If you are ( most likely a woman) who has recently dropped your kid off at college or watched your adult child leave the house to try and make it in the “real world”, then you probably know about the empty nest syndrome. Feelings of sadness, depression and grief are common experiences among women who are often also experiencing menopause symptoms or are caring for elderly parents. That is not to say that men don’t also experience these feelings but for some reason they don’t linger as long.

I have the perfect solution. When my first son left home, I was left cleaning the remains of his room and discarded junk that he didn’t want to take with him. I spent a good couple of days peeling tape off his walls since he didn’t believe in having a space free of posters, stickers, banners, you name it. The first few hours I could barely see what I was doing through the tears but as my fingernails wore down and my arms went numb from having them above my head, my sadness turned to anger. It took me three days just to peel the tape, forget the spackling that I needed to do before I could paint away the grief of my first son leaving home. Needless to say, it was good therapy.

My youngest has just returned to his senior year at college and we are ready to put our house on the market. Before he left I asked him to clean and organize his room and throw out anything he wouldn’t be taking with him some day. We were both a little sad that he may or may not return to his bedroom at break. I decided to stage his room and once again I am peeling tape off of walls. I am feeling better already!

FYI…If your kid wants to use tape on his walls….try this: Hang burlap on the walls and give him straight pins to hang everything.