Prof. Winik Delivers 'the Empty Nest Report'
September 10, 2018
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Marion Winik, associate professor in the University of Baltimore's Klein Family School of Communications Design and a nationally acclaimed memoirist and essayist, writes in her Baltimore Fishbowl column about the new experience of having no children, and no spouse, in her home: a true "empty nest."
"The nest in question had been in operation for 32 years, if we count from the day in 1986 when I quit drugs, drinking, coffee and everything else I knew as the staff of life to begin the absorbing process of having babies and raising them, ultimately sending off into the world three biological progeny and two stepbabies," she writes.
"Now, for the first time ever, I am living alone. Living alone is not something I ever aspired to and at times imagined almost as a punishment for something you did that made you unbearable to others."
How's it going so far?
As friends and family weigh in with plenty of advice—including all those great TV shows to get lost in—Winik says it's not what she expected.
"Hold off on the sympathy cards," she writes.
Read the Baltimore Fishbowl column.
Learn more about Prof. Winik.