Great Expectations - E6

Clancy Denton  0:00  
Welcome to the loud quiet. Ooh, empty nester. Okay. What does that mean?

Rick Denton  0:06  
I think that actually probably is the theme of the test. What are we doing? Let's do this. Let's do this thing. Is this Recording? Okay, 

Clancy Denton  0:15  
Great,

Sans, children, Just us we need a tissue box up here to follow along on our journey and maybe you know we can learn from others.

Rick Denton  0:23  
I don't have a clue how to be empty nesters, if

Clancy Denton  0:25  
this is the loud, quiet, living the empty nest

Rick Denton  0:31  
Welcome to the Loud Quiet another episode today. First I want to start off by thanking our guests last week. Having Ward and Ashley on the episode was a lot of fun. And I thank you specifically Ward and Ashley for being patient with our technical glitches as we got through things. But it was great to have the episode come together learned a lot from them. Thank you to all the listeners out there. And I want to thank especially the new listeners. Those of you that join because of Ward and Ashley, have been incredibly encouraged by what I've seen, from your comments from the amazing amount of you that have chosen to listen to their episode. And I thank you for staying on this journey of the loud quiet as we continue to learn what it's like to be empty nesters as we continue on.

Clancy Denton  1:14  
Yes. Episode Six, we've made it past five,

Rick Denton  1:17  
we've made it past more fingers than I have on one hand, that's got to be some level of accomplishment.

Clancy Denton  1:24  
We'll see.

Rick Denton  1:25  
Can we get to toes?

Clancy Denton  1:26  
I don't know. We'll see.

Rick Denton  1:27  
Every week. It's a it's a journey. Journey indeed, as we've certainly done our own share of journeying.

Clancy Denton  1:35  
So yeah, so this week, I thought we could talk about expectations. We put that question out there. And people liked it. But no one answered. No one wants to talk about it. I don't think well, and you know, when I was talking to Ashley, who I bounce things off of, quite often, you know, she said, I, I know what I was thinking, but I just didn't know how to say it or what to say or, you know, and then when I started telling her the ones that I've been thinking are just like, Well, yeah, those are all, you know, and so there is a huge list of I'm sure what people thought empty nesting would be like, and you know, but today we thought we'd narrow it down to three, that were top of mind for me, us. Yeah. And you know, then we can have multiple episodes of other ones as they come up or, you know,

Rick Denton  2:35  
it's really like, I didn't know about that conversation with you and Ashley, and that is expectations is such a weird category because it's so unique, even between the two of us without conversation without getting into discussions beforehand. And even now, there's a whole set of expectations that I might have had that you might have had, that are either related to us. They're related to kids, they're related to life. Expectation is such a weird category that I can see why people might have been stymied, because Heck, I can be stymied. When I think about expectations.

Clancy Denton  3:11  
Yeah. And, you know, you have expectations when you have a child, you know, tons and tons that are not

Rick Denton  3:24  
long, they get blown up within like the first second, you probably had an expectation that people would be around the delivery room after you left to go eat, to go eat to pay attention to Tanner and all of that.

Clancy Denton  3:39  
Thanks.

Rick Denton  3:40  
We learned for baby number two to do a little better job on that. Wow.

Clancy Denton  3:44  
But yeah, so the first one that, you know, I thought that we could talk about, you know, because we just took a little mini vacay to San Antonio, and it was a great, great weekend trying to get there we are on the Riverwalk. When you know, I really do we love to go down there. It's just you know, I spent some time growing up there. So, you know, I have been there millions of times, but it's just an easy get away. Less than an hour flight. Right. You know, we didn't even run a car because we knew we weren't going to be leaving the whole Riverwalk area. And now with Uber, it's easy anyways, but just you know, a fun nice, quick little trip that, you know, again, though, and here's where the expectation comes in. We had to go on the weekend. Because emptiness does not equal retirement.

Rick Denton  4:42  
And that's unfortunately Yeah, I have I've talked to I didn't realize it. I think it came conscious to me maybe a couple of weeks ago, somewhere it sort of manifested in my mind of I was feeling this sort of tension between well actually expectations let's just call it for what it is, and I came to that realization that Wait, I thought there was just going to be this freedom, that anytime we wanted to do it any time we wanted to do anything, we got to do it. And yeah, we talked a couple weeks ago about how we got to go to Fort Worth. And we got to do that because we didn't have this or we got to go hang out of the PGA instead of a football game. So there are elements and degrees of freedom. But I had it in my head, that the end of child raising inside your home, ended up becoming the end of the career. And I don't, there was no plan for that. So we're I'm 50, there's still unfortunately, still plenty of time left that I need to be putting in the work before in retirement. But it's it, I really had this mental disconnect between what I thought our freedom would look like and what it ended up being.

Clancy Denton  5:54  
And I and I think that's the point is that we're still young, so and we have two kids and out of state schools. So yeah, we can't, you know, just not work and not have some income coming in from

Rick Denton  6:11  
scratch off tickets. But there's two problems here. One is I just don't ever, I don't ever buy him. That never seems to work out.

Clancy Denton  6:18  
Just because you don't have your kids activities. Yeah, you know, you still, you know, you're back at work today. I was back at work today. But, again, we did have the freedom to go down there this weekend. Because we weren't tied to a football game here. We weren't tied to other activities that, you know, we would have every other weekend for the past.

Rick Denton  6:46  
If you're just listening, you'll have to go over to YouTube and look at Clancy's facial expressions. Oh my gosh. Oh, my gosh, it's been that long. And that's, and I think that'll be I do want to we'll need to get a guest on here that is actually in that retirement stage and talk about what was that transition like that your empty nest, but your empty nest is a career. So some of the while the emptiness is filled by the job and well actually, sometimes you're exhausted, right. And so it that job, part of it is still there. And while I've felt that element of tension in the frustration that we in, it's overstating it, but that we can't just go off and do anything that on a Wednesday, if I say, Hey, let's go to Belize, we can't just on a Wednesday go to Belize. It is there's also that other part of it that as well, knowing we still have the job, and that still filling that space, that definitely was an expectation from a career perspective. And I realized that we have two different types of jobs. But that's been true for you as well, that when you've thought about, hey, can we can we just bust out and do something you have to keep that consideration in mind as well?

Clancy Denton  7:57  
Yes. And, you know, when the kids were still here, and you know, I didn't really want to be gone much during the week. And, you know, that's when I was probably a little more serious about not taking off, because I felt like I was letting my classes down or to let you know, whereas now I'm like, yeah. Don't finish that. She's not my classes. No, but I It's doesn't weigh on my mind as much as it used to. Yeah, so but yes, but you know, even when we go to Arizona, and, you know, later, you know, we're trying to figure out, you know, I can take off, but you're still trying to figure out, okay, I need some office space to work from and you know, now at least you do have a career that you can do that now because before, five years ago, we could not have done that or even air even some of these clients that you've had, you weren't able to, to be as free as we can.

Rick Denton  9:10  
And that's me as one thing is certainly approaching the empty nest phase. And it's now been six years since I became an independent consultant that started my own company that has definitely given us well, I talked about a glideslope last week, but it's given us that sort of the beginnings of that freedom that because it's independent because I do run my own business. Yes, I have clients that have demands on me and I choose to have those clients. There's a degree of flexibility that we did not have before when you're having to go okay, well, I gotta take PTO and I gotta get approval for that and all that sort of stuff. No, we just go and there is no P and T Oh, it's just time off now.

Clancy Denton  9:48  
And I think a lot of people are in that situation now. Post COVID A lot didn't go back to the office. So you know, I think there is a little more are, you know, I think the pendulum is swinging back a little bit now as evidenced by. Yeah. Or take a picture of you in your office at home

Rick Denton  10:11  
or that's like you could get me so box around don't treat people like they're in elementary school different topic different time. Absolutely, it is true that that pendulum is swinging back their minds, not the only sort of career expectation change that came about, you know, I gotta imagine that you had to go through a similar change and what you thought it might be like, as you've exited the big piece of your career as Mom, what's that been? Like? What's that expectation shift been like?

Clancy Denton  10:43  
Yeah, it is, you know, definitely. My role has definitely changed because I don't have other humans here that I'm having to care for.

Rick Denton  10:57  
There's the there's the furry, almost human at your feet. That is not making the camera this time. He would not

Clancy Denton  11:01  
leave my side today. So but yeah, I'm, you know, I was already starting to go through some. Okay, do I want to keep doing what I'm doing? Should I add something else? Because I'm, you know, part time at what I do. Which No, I really don't want to add anything else. But you know, it's just trying to and I have some you I have some things that are in my creative brain one,

Rick Denton  11:36  
really, except we're not gonna talk about it. But I am so excited.

Clancy Denton  11:41  
We'll see where where that goes. And, boy, there's a tease. Let's mark this. So tell me why me? No, it is it is different. But again, you know, Tegan calls me almost daily, when she's walking back from the Rec Center, just because she likes to talk to someone. And she's why it's not dangerous. It's not dark. But she just likes to talk to someone and she's walking back. And I you know, and my friend Laura told me shout out, Laura, if anytime they want to talk to you use a yes. It doesn't matter. You know, I missed her text when we were at dinner in San Antonio, which that was our time, but I would have stepped out and talk to her for the six minutes that it right, you know, took right. And she was fine. She said, I'll just call someone else, you know, but she her first call is to me, which makes me feel good. So that I

Rick Denton  12:41  
can see what that would. I'm curious. So kind of try to go back in your mind before though. What was your expectation when you went into empty nest? Did you think that was going to be happening? Not hope but expectation out with her?

Clancy Denton  12:53  
No. And we both had that expectation? I mean, I I told her, you know, I expect a text daily and

Rick Denton  13:03  
a live phone call.

Clancy Denton  13:05  
You know, every once in a while, we'll know it has been and we and our expectation has been blown out of the water on that one for both of us. So, absolutely. So yeah, so that it is, you know, I am still trying to figure out you know, it's not like I've stopped cooking, I stopped, you know, I'm still taking care of us. So, but it is it my my workload got cut way down than I do doing anyone's hair. Even though she could do her own hair, she would be tired. And she'd want me to curl it for game,

Rick Denton  13:44  
saying that you wouldn't do my hair. today.

Clancy Denton  13:47  
I'll do here. Take a long

Rick Denton  13:49  
lunch there. No, you've done a fantastic job of that where you are still taking care of us in that regard. Shoot, and we've even talked about that, that it's placemats for two. And yet, that hasn't changed. And I don't know that I necessarily had expectations, because that's a dangerous ground for the non cook in the family to have expectations. I don't. And didn't. I know that? I had wondered what that might be like we thought about what is that going to be like? How do you grocery shop for two? How do you cook for two? How do you do all that? And you've done a fantastic job of there. So I guess if you had to say there were expectations, it'd be something this would be one of those positive results, right? It's just I have to be real. I didn't have expectations because that's not fair. It's more just, it has been an absolute delight to see how you and we have evolved in that space.

Clancy Denton  14:43  
Yeah, I mean, and and I will say I haven't had to, you know, because our children are not picky eaters at all, but there are certain things that they prefer over other things. Now I don't even have to I can cook whatever I want and it doesn't matter

Rick Denton  14:59  
what you get out of Meet Me in Brussels sprouts all eat any but it's

Clancy Denton  15:01  
not even like that. Like Tegan just doesn't like sloppy joes, you know. So when we would have sloppy joes without real fancy, she would just be not so excited. Now we can have sloppy joes if he wants to have

Rick Denton  15:16  
we having sloppy joes than I know we are.

Clancy Denton  15:21  
But so that, you know, roles, expectations. You know, another one I think some people probably have is that, oh, now that the kids are gone, we can reconnect my spouse, and I can reconnect and I partner and I can reconnect. And yes, that didn't will just happen. Yeah. You know, when we were talking about these things I kind of equated it to when you're younger, and you know, first married, it's Rocky, and then you're think, Oh, if we have a baby, that'll fix everything. Oh, yeah, that works. That's great.

Rick Denton  16:00  
Because babies, nothing but bring a couple together. So.

Clancy Denton  16:02  
So I do think that some couples, you know, no matter what stage or marriage is in, I think people probably have that idea that we're just going to be together all the time. We're going to spend time together. It's going to be great. And you know, sometimes I mean, we had an awesome time in San Antonio this weekend. When we got home yesterday afternoon, I went to our bedroom, you had football out on in, and then we came back to them for the Cowboys game. But everyone needs their own separation time.

Rick Denton  16:38  
Absolute people need their togetherness their alone time. That is something what I think about that as and what you're bringing up there about that expectation is that that it would happen automatically. And that suddenly it it's just a reverse a return. It's not eight, I always get the math wrong, but not a return to 21 years ago when it was young, married. And then before that the dating, it's actually a return needed to some degree almost to know when you started dating and you were reconnecting with that human without some of the awkwardness and some of that aspect of it. It takes work the and yes, we have chosen to do a lot of that reconnection through activities, and for us specifically traveled to Fort Worth traveled to San Antonio, well, as we run out of travel weekends or travel budget to write.

Well, it's going to continue to take that effort to read date and put that in it did it? I don't I know that I let me say this differently. I bet you a year ago, I would have had the expectation that it was going to be because we're together because the kid involvement is no longer there will automatically I think as we got closer to it. And as our kids were less involved in our day to day lives, it became clear that that expectation was a false expectation. And we needed to put in actual time as we had some tear filled conversations around. What's it going to look like when we go empty nest? I think those conversations helped us realize that expectation was a false one. And we needed to create a new one which involved working at it.

Clancy Denton  18:21  
Yeah. And I think again, that's something that, you know, you need to be working at. Even when your kids are right here. You couldn't just suddenly and you know, and it it. It's not easy. We were blessed again, to have parents who lived in town who are willing to keep the kids. You know, not everyone has that. So, you know, even when we didn't have that in Houston, we would still put Tanner to bed on Thursday night and make our pizza and watch Friends. I mean, that was our date night it was in our house, but that was special does and you know and that and you know we can quote every line from friends because we still watch them every night so

Rick Denton  19:03  
and you said make the pizza that makes it sound like we were doing something oh and friends and we

Clancy Denton  19:11  
put the pizza in the oven or sometimes if we got fancy we ordered pizza. So

Rick Denton  19:15  
when was the place I would pick up from it was over there. When we really wanted to splurge we'd go pick up a pie.

Clancy Denton  19:23  
But even you know when you went back to saying it's like you have to go back, you know, 27 years for us when we started dating, but even this weekend on the Riverwalk, we were throwing out jokes from things that happen 27 years ago, you know when we were on one of our first trips, and this huge RV pulled out in front of us. And we and Rick tried to speed up so fast to get around the RV, RV RV and this weekend it was people on the riverwalk RV RV. So you know how Having those connections that you can pull from 27 years ago, that's special. And that's just something that you know, we gotten a TIFF, but tiny TIFF, but

Rick Denton  20:15  
you're kind of online made it more of a real weekend that we actually did get into it.

Clancy Denton  20:23  
But it was I don't know what it's about, but we're not gonna rehash it. So I remembered

Rick Denton  20:27  
to but it was just stupid. But I think that's what's good. Well, now one thing about that, that different level of maturity that probably comes not from the dating days, but from the nowadays is all right, timeout. What is this crap about? Dude, knock it out, and then move forward. Right? And it was all judgment? No.

Clancy Denton  20:45  
But yes, but I do agree with that, that as you mature in your relationship and age, yeah, the fights are not fights, like they used to be when you were younger. So

Rick Denton  20:59  
now, I also know that there's another category like you talked about the relationship part of it. And that's, that's very true. I think there's something that we've joked about too. But if you really go back into maybe my head, maybe your head, there's the whole category that people like to talk about in the empty nest, that suddenly it's going to be this just free for all sex, crazy,

Clancy Denton  21:20  
nekkid time all the time, good

Rick Denton  21:22  
all the time, the kids are gone. So the doors are open, anytime somebody has a twinkle in their eye, that sort of stuff. Well, if that expectation where the the case, that's not the reality, but I don't even like, let's not definitely talk about desire with it. That's just not how it is. It's not suddenly you pivot into some married couple version of the Playboy Mansion with each other. And just that's not suddenly this massive change

Clancy Denton  21:48  
going on here. So some people, maybe it is their world. And it's also again, you know, 27 years ago is a lot different than 27 years now. There is an age element to

Rick Denton  22:07  
hormone differences, their biology differences. I mean, even I'll, well, it's still in the joking category, we thought, oh, at least now we don't have to worry about you know, timing or closing the door. Well, that's stupid cats around so the door gets closed, right? So is that even even something as both capable of laughing about but also truly serious to the relationship? expectations going into what that would look like in the empty nest are things that we have both experienced and have had to talk about? That's probably a key theme here is talk about your expectations.

Clancy Denton  22:45  
Because I do I gotta if if your expectations in any of these categories, or any other ones that anyone would like to share with us. If they're not getting met, and you can't get on the same page, you know, we know people that didn't make it after the empty, you know, and, or, you know, so relationships can't survive if people aren't on the same page with the expectations and you have to be able to talk openly. I think about it. I think

Rick Denton  23:20  
that's what scared us a little bit. I'll say that. Well, none of our conversations are actually planned. We think about kind of topics, but I know that we didn't really talk about this. It scared us I referred to the tear filled conversations. But there were things that we thought about the not only were we sad for the kids to leave, not only were we kind of wondering what the change would be look would look like, there was some fear, anxiety worry. Well, how do we act as a couple? Because it is it's both weird to say the sentence. Oh, that's it's like dating and well, no, it's not. I'm not 20. You're not in your 20s either, right? So it's not we know each other. We have a shared history together. So it can't just be sitting at dinner and going. So Where'd you grow up? Which is great fodder for your first date, right?

Clancy Denton  24:11  
Do we need to bring back out the question queue than we used to have with the kid? Kids? There's some good questions in their

Rick Denton  24:19  
queue about it. But that difference between it is dating and reconnecting. It's reconnecting with already a shared history. So how do you do that and the fear of what that looks like, that's to be taught, and

Clancy Denton  24:30  
that goes back to my statement of you don't have to talk, you know, it doesn't have to be conversation. 24/7 right, you know, right. You don't have to be sitting next to each other on the couch holding hands. You know, all the time when you're watching, you know, we each have our spot and we rotate

Rick Denton  24:51  
that we're going to sit together for certain movies.

Clancy Denton  24:55  
But you know, I think you don't have to fill All the quiet with just chatter because sometimes it's nice to just be in a quiet I don't, I don't enjoy it all the time when I'm here by myself. But you know,

Rick Denton  25:16  
that's something that is a difference between the dating and now is that comfort with being silently together. And if if you're sitting at dinner every single time, and if you are always silent and out of conversation, well, that's, maybe we go, let's go get the cube out and have some, but it's actually okay to just sit there quietly. And that's something that I've probably come to appreciate a little bit slower than perhaps you may have, I know that I have a discomfort with the quiet, I'm getting better at that.

Clancy Denton  25:49  
And you can even out in the world, you can tell people that are uncomfortable with quiet because they're always the ones that are trying to fill, you know, ask you a question, or just start talking about something. But again, we are both people that like to talk. So there's not a lot of

Rick Denton  26:10  
evidence by the two microphones in front of us in a record button. There's hasn't

Clancy Denton  26:13  
been a lot of just, and in, we can be honest, like I think even last night, you were like, do we need to talk and I was like, I have no more words. We've been together for two days, you know, and it's on our own. And it was fun. But I can be just quiet and chill. We don't have to keep talking. That's not

Rick Denton  26:35  
a code word. No, it really is an actual Be quiet and chill. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  26:40  
So yeah. So I think you know, again, those are just the ones that we kind of thought were top of mind for us. We'd love to hear if anybody has any other expectations, even from our empty nesters that have been empty nesters for many, many years. Let us know what you thought it was going to be how it's been better how things have not been exactly what you thought they were going to be. Yeah,

Rick Denton  27:05  
cuz we're sitting here talking in episode six weeks, and we've been empty. Now and I've even been a month I guess we've oh my gosh, it might be a month to the day today. It may be plus or minus a bit. So we're acting like we know what we're talking. We have no idea what we're talking about. And so our expectations of what next month is going to be our expectations of what six months and a year all that week, it's going to shift. So I'm curious what what someone who's been at that emptiness.

Clancy Denton  27:32  
And I don't think that we were giving anyone, this is what you need to do. Because we don't know. We're still trying to figure it

Rick Denton  27:40  
out on one. But well, we did give one piece of advice.

Clancy Denton  27:43  
Talk Oh, well, yes. communicate and talk. Yes.

Rick Denton  27:46  
And I would say laugh. I think that's one thing that helped us a lot is especially let's use a TIFF. It's amazing how when you have the TIFF, it still feels a little odd until that first line. Yeah. And then once you and I have that first laugh, we're fine again.

Clancy Denton  28:00  
Well, our relationship has always been built around. We love laughing. So yeah, that's

Rick Denton  28:08  
including a button at a burger joint. But that'll be a different story from a different time. There's a lot of laughter Yeah.

Clancy Denton  28:17  
So all right, so let's move on to our text of the week this week.

Rick Denton  28:21  
Okay, so we'll call it text of the week this week.

Clancy Denton  28:27  
If anyone has an idea of

Rick Denton  28:29  
what we could get you on this show immediately if you can come up with a better brand for that kids

Clancy Denton  28:33  
text. So what do we got this week? So this week was from Tegan. And she sent us to Washington to to both of us. Yeah. And she just texted and said, I'm enjoying the new scam. And Rick replied, Well, the first clue is the Postal Service never wishes you a good day. So yeah, she

Rick Denton  28:53  
did get it gotten a tech I think with a tech scam. And she'd screenshotted it. And it was from the US Postal Service, and she needed to send some link in or provide your personal information and have a good day. Yeah, well, that's never

Clancy Denton  29:06  
but bonus that our children do listen to us because she said, I knew this was a scam. I knew not to send any of my info. And she said there was another she was like, the second clue was that they sent it to me like four times in a row or something.

Rick Denton  29:25  
There's a lot of snark, I could give it the post office.

Clancy Denton  29:27  
And it had, you know, her email as the Hello. Oh, yes. So that's right. Yeah. So they do. They do pay attention. So there are certain things

Rick Denton  29:39  
going back to closing out the episode on the word expectations. I had the expectations that our kids would discard all of the lessons that we'd ever provided to them and throw them all away which clearly has not manifested but it is nice to see that they did pay attention.

Clancy Denton  29:56  
There are some expectations that I wish they would have I'll be doing a little bit more, but I'm not going to get into those because we're not talking about the kids. We're talking about us. But yes, so

Rick Denton  30:10  
Well, I expected that this episode was going to be a lot of fun to record and I will say that this is achieved my expectations. I hope that it's been fun and fun to listen to. And

Clancy Denton  30:20  
it's been fun to do. So. I mean, I love when our listeners enjoy it. But you know, we, like we said, we really set out to do this for you were to have something to do, but we're loving that people are really enjoying it. So

Rick Denton  30:35  
it has been a lot of fun. Well, it has been quite a scene to record one more episode helping to fill this space and just continue to build that relationship. So once again, it has been an enjoyable episode of the loud quiet, living the empty nest

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