It is surely the cruellest time for the children to leave home. The days of tears and tantrums are long over. Those crazy years when entire periods of my life were diarised to accommodate play dates with other warbling, incoherent toddlers are a memory. The endless hours spent on the road ferrying them back and forth to clubs and classes to nurture much-hoped-for potential that never seemed to manifest itself. Followed, as had always been ordained, by the advent of the troublesome teenage years oh so apathetic and slothful.

Then suddenly, just as I was beginning to despair that life was never going to change its wearisome pattern, one fine day they were there humans like the rest of us. It was a pleasure to be around them. Seeing the world through the idealism of youth. Admittedly, they made a big mess wherever they were but I could overlook that. Life's not perfect.

But even as I was settling into this new comfort zone, had snuggled down and made myself perfectly happy with my two imperfect, immature adults, they've left home. And I hadn't been primed for it. In all honesty, the fault is mine and mine alone. I knew for almost a year that my younger one would be leaving for university. So was my elder one the traitor?

Six months into the sedate life of a working man, he was still reeling with the shock of the real world. Questioning if this was to be the culmination of all the years of playing the game they called ‘an education'. Being dragged into classrooms and force fed the difference between integration and differentiation. No one cared. Had someone forgotten to tell the schools and colleges that? Sapped of energy by the end of the working week, too drained to hit the hot spots any more, in his spare time he had grown roots into the bean bag before the television. And I had grown used to passing him slumped there as I bustled around. Then someone at work offered him a room in his flat. And he was gone.

Adventure

Free of any moorings to keep us rooted in London, my husband and I decided we'd do the adventure thing and move to Dubai.

I miss them. Twenty-three years was a long time. My head turns involuntarily every time I hear a voice say ‘Mum?' It seems strange not to have to wake up each morning and make sure everyone was on their way so I too could get on with my life. I don't think my kids ever believed that I worked because, like many a mum, I organised my work around their schedule.

I made sure I was there to see them off and pick them up at the end of their day. There was a predictability in the grunts and groans that would emanate from my son before he was drowned out by my daughter. Excitedly regurgitating every bit of her day, she had so much to tell wanting no response, just my undivided attention.

As I get pensive, a strong urge overtakes me to roll back the years. The kids may have left, the nest is empty but a new phase of life is about to begin. They provided an entertaining distraction, and will no doubt contribute to much of the drama that is yet to come. But they've kept me well posted on the world outside. I've learnt so much from them. I won't mistake ‘lol' to mean ‘love you lots' or misunderstand talk about ‘shleping' and ‘cotching' or, worse still, misuse the adjective ‘wicked' in the context it was originally intended! Time to put all that learning to use.

 

Chavi Sharma is a freelance writer based in Dubai.