Empty Nest- Full Laundry Basket

I never thought I would be this excited to do laundry and I certainly never thought the laundry room could break my heart a little…

My husband has always been the laundry king. Even the kids know that if there is a stubborn stain, a missing button, or a mystery spill, he is the one you call. Because of this, he taught them how to do their own laundry early in life. The lessons over the washing machine were plentiful: how many scoops of OxiClean, how to pull chocolate out of a white shirt, how to rinse and dry the fabric softener cup, and why you never put something stained in the dryer. If eliminating a spot on a hoodie that had already baked in the dryer was an Olympic sport, he would have the gold.

I promise I am not bragging. In this home, we divide and conquer.

But he has had a pinched nerve in his neck for the last two and a half weeks, and when our youngest came home from college hauling more laundry than we even sent her with, I knew it was my time to shine.

You see, life feels different as an empty nester. I became a mom at 19, and with eight years between my two kids, I have had someone depending on me since I was still figuring out who I was. This is the first year my hands and my heart have had space to adjust, to breathe, to explore the version of myself that exists outside of motherhood.

We got plenty wrong along the way, but we got a lot right too, especially the independence we built into our kids. Proof? I have not done their laundry since they were old enough to take the lessons my husband taught them and run with them. And honestly, that is one of our proudest parenting wins.

But here is the part no one really talks about: when your kids no longer need you in the same way, something inside of you still does. Something in you still wants to help, to comfort, to ease the burden of the rolling laundry cart overflowing with couch covers, fluffy blankets, and University of Iowa sweatshirts. It is not about being needed. It is about being connected.

No one teaches us how to be empty nesters. There is no handbook, no orientation, no slow transition. One day you are packing lunches, and the next you are standing in a quiet kitchen wondering who you are without the rhythm of schedules, drop-offs, and late-night requests for something they just remembered they needed by morning. They do not tell you that the silence is loud. They do not tell you that the freedom feels both exhilarating and confusing. They do not tell you that your heart expands and aches at the same time.

They also do not tell you how fast it all changes. One season you are tripping over backpacks, and the next you are buying dorm bedding. One season you are drowning in laundry, and the next you are excited to wash a load of your daughter’s clothes because it feels like she is home again, even if just for a moment.

So yes, I am spending the day doing my daughter’s laundry. And yes, I am so excited about it.

Because these small things, the ones we used to call chores, suddenly feel like gifts. And maybe that is the secret no one tells you about empty nesting. Life shifts, but love simply finds new places to land.