31 Aug 2026
Maybe the Empty Nest Is Bullshit
Find the Joy in the Noise
We spend half our lives dreaming about peace and quiet.
Then one day, we finally get it—and discover the damn house is too quiet.
In this episode of Diary of a Bald Man, Allen takes a funny, unfiltered, and surprisingly heartfelt look at what happens as we get older, the kids build lives of their own, retirement gets closer, friendships change, and the home that once sounded like a poorly supervised daycare suddenly sounds like an abandoned library.
Maybe we've been looking at aging, retirement, and the "empty nest" all wrong.
Inspired partly by his friend Chewie's post-retirement travels and his decision to reconnect with someone he already shared history with, Allen explores the difference between trying to fill an empty space and choosing to add something meaningful to the life you've already built.
And that conversation gets bigger.
Why are we so determined to separate generations?
Why should young adults struggle with rent, groceries, childcare, utilities, car repairs, and everything else by themselves while Mom and Dad sit in a half-empty house paying the same damn bills?
Maybe some cultures figured this out a long time ago.
Multigenerational families share homes, meals, expenses, responsibilities, childcare, stories, arguments, laughter—and life. It's not always peaceful. It's not always organized. Somebody is going to leave laundry somewhere it doesn't belong, somebody's kid is going to scatter toys across the floor, and somebody is eventually going to threaten everybody over the thermostat.
But nobody is alone.
Allen also takes aim at one of the stranger parts of getting older: apparently the moment you reach a certain age, every marketing department in America becomes deeply concerned about your gutters, windows, bathtub, retirement plan, and ability to remain upright.
The AARP invitations arrive.
Then the gutter advertisements.
Then replacement windows.
Then walk-in tubs.
Meanwhile, you're standing there wondering when exactly society decided you were 147 years old.
Underneath all the jokes, though, this episode asks a serious question:
What if the chaos we spent years trying to escape was actually one of the things that made us feel alive?
Family doesn't necessarily have to mean blood, either. Sometimes it's the friend who needs somewhere to land. The coworker who became family. The person who understands your history. The people willing to share the workload, the dinner table, the difficult days, and the ridiculous ones.
Maybe growing older shouldn't mean slowly separating ourselves from everybody.
Maybe the goal isn't a perfectly quiet house.
Maybe it's a full one.
A house where the mortgage gets shared, somebody's cooking dinner, somebody else is cutting the grass, grandchildren are running through the hallway, laundry is piled somewhere it shouldn't be, and there's enough laughter, arguing, storytelling, and general bullshit going on that nobody has time to wonder whether they're alone.
Sometimes peace isn't silence.
Sometimes peace is knowing you're surrounded by your people.
So grab your coffee—or something stronger if it's that time of day—and join Allen for a conversation about aging, empty nests, friendship, family, retirement, multigenerational living, ridiculous senior-citizen marketing, and why sometimes the best thing we can do is stop running from the chaos...
…and find the joy in the noise.
Stay safe. Stay bald. Stay honest.
Onward and Upward.
