Are Calendars Busy?...or Full?...in the Empty Nest E150

Clancy Denton (00:00)
This week on the Loud Quiet, are calendars busy or full in the empty nest? Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of The Loud Quiet. We know this is just such a busy time for everyone and it, you know, is a busy time for us. It doesn't matter if you have a kid you're about to send off to college, back to college, even if you don't, there's just these seasons of life that are just busy.

Rick Denton (00:28)
And I have always been no, I haven't always been, but in like the last decade or so of my life, I've really pushed back against the how's it going? I'm busy. That sort of celebration of busy culture. And I think I and I think by extension we do a good job of not celebrating being busy. It just sometimes sneaks up on you.

Clancy Denton (00:54)
You know, maybe the word isn't busy. Maybe the word is full. It just was full. And we had these

Rick Denton (01:00)
Okay.

Clancy Denton (01:00)
significant events happening that, okay, we'll just get to that event and then things will calm down. Okay, we'll get to that event and then things will calm down. Well, we had a huge event a couple of weeks ago. Our book, we had our launch celebration party. It was fabulous. Some of you might have been there and

Rick Denton (01:22)
It was so much stinking.

Clancy Denton (01:24)
It was just fun. And and that is exactly what I wanted it to be. I didn't want this. This was not a promotion of our book. This was not a book signing tour thing. This was just a party for us to celebrate with friends and family and people that have been there that live locally that can get here to that have supported us along the way. And it was. It was just fun.

Rick Denton (01:55)
We think we talk about it being that celebration. I was sitting here thinking, I think I would have just had the party with just the two of us because there was so much work to get to that book creation. And I know there are plenty of folks that are sitting here going, You've been talking about the books for months now. And and I get that. This was our book launch celebration. So for those of you that haven't yet had a chance to buy the book, it's certainly available at theloudquiet.com. You can go there, you can get the free bonuses. And for those of you that have bought the book, please, it would really help others come to know of the existence of this book and help other empty nesters.

if you would leave a review at Amazon. That review is so valuable and helps folks understand here's a resource for them as they are part of this empty nest life.

Clancy Denton (02:34)
But yes, getting back to the party, it was just like I said, it was just fun and and we

Rick Denton (02:41)
We're gonna have to come up with new words. I know. I hear

I could hear all the listeners going, All right, well it's fun. Yes, click click click click.

Clancy Denton (02:46)
Word to describe it and we felt like we were being pulled in so many directions, which was great, but it did really feel like you were at your wedding because you'd start talking to someone and then it'd be like, my gosh, someone else would come in and you need to go talk to them or hey, we signed my book. Hey, we you know, it was just

Rick Denton (03:06)
I understand why people have handlers.

Clancy Denton (03:09)
Yeah.

Rick Denton (03:09)
Because in the absence of having a handler, you just end up being handled.

Clancy Denton (03:13)
You need someone doing that. You have thirty seconds. Thirty seconds. Holding up a little.

Rick Denton (03:17)
We've just restarted Veep and for those of you that have watched Veep, one of the greatest characters is the one that just leans into the the Veeps ears.

Clancy Denton (03:27)
So and so from so and so, yeah.

Rick Denton (03:30)
This party we knew everybody, but that was that it's

Clancy Denton (03:32)
Well we didn't know everybody because you had guessed that I had never met. I had guessed that you cross street have never yeah met. And so no, someone would come in and I was like, Okay, I don't know this person but and you know, at one point you were like further away from me and so I was like, Where are you? 'Cause this is one of your people and yes I can talk to them but

Rick Denton (03:55)
We needed

like bat echo location or something like that, you know, some sort of high pitch noise that we c only of course I can't hear even regular pitch noises anymore, so

Clancy Denton (04:03)
But we even had a room that had karaoke and Tanner and his crew kicked that off and that was just

I'm not gonna use that word again. A delight.

Rick Denton (04:20)
It took a lot out of us to get to that point. And it was like you sa you said something at the beginning that I I wasn't expecting you to say. The if we could just get to this point. And I think that's when you and I really fall into a false trap. Or it it's a real trap, but a false expectation that there ever is a point that you get to that it's done. And

God willing, as long as we have health and breath and vigor in us, there's probably something next in line. It did feel like in this season, though, we never quite caught up. We were so focused on that book launch party that we let everything else be a but we'll handle it then. Well then suddenly that then shows up and you're starting to handle that next thing and those blinders go on.

Clancy Denton (05:17)
It was some of the external things like we need to go to Austin. That is where Rick is from. His family is there. We have not been in several months. And so we're like, hey, we need to plan a trip. So literally on Tuesday, I came to you and I said, I have looked at our calendar. If we don't go this weekend, we're not going until probably October or November. So what did we do? We're like, all right, let's go.

So

Rick Denton (05:47)
Which speaks to a mix of things. One is yay, the flexibility of the empty nest and running your own business. That we could do that. Now it was a weekend trip. So those that are in classic business, it was still just a weekend trip. And it speaks to that the empty nest is not an empty activity. It is not a it and and I think a lot of folks almost look at it, those that aren't in it yet, and see it as this period of time of winding down. Man, I think it's winding up.

Clancy Denton (06:16)
For me for sure. I was definitely not. I mean, I was doing stuff with the kids, but I was definitely not pouring as much energy, time, creativity into my part-time job that I had. So yeah, I feel like I am way more packed now than I was, which again, though you bring in that flexibility part of it. We because we do work together, if we say

Okay, yeah, we're just gonna leave Friday at ten AM and it's fine. We we try not to prote we try to protect our Fridays always. We don't schedule meetings, we don't schedule recordings unless we have to. But so we have that flexibility. I mean, even to the point that, you know, Teagan is home for the summer and she was like, y'all are going? And I said, Yeah, we're going. And she said, Okay, well, I'll see y'all Saturday night. I said, No, we're not coming back till Sunday. She's like, okay.

You know, and so

Rick Denton (07:17)
Of course we did all the standard jokes of, you know, enjoy the p having the party and the the kegs in the back Well,

Clancy Denton (07:22)
It was working.

Rick Denton (07:23)
she was working and she probably I know she's a young adult, but I think all of us enjoy having a space to ourselves. So she probably was looking at this going, sweet fancy Moses, I get the entire house to myself for a

Clancy Denton (07:37)
I mean, great, she's about to leave to go back and live by herself for the next semester. But and again, that was the other thing that we had on the list to get to is moving her next week. And so it really was we need to go do this now. And we also got on the talk of we need time away for us.

And those of you in the empty nest, yeah, it is just us all the time, but when you're in your environment, it's different than when you get out of your environment.

Rick Denton (08:16)
We spend a lot of time talking about the importance of friendships and community and that's an overused word, I get it. But just other people in your life, it's one of the the vital things that they talk they I love I love it when people say they, I just did it right there. Research has shown that people who have healthy relationships as they age

Live better and live longer.

I think that I have found that we're building a business together. We're enjoying so much time with the friends that we have made here in the empty nest, that it can be too easy to forget about, hey, let's just you and me go out. And I don't think sometimes it's, you know, Rick didn't or the man didn't take the woman out. I think both of us fall into that trap of, hey, let's just invite friends on everything that we do. And I love that.

It sometimes though you look back and you realize, Wow, you and I haven't gone out just for us or taken a trip just for us or done an activity just for us in way too long.

Clancy Denton (09:32)
No, and I feel like we almost were better at it when we weren't empty nesters than

Rick Denton (09:39)
You carved out that one special moment kind of thing.

Clancy Denton (09:42)
Yeah. And so I think that is a and like we said, okay, we'll go to Austin, but the goal in Austin is to see family. And we love Austin. And those of you who have ever been there, it's a fun city. We just never get to be tourists in it because we're always with family. This time we're like, Okay, we're gonna go Friday, but we're not really gonna make it known that we're coming Friday so that we can have

A date night in Austin and go where we wanna go and we stayed in a fun hotel that's been there for ever. Uhhuh.

Rick Denton (10:22)
Just to be clear, you know, because family may listen here, it wasn't that we were hiding. No. We just made sure that we scheduled family activities for Saturday. We were just proactive in how we managed the agenda for the weekend, which coincidentally allowed us to have a little bit of space on Friday. And it was a blast. Mm-hmm.

Clancy Denton (10:41)
Yeah. sorry, you're really gonna Yes it was.

Rick Denton (10:46)
Sure.

Clancy Denton (10:48)
No, I was thinking that, you know, when we started this

Rick Denton (10:52)
I gotta land s sit here for a second. It was a blast. That usually is the point where the other person is.

Clancy Denton (10:59)
I thought

you were gonna keep talking. I missed the cue. When we started talking about this Austin trip, you brought up we r I really we need a vacation though, just the two of us. And and when we were talking about things to talk about on our episode and you're like, Well, you know, this is kind of we did this I was like, No, no, no, this does not count. This does not count as a vacation for both of us because

It had an underlying agenda in it as well, which again, we love the family there. That's not an issue, but it just we had six hours that were, you know, ours.

Rick Denton (11:42)
did say that I do want to have the vacation where the most effort I extend is raising my right arm so that I can suggest to someone coming by to bring me my next beverage or my next snack.

Clancy Denton (11:55)
Yeah, and it's just getting harder and harder to fit that in. When I look at our fall that's already filling up.

Rick Denton (12:06)
I think we need to go back then and talk about what I said at the beginning, and that is for what I said were decade or decades, I've had the the view that being busy is not a badge of honor. I wonder if this these empty nesters, and I'm looking at you and me, need to learn to say no.

Clancy Denton (12:28)
Well, I feel like we started that and like we've started

Rick Denton (12:32)
about it on this.

Clancy Denton (12:33)
Yeah. And really the things that our fall is full of are mostly social fun things that we're doing. And I wouldn't take any of those off of the agenda.

Rick Denton (12:48)
I think this gets it another thought, and that is not only as empty nesters do we have flexibility because the kids are out of the house. You and I have chosen to craft our own business. So we actually have day of week flexibility. I think we still struggle with the mentality of from eight to five, Monday through Friday, is work time. And yes, maybe we block out Friday, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we view it as getaway or due time.

I know that I still almost have a struggle with if it's 10 30 and I want to go do something in the morning, I just go do it.

Clancy Denton (13:28)
I would say that was a struggle more in the beginning. I don't think it is as much now because I can like last week on whatever day it was, you went and ran some errands, I went and ran some errands, you went and got a pedicure. So I mean there are things that are that we're not letting

Rick Denton (13:45)
But

you know what? Everything you just said, errands, and heck, even a pedicure which, yes, I get pedicures and I'm not ashamed about it. They feel great. If you are a man out there and you're like, I can't believe he has that. Go get your feet rubbed once and you'll be converted. That's not the same as, you know what, I just went and sat in a park somewhere. Now it's a billion degrees. But we didn't go to the lake. We didn't just sit out by the pool. Anything that we do seems to have some element of do.

associated with it a p as opposed to just B.

Clancy Denton (14:16)
Yeah. I mean that's true. I just

I think that's just hard human nature.

Rick Denton (14:25)
I was and

Clancy Denton (14:25)
It's not just an empty nester versus non empty nester thing. I think that's just

Rick Denton (14:30)
Yeah.

I am unduly influenced by a podcast I was listening to this morning, and it was it was talking to a guy that was talking about meditation, but not just the kind of concept of meditation, but the concept of just quieting your mind. And he was describing how you can be having this recurring thought over and over and over in your head that if you verbalize that outside, people would lock you up.

But because we are we are willing to process these thoughts over and over in our head, we think we're just thinking about it or handling it or processing it as opposed to this is something that trying to quiet that. And I think some of that busyness of thought ends up being expressed as busyness of activity and ends up in a situation where you do look back and you're like, I'm exhausted even though I'm doing all fun things. And it's because there hasn't been as much of that just stillness.

Clancy Denton (15:28)
Well, I think that also comes from there's just so many inputs outside of just us. Like what did you say this morning? You know, Tanner texted you and said, Hey, can you come help me mount this TV this weekend? Well, no, son, because we're gonna be moving your sister into her

Rick Denton (15:49)
I

said it slightly differently. I said, Well, I'll be in Arizona. If you want to fire up the private jet, you can fly me out. He declined.

Clancy Denton (15:55)
Yeah. So you know, there's just hey, do y'all wanna go meet for dinner? Yes, we do. I mean i there's just inputs that come in that

those things I wanna say yes to. There's some things though that I'm like, I'll say no to that for sure.

Rick Denton (16:13)
I think, you know, I know that what I'm even unintentionally thinking about right now as we're talking about is it's a lot of the absence of stillness that I'm finding myself unwilling to be bored. I have a device that is so accessible. I have a book that's accessible. I have a TV. I have an activity. I have friends. I have all that that is so accessible that I never allow myself to be so still that I'm

Clancy Denton (16:42)
Okay, but do you consider okay, the the scrolling on the phone, I I don't find that the same as reading a book.

Rick Denton (16:54)
I agree with you.

Clancy Denton (16:55)
So I agree. I I don't know

Rick Denton (16:58)
comes to the value of the input, but not what I'm talking about there in the sense of the absence of input, then those are equal their inputs, but the value of the input totally see them differently.

Clancy Denton (17:10)
I just wonder where that would be very hard for me to sit and not have anything going on because even when we do go on certain vacations where you are just sitting, there's still music. It may not be club hype up music, but there's still something and and I can't do the

go camp in a tent, sit by the water, that's just not me. I know you can. and

Rick Denton (17:46)
Yeah.

Clancy Denton (17:47)
but I can't do that.

Rick Denton (17:49)
The example that was dis mentioned this morning was back in the day, if you were sitting in a doctor's office and you read all the magazines, or there were no magazines that are available to you, then all you could do was sit and observe. And it's not this the stillness that I'm mentioning here is not the stillness of, you know, truly the the transcendental meditation kind of thing. It's more just being aware of what's going on.

Look at that plant over there. I I can hear this. I can s I can hear the music in the background, as opposed to always having inputs

Clancy Denton (18:23)
See, and I would be sitting in the doctor's office looking at everyone going, Okay, what are they here for? What what's their situation? What's going on over there? that's

Rick Denton (18:33)
You're like the reverse of that progressive ad where the guy i is sitting in there telling everyone why he's there. You're the one, hmm, what's that person got?

Clancy Denton (18:41)
So I I understand the point and I do appreciate I appreciate sitting. I just don't know how much sitting I could do without

Any inputs at all.

Rick Denton (19:00)
And I'm sure all of us have a limit to that. And I think I've certainly taken us in a a direction that probably we didn't anticipate. It's it's more just I'm realizing that I'm feeling over huh. I may just feel kind of overstimulated. And moments like where we express, hey, I just want to spend time with you, that's value too. And even just being present with you but quietly present with you is a delight as well. And we heard that talked about,

at church on Sunday. The idea of especially later in life how a couple can just enjoy each other's presence even though they're doing separate activities and there's still a lot of value and intimacy in that sort of quiet co-presence.

Clancy Denton (19:43)
Yeah, I think I think it's almost because yes, we did go away for the weekend, but there wasn't any downtime.

Rick Denton (19:53)
No,

I was telling Teagan that at lunch today. I was like Yeah, mom and I never

Clancy Denton (19:56)
Or

stopped. And what did we do? A whole chunk of it was starting to look at neighborhoods that she might live in if she ends up there. So again, we're still doing things for the kids, even though we're they weren't even with us. And I always say this the seasons are about to change. Our bodies, minds, mental clock. I know that school is about to start here.

We don't have kids going to that school, but both of ours are about to start back up with grad school and finishing undergrad. So I think it's almost your body letting you know, okay, we need a reset. We just need we're about to enter into a new fall season. And I don't think we've gotten that. And I don't know when we will get that. Maybe whatever trip.

we can put in there. I have that feeling and I get that feeling every time you're about to enter into a new season.

Rick Denton (21:03)
You have talked about that season change and I th I I it's taken me a while to get there. I think there's something there. You you talk a lot about it with the time change. I think absolutely the weather change, all of that. Then we felt like we got to the next thing, but there never was just stuff for us. Well, we did that.

But there's still that kind of swirl and busyness of activ or fullness. I like that change of words that you said. What now? What do we do? Or do we just live it? status quo is an option too.

Clancy Denton (21:39)
Yeah. And and like I said, nothing that we have been doing or have planned to do would be anything that I'm like, I wish we wouldn't have done that. I mean, even last week we went to an event on Wednesday night that Wednesday at five o'clock I was like, why did we say we're gonna go to this? And it ended up being fun. Yeah.

Rick Denton (22:00)
Met some great people.

Clancy Denton (22:01)
Yeah. So, you know, it's just things like that that

Sometimes you commit to something and you dread it, but then it ends up being great. Now sometimes it ends up not being great, but but I think you know what? That's interesting though. I feel like I haven't had as many of those in this stage of life as I did when I was a younger mom or when the kids were Why do you think that's I don't know. That's interesting. I I just thought about that. Well

Rick Denton (22:36)
Or hypothesis? I don't know what I have. My hypothesis is that so many of the events at that stage of life were driven by your kids and your choice of attending or not attending was not as open as this is. We're choosing our activities now. Every time I say that I think stepbrothers.

Clancy Denton (22:53)
I'm I'm not even thinking about kid driven activities. So I think it more just has to do with

One, like you said, pick and choose, but these things I would have picked and chosen anyways. I think it just has to do more with at this point, I don't care. Like if I go somewhere and sud the vibe is off or someone, you know, doesn't care for me, I don't care. one, I can leave. Who cares who I think that's another thing is that yeah. I think that's another thing is being fifty two, if I'm not

good with where I'm at or I don't like th what's going on, I can just take myself out of it. Whereas those younger years are still trying to fit in and and, you know

Rick Denton (23:46)
It even gets distilled down to if we don't like the vibe of a restaurant when we've sat down we've walked

Clancy Denton (23:50)
Yes. And I don't know that we would have done that when we were in our thirties.

Rick Denton (23:55)
So aside from that though, because you're right, there's things that we but you know, do we look to deconstruct the schedule? Do we or is it more about changing our attitude towards the rhythm of the schedule that instead of always thinking, if we just get to, instead it's we are doing. There there was a phrase I heard this morning. Boy, I'm I'm talking about this podcast a lot, but there was

It's impossible to become happy. You can only be happy. And the idea was there's such a folly in trying to strive for the happiness activities when really happiness is derived by living in the moment that you're in and appreciating the moment that you're in.

Clancy Denton (24:47)
Yeah, and again, I am not there have been some stages of our life and even in the empty nest room, like, my gosh, I'm gonna break if we don't calm down. I'm not feeling that right now. It's just you see when you see your calendar, you just see those things on the calendar, especially the bigger events.

And so you know it's coming. And maybe it's just that anticipation of that's coming. And I know what's involved going into that event that I I think maybe that takes up some of your mental capacity as well as just what else is going on. You know, I'm sitting here thinking, Okay, she has one day off this week. We have done nothing.

to go through the stuff that she brought home because she cannot take it all back with her this time. And, you know, I was even talking to my mom on the phone earlier and they took the kids out to lunch on Saturday for their annual summer lunch and she said, have you started packing? T was like, I don't do that 'til the day before

Rick Denton (26:02)
Yeah.

Clancy Denton (26:05)
Ha ha.

And I just got something put on the calendar that morning. So I mean it's just But

Rick Denton (26:14)
Which is awesome.

Clancy Denton (26:15)
again, did I say no to it? No. Do I know that everything is gonna work out? She's gonna get everything packed? Yes.

Rick Denton (26:25)
I think that's so that's it. I think if we're talking about what would I and I'm not here to commit to changing this because I'm not convinced that I will because I know who I am. But I think that's part of it is no longer striving to get through something. Like even the enjoyable things, it's we will do X after that.

I want to spend more time of course you have to plan. I I'm not saying just suddenly just show up to every day in life and realize haha.

Clancy Denton (26:57)
But

Rick Denton (26:58)
Instead of so much of categorization of okay, if we just get through this, then I will do that. No, just enjoy the this that is now. Be happy rather than try to become happy.

Clancy Denton (27:09)
Yeah. And I think if you want to

Because we have tried to protect days in our calendar, but then when you have a guest or you get asked to do something, it's okay, we can just fill that in. Well you're

Sure, but I guess it depends on your commitment to are you gonna protect those days or not. Yeah. You know, I think a lot of it is just it's decisions, just like decisions you've had to make your entire life.

Rick Denton (27:47)
Trade-offs. I

feel like I'm having Capital One flashbacks when all we talked about were trade-offs.

Clancy Denton (27:53)
All right.

Rick Denton (27:54)
Do y'all have this? Is this just a a a Rick and Clancy kind of thing? Or for those of you that are in the empty nest, are you finding this to be just a the same kind of busyness and swirliness that you were experiencing before the empty nest? Is there a disconnect that you're feeling? Or or how are you getting through this?

We'd love to hear from you. You can certainly reach out to us through the Loud Quiet's website or share this as part of the Facebook community out there so that others can hear your stories and, well, learn from your wisdoms as well.

Clancy Denton (28:25)
I do I like the word full. I think I'm gonna start saying our schedule is full instead of busy. We'll just we'll just change that.

Rick Denton (28:36)
But there's still there's still room. It's full, but there's still room.

Clancy Denton (28:41)
Well, guys, thanks for going down this this this was a therapy session, I think, for real live therapy sessions. Thanks for joining us on another episode of The Loud Quiet.