else.

Most of the “Cooking With Dad Thursday” recipes originated from conventional sources. Standard cookbooks like “The Betty Crocker Cookbook,” and “The Better Homes and Garden Cookbook” provided some inspiration, but most of my recipes were procured and printed off of the internet. I have always felt comfortable cooking, as the process is a form of practical chemistry. I have been making meals for decades and can interpret a list of ingredients quickly. Most of the recipes that I selected had to conform to the tastes of my kids and also be essential enough to teach a particular cooking technique. 

Many of the dishes were well-liked by my children and warranted saving, but where? The answer came early in the form of an old and somewhat beaten up school folder from my son William’s elementary days. Its bright orange color made sure that we wouldn’t lose it; all that it needed was a little updating. With a black marker, I scratched out Will’s name on its front, and in a bold and sloppy script, I wrote “Dad’s Super Secret Recipe Vault.” The folder was neither super-secret or a vault, but reality should never stand in the way of a creative process. During any Thursday meal, I would ask the kids, “Is this dish worthy of saving in the vault?” If the answer was yes, I would toss it in the folder. One checkmark indicating pretty good and two checkmarks noting that the dish was excellent. 

Nowadays, my kids can make anything from a savory lasagna to 6 loaves of 100% whole wheat bread. However, they are in college and beyond, causing “Cooking With Dad Thursday” to become a school break activity.

When a door closes, a window opens. With our new empty nest status, Julie and I had to negotiate who would be the meal preparer. In an egalitarian fashion, we decided to split the duty. I’m now the Sunday chief, and so “Cooking With Day Thursday” has evolved into “Simple Sunday Supper.” Julie is a more adventurous eater than the kids, and so I can revisit the culinary memories of my past, including soups, stews, and casseroles. However, she has banned peas from the list of acceptable ingredients. 

My new routine often starts with an internet search for a potential meal candidate. Once printed, I check our larder to see what we have in stock. I’ll highlight any needed purchases directly on the recipe, fold it, and stick it in my pocket to serve as a shopping list. I dislike large stores, and so I’m fortunate to have a little grocer called “Fresh Thyme” just a few blocks away. Although limited in selection, they have all of the basics plus a good meat counter and an excellent fruit and vegetable section. It is a short and easy trip for me to buy any needed ingredients, and the store’s limited selection prevents me from overbuying.

I have also taken over the weekly house cleaning, which I do on Sundays. It is a bit of a balancing act when it comes to time management. However, I’m getting good a juggling these tasks and cooking is hardly a hardship. 

Yesterday I made Italian sausage and lentil soup garnished with a little sour cream and served with chewy ciabatta bread. Total cooking time in my Instant Pot was 25 minutes, and it was the perfect dish for a frigid fall night. Julie gave me a thumbs up on dinner, and so I marked the recipe with two checkmarks. Where did I save it? In “Dad’s Super Secret Recipe Vault,” of course!

The folder is now over two inches thick. It has been loosely divided into categories such as “stovetop,” “oven,” and “Instant Pot.” In that old and now worn-out folder resides years of recipes and memories. It may not have the charm of my mother’s handwritten cookbook, but it is wholly legible and clear. I hope that someday one of my kids will want the collection, and perhaps they will teach their children using some of the recipes that we so lovingly made. The vault may serve as a new tradition as well as a vehicle for my kids to tell their kids about their crazy dad and the food adventures that were spent together.

Traditions don’t have been elaborate, they just have to be. What traditions do you have? 

The old repurposed orange folder.
The vault is over two inches thick representing many dozens of cooking adventures.
I usually post an ingredient shot. Why? Because I think it looks nice.
Last Sunday’s meal. An Italian sausage, lentil soup with chewy ciabatta bread.

Coping With An Empty Nest.

A $50 Sunbeam microwave oven sits on my basement floor. The device is positioned haphazardly, and it partially obstructs the path to our basement fridge. A Target build-it-yourself cube bookcase looks awkward in our living room. Caddy-corner to the cube is a pile of unopened bedding: a masculine grey plaid comforter, mattress liner, grey sheets, and pillowcases. On the second floor of our home resides a collection of random objects: a folding solar panel, a Kiato worldband radio, a universal AC plug adapter, and a brand new teal blue Hydro Flask.

The microwave and storage unit belongs to my daughter, Grace, who will be returning for her second year of university where she is studying Psychology and Pre-Medicine. The plaid comforter is my son William’s, who will be starting university majoring in Biology and Chemistry. The random items on the second floor are owned by my daughter, Kathryn, a recent graduate who will be spending the next 2 and ½ years in Africa teaching math as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

I have been an active parent for the last 36 years, and with the departure of my youngest children, I will become an empty nester. In less than four weeks, my life will change in the most radical of ways.

I can already see the stress that this change is causing Julie, my wife. She has become quieter, and I can feel her distancing herself from me. I’m not taking offense to her actions, as I know that she is defending against her loss feelings with everything that she can. Past experiences predict that her former self will return soon after our last child is safely in their new environment.  

But how are these changes impacting me? That is a more difficult question as I tend to deal with negative feelings more obtusely. I do feel anxious.  Am I really anxious?

I remember worrying as a child. My mother was chronically ill with a severe form of diabetes, and it was not uncommon for her to be near death. I recall countless times when my father would wake me up in the middle of the night during one of her insulin reactions. I would find her sitting on a kitchen chair drenched in sweat. Her head would be lying limply on the kitchen table, and she would be moaning. 

In most instances, she would revive with a large glass of orange juice laced with sugar, and life would return to normal. However, there were other times when her blood sugar was too high instead of too low. Those times an ambulance would be called, and she would be whisked off to the hospital. During these episodes, my dad would wake everyone in the house. After my mother was taken by ambulance (which could be at two or three in the morning), my father would send me to bed with the expectation that I would go to school the next day. Now isolated from the rest of the family, I would feel hopeless, alone, and very anxious. I would pray for my mother’s health during these times. Unfortunately, my obsessive nature would also kick in, and I would believe that I had to say a series of prayers entirely, or my mother would be in mortal danger. It was common for me to fall asleep mid-prayers only to wake up to start the whole block of prayers again (if you are Catholic, think rosary). This staring to pray and then falling asleep could go on for the remainder of the night The next day the rest of the family would take the day off from work to sleep and to console each other, I honestly don’t know why I wasn’t included. Perhaps it was felt that kids don’t worry, or maybe it was just easier not to have to deal with me. With that said, those post-ambulance school days were miserable for me.

My prayer behavior suggests that I had a lot of anxiety, which I tried to silence with compulsive actions. But was that anxiety another mask to help cope with my feelings of isolation and sadness? I think the latter may be more accurate as (in this example) prayer helped my anxiety as I could turn my request over to God. However, in those days, I had no strategies to deal with isolation and sadness.

Now at 66, I believe that I’m once again using anxiety to mask my sad and lonely feelings. However, with years of life experience, I now have tools to deal with these emotions. 

I can explore if I have any control over a situation. For instance, I do have concerns over Kathryn going to Africa, but I have no control over her actions as she is an independent adult.  

I can ask myself if my concerns are valid. I worry about my college kid’s safety, but their new environments are likely as safe as their current one. 

I can assess if I am reading my feelings correctly. In this case, I’m feeling sad and dealing with loss and not anxiety. 

Why am I sad? I’m sad because I’ll miss my kids, who are an integral part of my life.

What is the reality of that loss? They will be physically away from me, but I can still have regular contact with them.

What is the likely outcome of this change? They will become self-sufficient adults. I will not lose them and this separation is temporary.

What else can I do to reduce my sadness? I can explore the benefits of being an empty nester. I can travel without burdening Julie with additional responsibilities. I can also travel with Julie more spontaneously and less expensively. I can explore other interests. I can learn new things. And so on. 

Naturally, I can still (and do) pray, just not as obsessively or magically.

Do these techniques eliminate my feelings? Of course not. However, when I start to feel myself sliding downward, it is easy to revisit these skills and feel better. Dear reader, it is OK to feel sad; I don’t want it to be my dominant feeling at a time when I should also be experiencing happiness. The reality is that my kids are all doing incredible things that will help them become more competent adults. I need to recognize and celebrate these positive changes and not focus exclusively on my loss.  

Life is full of transitions, and many of them are bittersweet. Kids going off to college, the loss of an elderly but suffering parent, transitioning from work life to a retired one; humans feel. However, it is pointless to sink into an abyss of despair. It is important to acknowledge feelings, understand them, and appropriately act on them. However, it makes no sense to be so consumed by feelings that you lose the joy of daily life… and as in all things, one foot in front of the other is sometimes the best way to get out of a negative place.

Dear reader, have you had to deal with anxiety, sadness, or the stress of life transitions? I hope that some of my techniques will be useful to you. Or perhaps you can explore your techniques using the above model as a template.

Peace.

Two of my kids will be attending college this year.