By JD Arbuckle 
It’s Friday night at 8:00. The intermittent snoring of an 80-pound lap dog is the only thing slicing through the silence of my home. It feels empty, and there is a stillness in the air. I have nowhere to be; there is nobody waiting to be picked up. I’m staring at the empty takeout boxes from dinner sitting on the coffee table. There was no need to cook a big meal; it was just the two of us, my husband and me, sitting together wistfully in this liminal space of parenting.
It is the quiet place between an empty nest and childhood that we’ve waded into. Seventeen years of perpetual needs, shifting schedules, and constant reliance have passed oh so quickly. Now we are here, where needs are few, our schedules are our own, and reliance is dwindling. It is a conundrum of emotion in this moment. Yet, isn’t every season of having your heart live outside of your chest?
Awe is the friend who enters my heart most often and fills it most fully. Wonder is the companion trailing right behind. Pride simply isn’t descriptive enough of a word to explain how I feel about my children’s voyage toward independence. Then solace washes over my soul, and I soak in the moment of respite after so many years of demand. It’s like catching your breath after a long run. Then, like a sudden summer thunderstorm, a deep ache rolls in and fills every empty place where all the obligations were once housed. And suddenly I’m aware of the silence that not only sits in my home, but in my soul.
It’s nearly impossible to conceptualize the range of emotions or depth of fulfillment found in being a parent. It makes you whole, it wrecks you, and it fills your soul again. It’s beautiful beyond comprehension, it’s challenging beyond ability, and it’s the absolute most remarkable journey one can go on.
For those of us in this fallow space, between childhood and adulthood, go on and feel it all. What a gift to be given the ability to live and feel such a deep and boundless array of emotions. And all because of love.
by Jenna Stehler 
