Why Does “The Drop” Always Feel Like It Is Off a Cliff?
March 14, 2025
The clock beside the bed flashed 3:05 a.m. I was wide awake because I had not yet been to sleep. The people I loved most were sleeping under my roof, which meant the mom in me was listening for each tiny sound.
What if someone wakes up and wants a snack or needs to talk about their philosophical beliefs on cryogenics? What if I oversleep and the whole family makes memories without me while I slumber cluelessly until noon?
Despite my desperate need to sleep, my brain would not relent. It knows I am most alive when my family is home, and I am terrified of missing a single moment in their company. Five days in, I was about to die of exhaustion while simultaneously counting down the final hours before their departure.
A commotion down the hall captured my attention. For a second, time peeled back and I was jerking awake at the sound of teenagers sneaking out or toddlers creeping toward the Christmas tree. Every muscle contracted as I sprung out of bed. I tiptoed to my door and peeked out into the darkness.
My oldest was staying in the room at the end of the L-shaped hall. Snores echoed loudly from behind the closed door. My mother slept on the pullout in the parlor below, her coughing spells reverberating through the hardwood floor. Footfalls sounded on the carpeted runner as someone left their bed. A light switch flicked; a toilet flushed. The soft swish of a door followed by the squeak of a box spring told me the suspect had returned to bed. I sighed and returned to my room in disappointment. Of all the sounds in the house, the loudest and most distracting was my heartbreak.
I glanced at the clock again as a closet door was pushed open. My youngest must be up. The four of us were leaving for the airport in less than an hour. My daughter and her partner were catching a ridiculously early flight home. My husband and I would make the three-hour round trip, him driving and me sniffling, and return in time to have one last afternoon with my oldest child and elderly mother before they too headed home, a million miles away. Considering that the last time we were all together was over five years ago, I worried that passing time, rather than sleep deprivation, was my true enemy.
Last week, amid the endless chores and grocery runs, I told my husband that this visit would end in tears. He agreed. We figured it would go one of two ways: our family would disintegrate into disagreements prompted by spending five days under the same roof, or it would go well and I would be devastated when the house was quiet again. It is the latter that happened, and though expected, it made the drop no less depressing.
My oldest says the cool kids call it that — “the drop.” This so-called “drop” or letdown refers to a series of complicated emotions following highly-anticipated events — be it a wedding, vacation, or family reunion. The event dominates a person’s life for months in advance. Task lists a mile-long result in undue stress, physical work, and financial considerations. Then, the long-awaited date arrives, preparation ends, excitement hits a fever pitch — and it’s over in the blink of an eye. In the vacuum that follows, sadness, rather than euphoria or relief, takes hold in a crushing defeat.
I don’t mean to minimize the joy a five-day visit brings me. Ask any mother who hosts her grown children coming home; it is never enough, even when it is too much. It doesn’t matter how stressful the visit is, how exhausted she might be, or how much money she spends making big kid dreams come true. When it’s over, Mom feels empty and depressed. She can tell you with absolute certainty that joy and sadness aren’t mutually exclusive.
Complicating the “drops” are painful realizations that multi-generational gatherings often bring. For instance, when I grow frustrated with my 70-something-year-old mother because she requires extra care, I am reminded that my 20-and-30-something-year-olds could easily say the same thing about me. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that my mother lamented my grandparents moving slower and worried they needed more help than her once-a-year visit could provide. Now, they’re gone. She is the one who takes a few extra naps and needs a little extra help with once-simple tasks. And while I try to give her grace, knowing that she’s earned it, I am humbled by the fact that my time will come none too slowly.
Perhaps the most troubling part of this phenomenon comes at the end of the visit. This is the part where the oldest person in the room says: “This may be the last time we’re all together”, and the room goes silent. It’s the thought that echoes loudest in the quiet of a suddenly empty house.
As I get older, each gathering does begin to feel like the last. Five years ago, we had COVID Christmas in surgical masks. Ten years ago, we celebrated two graduates earning a high school diploma and a college degree. Each time, the house filled with bodies while we overcooked and overserved. The same words are eventually spoken aloud as the women put food in Tupperware containers. It seemed ludicrous then to think it, but it didn’t make the statement any less true.
After returning from the airport, my husband went upstairs for a nap. I knocked lightly on my mother’s door. We hadn’t had much time to talk amid the hubbub and we were the only two awake. I forsook slumber to ask her how she was doing and if she enjoyed the trip. Her face said it before her lips formed the words. “I think this is probably the last time we’ll all be together.”
I wanted to argue as I looked at her new pink metallic walker and the hefty bag of pill bottles on the bedside table. But I’d known the truth of it before she’d spoken. With her youngest grandchild living three thousand miles away and her only child a hard day-long drive that taxed her aching joints, there was no point plying her with hollow reassurances. The words dried up as we both shifted uncomfortably, her due to arthritis, me because of prickling emotions.
I picked up my phone, reading about the loss of my aunt, her daughter an only child like me. I knew from our last conversation the hurdles they’d faced and the battle they’d waged. Nothing made the shock of it any less palpable; and it reminded me of unhappy times ahead. I started to ask my mother if she’d heard. A soft snore answered as I left the room, eyes damp with both felt and anticipated grief.
Storms moved in by early evening, their presence heralded by my newly arthritic knees. My mother retired early with cough syrup and a solid dose of anti-inflammatories. Her chauffeur, my firstborn, needed sleep to make the 10-hour drive back. Work and a home of their own waited impatiently. My husband, exhausted by being one-half of a full-time cook and housekeeping team, headed to bed. I stared at the ceiling, listening to the hours blow by, knowing what came next with the rain. Tears. Salty, bitter, thankful, heartache-filled tears. Tomorrow there will be time for sleep in the solitude of the post-visit blues. Tonight, I’m wondering why “the drop” always feels like it is off a cliff.
Well stated. Sad but all too true.