Jane 
This weekend, thousands of mums (and Dads but this is primarily a blog for women) will do something that motherhood doesn’t quite prepare you for.
They will drive their child to university. They will carry boxes up stairs. Make the bed. Check whether there are enough towels. Ask seventeen times whether they have their charger so they can call home, inspect the kitchen and quietly wonder how anybody is going to survive in it.
Then comes the moment nobody quite prepares you for.
You have to leave. You hug them. You tell them to have a wonderful time. You try very hard not to make your emotions their responsibility. And then you get into the car without them.
For years, motherhood has been filled with beginnings. First day at nursery. First day at school. First sleepover. First exam. First driving lesson.
But this particular beginning can feel rather like an ending.
It isn’t, of course.
Your child still needs you. Motherhood hasn’t disappeared. But something has shifted. The child who has anchored so much of your daily life is beginning to build a life that doesn’t revolve around you.
And perhaps nobody talks enough about what happens to the mother when that happens.
What do we do with the quiet? Who are we when we aren’t needed in quite the same way?
And what anchors us next?
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and I call it Anchor Theory.
Over the next few weeks, I want to talk much more about the empty nest — not simply about letting our children go, but about the women we become afterwards. You may be an empty nester but that vacated space is now yours to fill.
So, to every mum making that drive home this weekend: Cry if you need to then remember that while your child is beginning a new chapter, you are too. It will take time but, believe me, it will happen because I went through the same. You will be fine in the end.
Take it easy and be kind to yourself.
