Day: August 31, 2025

• Justine Martin, 54, lives in Geelong, Australia, and has two adult children.
• She struggled with loneliness when they left home and went into therapy to cope with her feelings.
• A new lease on life followed: artwork, travel, and a dachshund who follows her everywhere.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Justine Martin, a single mom in Geelong, Australia. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Ten years ago, my last child left home at 17. Initially, I was shocked — I thought I’d have her around until she was in her mid-20s. I wasn’t ready for her to leave as a teenager, and I also wasn’t sure who I was outside of being a parent. I’d been a mom for 22 years since my eldest — my son — was born.

My daughter and I had also been arguing when she moved out, and she went to live with her boyfriend. It was not how I’d imagined things going.

I became an empty-nester about eight years before I envisaged it, which is part of why I wasn’t mentally prepared. My son left in his mid-20s, so I expected my daughter to do the same. Looking back, I sometimes wonder if I made my children a little too self-sufficient, too soon.

I felt so alone. I had so much time on my hands that I didn’t know what to do with it. As a sole parent, I didn’t have a partner to fall back on. The house was deadly quiet.

I had to find a way to deal with my loneliness

I booked a therapist to help me process my loneliness. I realized I had to reinvent myself as “more than just a mom.” That’d be a long journey, as hard battles were ahead.

I began dog-sitting to help a friend out. It also helped me out and gave me much-needed company through a distressing time: I’d had to leave work due to being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2011, then cancer in 2016. The cancer came less than a year after my daughter left. I couldn’t bring myself to get my own dog; I didn’t know if I’d survive the cancer, so it didn’t seem fair.

Once I went into remission from cancer in 2018, I realized his dog had filled such a void for me — it was time to become a mom to a furbaby myself. I got a mini sausage puppy, Pansy, and she has been my constant companion ever since. Dachshunds are very needy. She follows me literally everywhere — even to the toilet!

I found new ways to fill my time

Even with Pansy, I needed to decide what to do with the spare time. As my grief began to subside, I realized I could go where I wanted whenever I wanted and didn’t have to rush home or get out of bed early for my daughter. Gradually, I went from feeling depressed to feeling liberated.

I traveled across the beautiful, big country I live in — Australia — staying with friends, and my son, who lives interstate. At first, it felt strange traveling solo, without having to book extra flights for my daughter.

Over time, I began noticing things I liked about being an empty-nester. My grocery bill decreased. With the extra money, I was able to buy more supplies for my hobbies. I started painting and sculpting more, then selling my artwork and sculptures. I also began illustrating children’s books.

I didn’t wait for someone else to make me happy

My key to surviving loneliness was not waiting for someone else to make me happy, which is what a lot of lonely people do. I went out there and did it myself. It began with little things, like simply making sure I made the bed every day. It’s a mindset thing; it starts your day right. Then, even if the rest of the day went poorly, at least I’d accomplished that small thing for myself.

No one tells you how it’ll feel when you suddenly become an empty nester, and I was under-prepared. That’s why therapy was so helpful. However, sometimes I still get sad, thinking about how my children are all grown up and that phase of life is over.

These days, though, that sadness passes more quickly than it once did. I’m a grandma now, and my daughter and I have a great relationship again. My grandkids come over to stay once a fortnight, and the house is alive again. I’m so grateful for that.

• A Hamptons pop-up partnered with a members-only reservation app on a smoothie.
• The smoothies have blown up online, as social media and reservation culture converge.
• Employees and the pop-up’s chef said the smoothie’s identifiable look is part of the appeal.

Walk around the Hamptons this summer, and you might run into people holding a plastic cup full of lilac stripes. Look a little closer, and you’ll see two small words printed on the 20-ounce container: Dorsia and Drugstore.

The words might not mean much to the untrained eye, but they represent the Hamptons‘ new drink of choice, from Drugstore, a summer pop-up in Amagansett operating out of a coffee shop. It’s billed as a clean-eating spot, where burritos and salads are labeled with their largely organic ingredients. But more than anything else, Drugstore is known for its viral, easily identifiable smoothies.

Of the six smoothies, the “Velvet Rope” is particularly notable — and not just for its purple stripes and 15-item-long ingredient list, which includes ashwagandha and collagen, along with typical fruits. This summer, Drugstore is partnering with Dorsia, a members-only reservation that can cost $25,000 a year and mandates a spending minimum at each table. Dorsia members can preorder the Velvet Rope and pick up their smoothie from a special window, avoiding the line (and, intentionally or not, signaling their membership).

“It was frictionless,” Marc Lotenberg, founder and CEO of Dorsia, told Business Insider about the collaboration. “And it got a ton of traction.”

Jeremy Fall, the chef behind Drugstore, said he was surprised by the number of Dorsia members who have gotten the Velvet Rope. Employees told Business Insider on a recent Wednesday that while most people who stop by aren’t members, they make up a significant contingent of customers.

“That makes people feel like they’re a part of something,” Fall said of the partnership, which he sees as mutually beneficial. “A lot of the time that stems from memberships.”

Social media has been key to the success

Social media is full of photos and discussions about the smoothies, with some comparing them to luxury grocer Erewhon’s Hailey Bieber smoothie. When Business Insider visited Drugstore, two women made the same comparison after seeing the drink.

Drugstore say they sold more than 15,000 smoothies across flavors within its first month, and more than 25,000 as of August 27. Fall didn’t intend to go viral, and Lotenberg said that any product chasing that goal will probably fail. Blowing up online actually increases the pressure, Fall said, since everyone now walks in expecting the drink to look and taste exactly as it does on Instagram.

The smoothie’s distinct look is part of what helped it take off, Fall said, and workers agreed. An employee making the smoothies told Business Insider that “most people ask for them because of how they look,” while an employee at the coffee shop said nearly everyone takes a picture of their drink.

“The way people look at drinks is that they sort of say a lot about their identity,” Fall said. Nobody, he added, walks around the Hamptons flaunting or posting about their Drugstore burrito.

A drink as an accessory

Exclusivity is baked into the smoothie’s name itself — Fall said that Dorsia came up with Velvet Rope after seeing the characteristic purple stripes. Beyond the blueberries in the smoothie, the title calls up images of VIPs, like those on the app.

“What makes our drinks ‘exclusive’ is because they’re all over the internet,” Fall said. “If they’re not all over the internet, they can’t have anything that draws any sort of air of exclusivity. It’s completely counterintuitive.”

Given that they cost $20 before add-ins or tax, the smoothies are exclusively priced, too, though maybe not by Hamptons’ standards. Fall said the price has to do with the ingredients.

Gen Z is driving a surge in new drink options across price points, especially as younger people move away from alcohol. They’re also spending more on premium grocery stores, and restaurants are becoming more of a status symbol.

If Drugstore’s instantly recognizable smoothie and members-only pick-up window are any indication, the interest in seen-and-be-seen dining doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

“I’m going to go get this smoothie or order it, and then I’m going to walk around with it,” Fall said. “And because I care enough to do that, it shows that I am part of a subset of people that are cool enough to drink so and so.”