Notes from The Nest

Initial thoughts on my solo trip to Maine this week.

Greetings from Nest del Mar, my home for the next week.

Greetings from Maine, Midlifers!

I arrived yesterday around dinnertime after spending the afternoon roaming around Portland, shopping and loading up on groceries for my solo getaway in a cabin overlooking the ocean dubbed Nest del Mar. I’d driven to Cape Cod on Friday — leaving NJ at the crack of dawn — to spend the day with my dear friend, Nancy, for what has become our annual tradition.

Just two moms trying to take a selfie in front of a row of hydrangea on a walk.

For the last two years, I’ve stayed with her in Boston on my way to Maine and it’s been so delightful to be able to deepen our friendship and spend time one-on-one. Usually, we just see each other when our group of eight sorority sisters get together every fall. But now, Nancy is living out on the Cape full time since they sold their family home outside Boston and she asked if I wanted to visit on my way to my annual Me Week. I left New Jersey at 6:30 a.m. and made great time — it took about six hours door-to-door — and was sitting at her outdoor dining table eating a turkey sandwich in what felt like no time (a good audiobook helped — see below).

[Mood on Saturday’s drive to Maine. Last year’s soundtrack was Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo the year before. This may be my Cowboy Carter summer.]

It’s a great start to this solo week in a tiny cabin overlooking the ocean. I get all the gabbing in with Nancy before a long stretch of quiet. I’ll connect with a couple of friends along the way but this year, I really want to lean into the solitude. To sit with the discomfort I still feel being alone sometimes and remember what a gift it is to be able to spend time by myself.

I fell in love with this cabin last summer and had reached out to the owner at the start of the new year to say I’d love to come back in August. When I never heard from her, I emailed her again and learned that they only had this week in July available, and I immediately sent her my deposit and blocked it out on my work calendar.

The timing was less-than-ideal with projects going on at work and my manager preparing for imminent maternity leave. And my girls and I had already booked our Fourth of Beyonce weekend in DC. But last year’s experience here in Maine was so magical, I decided I’d figure out a way to make it all work.

And in many ways, it seems that the timing is no coincidence.

Earlier this week was the 15-year anniversary of my divorce. The day I stood in front of a judge alongside my soon-to-be-ex-husband in a dingy paneled courtroom on a hot July day and affirmed I no longer wished to be married. It felt like an out-of-body experience, hovering above the pair of us standing there flanked by our attorneys to seal the deal after a lot of last minute back and forth about, like, a Vizio TV and outdoor furniture. I felt dazed standing under the fluorescent lights of the courtroom and listening to the judge read aloud the names and ages of each of our four children.

A somewhat disastrous first solo vacation with the kids to the Bahamas that winter.

Fifteen years ago this summer, I officially became a single mother of four children who were then 17, 16, 13 and 7. The oldest would start his senior year of high school and start applying to colleges and the youngest would enter second grade. The kids would be in four different schools in the fall and by the end of the year, I’d add to the chaos by starting a full-time job running a local news website. Even then, I was trying to find myself and establish my independence but the result was that I just added to my overflowing plate of responsiblities.

Back then, I’d describe to my therapist how my life felt like I was treading water while holding a boat overflowing with the four kids and managing a household and the demands of a new job over my head. Like the Christmas ornament I’ve had forever of Noah’s Ark, animals spilling over the sides and out of its tiny windows while a giant whale dangles from below balancing the hull on its snout.

Every once in a while back then, I’d go on a date and when the inevitable topic of post-divorce romantic history arose, the gentleman would be surprised when I’d say that there wasn’t really much to share in that department. Back then, I’d feel bad about myself and think there was something wrong with me, that this was proof that I was incapable of love.

But now, I’d like to go back to those moments and say, “Sir, do you see how hunched my shoulders are from the weight of being a single parent to four children?” Now I understand what love really looks like.

My 2010 nightstand.

Standing in that courtroom 15 years ago, I would have no idea that it would be many years before I’d feel any of that weight lift. The relentless heft of parenting. Even when some of the kids went to sleepaway camp or off to college, there were always other kids still at home. When I’d watch friends with fewer kids sneak off and enjoy alone time when their kids went off to camp and I’d drive home to kids asking me what’s for dinner. Feeling swallowed alive by their needs.

Forty-four year old me would have given anything to be where the 59-year-old version of me is right now. Alone in a cabin in Maine lying in bed and looking out at the ocean. Watching the seagulls glide across the never ending roll of waves across the sand. This week, I have no one to worry about except me and my meals, which will consist of things I bought at Whole Foods to heat up, like some flatbread pizza and chicken strips. I have a stack of books on the small wooden desk and podcasts and audiobooks for walks down the beach looking for sand dollars.

If I were to be honest, I think that I kept myself pretty busy during my first two Me Weeks to make myself feel less alone. While I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself per se, I think there was still a part of me that was framing this trip as a door prize for being unattached romantically. Like, “Well, I guess I’ll just do the things I want to do alone since there’s no one else to do them with.”

Oh, silly me.

All this time thinking that a week alone in a cabin sounded sad when that me from 15 years ago would have given her right arm to be here right now. What she would have given to crawl out from under the weight of her kids to be alone with nothing to do for six whole days.

And I think that even if I was with someone, I’d still need to go off and be by myself. To eat what I want. Listen to what I want. Think and plan and dream. All on my own timeline.

Oh. The things she still has to learn.

I think about that young mom standing in that courtroom. All the challenges she was about to face. A lot of hardship and nonsense and of course, happy stuff, too. Launching four people out into the world and embracing sobriety and finding a career and financial independence. All things I could not have imagined standing in that courtroom on that hot day in July all those years ago.

And now, here I am alone in a cabin tucked along the rocky shore of Midcoast Maine. A scene from a book. Or a movie. Or, it turns out, my own little life.

Stay tuned. xo

Worth the wait

I’d really been resisting this book for a number of reasons. But recently, the memoir by a former Nickelodeon child star kept coming up in my feeds with the news that it was being made into a series starring Jennifer Aniston. My curiosity to get the tea started to outweigh not wanting to feel weighed down by jokey writing about a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship. Then I saw the audiobook was a little over six hours, which I could bang out on my drive to Cape Cod. It’s read by the author and I really liked it and made the few traffic snags I hit driving north on I95 on a Friday in July more than bearable. Highly recommend and looking forward to watching whenever it comes out on AppleTV.

What I’m reading

With the caveat that I am not necessarily recommending this rounding out of the romance trifecta I’ve been reading over the last few weeks. It started with People We Meet on Vacation (also Emily Henry that I would recommend). Then Alison Monaghan’s It’s a Love Story (not my favorite of hers).

And now this Emily Henry that I picked up because it’s set in Maine but either I’ve run out of patience for the silly names and occupations of her characters and the hairs standing up on the backs of the protagonists’ necks as we wait for their enemies to turn into lovers, or this just isn’t one of Henry’s best. This is the literary equivalent of eating the whole bag of Swedish Fish and feeling sick when just a handful would have been more than fine.

What I’m wearing

Me in my cult leader era

My younger daughter joked that while she liked this gauze set from The Gap (gah, only a handful of sizes/colors left in the top) I wore over our Fourth of Beyonce weekend (see me here riding the metro in it), she also thought it gave cult leader.

Then she took a series of pictures of me trying to indoctrinate her sister into following some account I was obsessed with on Instagram documenting a rescue dog named Cheesecake. I can’t with Cheesecake.

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Thanks for reading! Now I’m going to read, too!

I’ll be posting updates on Instagram so follow along here! And I’ll be sharing the full scoop on my week away in my Friday email that goes out to paid subscribers. Consider upgrading here to get all the tea.

xoAmy