The Void

I’ve been living in the void.

About a year ago, if I tried to describe what my life felt like, the closest word I could land on was fragmented and not mine. Like I was holding pieces of everything together with vision, patience, and while going through an existential crisis, whatever little faith I still had.

My husband was back home after two years of OTR driving… a life I didn’t choose for us, but a path I knew he felt he had to try in order to support our family. And my role was to keep everything together at home.

It was also my youngest son’s last year of high school.

You know your first child breaks you open in so many ways—beautiful and expensive and heartbreaking at the same time. And your youngest does it too, but differently… because it isn’t just change. It’s closure. It’s the end of being the nurturing mother and the beginning of the touchstone mother.

Those years my husband was on the road felt heavy—financial turmoil, and my mother’s declining health. She was a paraplegic with a trach and PEG, and I carried the guilt of not being able to bring her home to care for her because her needs were so complex. Bathing her alone required three caregivers. Our oldest was still trying to find his path (which he’s so solid in now), and our youngest was becoming a man. Life was full... but “heavy” indeed it was.

In the months leading up to my youngest’s graduation, it felt like everything was crumbling around us—our house in forbearance, us clawing our way back toward stable ground. And my mother, after three years of fighting, finally reached the point where her will to live couldn’t carry her body anymore. All of it was unfolding during what should’ve been a joyful, monumental time: my youngest coming of age. A milestone season—meant for celebration and reflection—meant for looking back at the human you once carried inside your own body and realizing they’ve become someone awe-inspiring.

My son was - and is still that.

He was this thoughtful, precocious wanderer in nature who morphed into a beautiful musical creature—ideas, determination, sense of self. Watching him become a young man… I couldn’t be more proud of him.

And I couldn’t feel more inadequate about all the things I couldn’t give him.

In his last year under our roof, I couldn’t give him what I wanted to give him: the tribe. The celebration. The space where people show up and honor where he came from, how he grew, who he is now, and who he’s becoming.

Instead, my time and focus were swallowed by bills. By maintenance. By keeping the life system from collapsing. By the finality of my mom’s life approaching. And still… coming home, smiling, holding space for my boy in one of the first big transitions of his life that he was consciously participating in—not just being guided through.

Twenty-two days after my mom passed, he graduated.

Eight days later, he was launched into the world—traveling, living his best life.

Meanwhile, I didn’t realize I was launched into the void.

Because I had been going 100 miles an hour for so long—trying to fix cracks and plug leaks. Driving him to and from school, to and from events, sitting in parking lots while he rehearsed for his upcoming tour. Researching everything I could so nothing fell through. Lining up college details. Driving to universities for tours. Driving him to auditions.

Life was so full.

And then one day, you wake up at 5 AM, drive to the airport, hug your child, kiss them, tell them to enjoy every minute… and you don’t realize that when you get back in the car, your life has completely changed.

I mean, you know it’s changed. But you don’t fully realize how.

During those three months of summer while he toured, I checked every page just to get a glimpse of him—pictures the volunteers and staff were taking and posting. Tracking his life from a distance. Still parenting. Still connected. Still proud beyond words.

And it still didn’t fully hit because there was still proof-of-life. Still updates. Still a way to see him.

Then marching band season. Football season. Pictures. Performances. Football games. Winter break. A tapering.

But once football ended… no more pictures to track. No more public proof-of-life. Sure, there’s still Life360. There’s still texts and calls. But it’s not the same as seeing his world unfold in real time.

And that’s when the void got loud.

It’s like going from 100 to zero, hitting a wall.

No matter how many projects I start or finish, none of them hold a candle to the season of being a mom—the kind of mom that gets to participate in her child’s daily life. The car rides. The rehearsals. The auditions. The parking lot waits. The constant “togetherness” that’s woven into the mundane.

Now there’s this huge hole where all of that used to be.

And I keep trying to throw everything I can into  the hole.

It reminds me of that Edie Brickell & New Bohemians song, “I Do.”  That feeling of “filling the negative space with positively everything”…  with whatever I can reach for so I don’t have to feel the empty.

A lot of parents talk about struggling with their teenagers during this season—power struggles, defiance, that whole thing. And honestly, I don’t feel like I experienced much of that. Maybe because my perception—especially with both my boys—was always that they needed space to stretch their wings. Not to be controlled, but to have me there as a touchstone. A guide when needed.

So I never built up that “I can’t wait for them to leave” energy with either one of them.

And I’m not going to lie… I don’t love this cultural thing we do where 18 is like a deadline and kids are supposed to be pushed out. I know our European counterparts aren’t necessarily kicking their kids out at 18, and I believe there’s value in keeping the family together longer—letting coming-of-age be a celebration, not a severing.

Because loosening the grip is hard.

Not because you want to control them.

Because you don’t want to be erased from their new life.

It usually takes me about three months after emotionally charged life events to have my breakdown. That’s been a pattern for me.

So when I found myself having this huge meltdown—crying that I can’t stop, feeling the void so intensely—I thought, “Wow… it’s been a year.”

But then I realized: it hasn’t really been a year.

Those three months in the summer, I was still in his life—tracking him, sending care packages, buying tickets when he was close to home so I could see him perform.

Then the fall—band pictures, football games, performances.

Then winter break—he came home.

So it’s been a gradual decrescendo. A tapering. A slow thinning of the rope.

And now… the thread is still there. It’s strong.

But it’s different.

And the thing that triggered all of this?

The possibility of fostering a dog. 

Because I realized I didn’t have the capacity to bring in a new life pulling on me when I’m trying—mostly fully immersed—in recreating my life. I realized I can’t have anything pulling at me right now. Not because fostering is wrong, not because I don’t love animals or that she didn’t fit with my other dogs because SHE DID… but because my boundaries still aren’t intact when it comes to nurturing.

And that realization opened the floodgates.

Full-blown meltdown. Tears I can’t stop.

Not because anybody did anything wrong.

Not because I was a bad mom.

Not because he’s doing something wrong by building his life.

I’m just grieving a season.

I miss it.

Even though the separation happened gradually—rope thinner, shorter, thinner, shorter—now I can feel the absence in a way I didn’t expect.

I feel the void more deeply than I could have predicted.

And I’m still trying to fill the negative space with positively everything.

Love Mom

Davindia

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I’d love to hear from you! Have thoughts, questions, or just need another mama’s perspective? Drop me a line and let’s connect—together, we can navigate this wild journey of motherhood and figure it out one step at a time.