My children no longer need me, and I do not know who that leaves

Dear Delyara, I stayed home with my children for twenty-four years. It was not an accidental life. I chose it, loved much of it, complained about plenty of it. The youngest moved out last month. Suddenly, there are no school forms, no practices, no lunches, no one asking where clean socks are. My husband still works full-time and talks about retirement in five years. Everyone tells me this is my time. My time for what? I had interests once, but they feel like clothes from another body. I enrolled in a pottery class and left after two sessions because everybody else seemed to have come to make pottery, while I had apparently come to discover a personality. Yesterday, my son called and asked how long to boil an egg. I felt useful for six minutes and embarrassed by how happy that made me. Raising children was not all I was, but it occupied enough of me that the empty space now feels less like freedom and more like somebody removed the furniture before telling me what the room is for.