The Only Parents on the Beach Without Kids

Hi, friends, things feel so new around here right now, like the ground under us is crumbling a little. I noticed it on vacation at the Baltic Sea, when I had a dream where I was terrified of losing someone. I woke up completely rattled, went for a run to clear my head, and then thought: Of course.

There's a lot of change happening all at once, and it's shaking the foundation of the last several years pretty hard. Bodies and hormones change for women my age, and it feels different. Journalism as I learned it doesn't exist anymore, I'm partly reinventing myself at work, I'm meeting so many new people and starting over from almost zero so often, not just at work but in hobbies too. So many firsts again. On top of that, our own parents are getting older. And the kids are leaving the nest.

The boys are away from home for two full weeks for the first time, our oldest is in college and doing her own thing anyway, and the caring that started the day she was born 19 years ago (and during the pregnancy before that) is giving way to a new kind of freedom.

But caring for them was such a big part of our daily life that, even though I'm getting the hang of this new phase of parenthood, I don't always feel steady in it. I'm not used to taking a vacation without the kids, for example. Everything feels old and new at the same time.

A New Season: The Only Ones on the Beach Without Kids

I was sitting on the beach in Kühlungsborn, and it felt like we were the only ones there without kids. Bare little legs darting through the sand, carrying buckets of water to sandcastles, babies settling in their moms' arms, diapered bottoms perched on dads' laps, moms-to-be stroking their bellies. That makes me melancholy, because it's never coming back.

Then I also think of the "I'm hungry, I have to pee, I'm thirsty" meltdowns, the sibling fights, never getting to decide how our own day goes, the tired faces after sleepless nights. That calms me right down, and I think: Been there, don't need to do it again. But right next to that is the thought of how fast they grew up after all, our littlest ones. And that it was all worth it.

My thought on the run was this: We can enjoy kid-free time when we know the little ones will be back afterward. We can enjoy having just one kid at home when we know we'll all be together again soon. We can enjoy being unemployed if a new job starts in six weeks, and we can look back happily on our single days when we know the love of our life came next.

When our kids were little, I dreamed of quiet beach days with a book and no interruptions. Of course I did. Now I have those days, and I think: This is how it's going to be now, this is our life, and I'll never again get a wet, sandy smooch pressed onto my face by my own kid. Can I lean back and enjoy it, or should I be using this time some other way? That there's room for thoughts like this again at all!

And then the kids who now tower over me come off their 18-hour bus ride, meet us parents at the train station, and say, "God, you guys look wrecked!" THEY say that to US, not the other way around, ha. Role reversal. One twin says, "Sorry, but I honestly didn't miss you at all." And we say: Hey, that means you can manage without us, which is great. And at the same time, the other twin is happy to be home, enjoying a seeded roll with kids' bologna, looking forward to his own bed, to familiar food, to home.

They can manage without us. But they still live here. We were able to really enjoy our time off, despite the occasional pang of melancholy, because we knew they'd come back. But we have to get used to the idea that they'll soon graduate too, and that soon they'll only drop by now and then.

And we love that they're showing us right now that they can do this, that they can handle it, that they can manage without us. Already. We couldn't be prouder, and yet we can already feel ourselves getting misty-eyed about the kid years, filing them away as "the good old days," seeing laughing faces in photos instead of sleepless nights of worry. Watching all of it slip into the past. Probably it's supposed to be this way. Exactly this way.

We have to, and we get to, get used to this now. And even once they no longer live here, we'll still be their parents, and they'll still come back and head straight for the fridge, just like they used to. It's just the way time works, the way life goes. Everything keeps moving and it'll all fall into place, even if that makes us a little melancholy sometimes. And sometimes just unbelievably happy.