My Five Year Journey

Photo Credit: Wix Images

Over the last 5 years life has been very busy. I am sure it has been for most but my "busy" has been full of twists and turns I could never have envisioned. I didn't realize it at the time when my particular journey started in November 2020 but as time went on it was clear I had set out on a different path I hadn't traveled before.

It seemed like a no brainer that after the pandemic life would look different or at least I would think about it differently but I turned my thoughts in to action. 2020 was a pivotal year on many levels. I became an official empty nester, separated from my husband , dealt with unthinkable grief at the passing of my mother and became a super-commuter with a new job.

Here's what happened. I accepted a new job that wasn't in the city I lived in not knowing exactly how that should work but like most things, I figured it out. On the surface it was about working in another city during the work week 4 hours away and commuting home on the weekends. I kept a small studio apartment to avoid living out of a sterile hotel but more importantly to truly experience the place I found myself working and part time living. In the end this decision would be life changing.

It was just the prescription I needed by throwing myself into my work, changing the every day scenery of life and reinventing the way I thought about working. Ultimately, it also changed how I saw my life and what I wanted it to look like. In the beginning I wasn't sure it was sustainable all the driving and commuting but as it turned out it was the start of an internal journey that would lead me to understand myself better with the added bonus of rediscovering what was important to me outside of my identity as a wife and mother.

My separation was liberating and freeing. My new work arrangement allowed me to totally disconnect from my old life and experience things differently. I didn't know it at the time but I would never be able to go back to seeing people, situations or myself through the same lens from which I had seen things before. There was an internal earthquake that was evolving and I liked what was happening.

Over the next almost 5 years this journey continued with me traveling for work and part time living in different places. I valued my solitude and was excited to hang out with me. When I returned home on the extended weekends I was surrounded by amazing friends that are really more like my family. I connected with them on so many levels and they "got" me. I was also able to spend one on one time with my daughter as she transitioned in to adult life and see my son on a regular basis as he attended college.

As time went on I took another assignment with my company that took me to new places and new adventures. This time I was air traveling back and forth. I continued to hone and craft what I wanted my life to be like and contemplated what my next chapter might be. It's really been an extraordinary time of discovery and opportunity. My identity has firmly changed and morphed in to a hybrid of what it had been. Many life events have happened during these years that influenced the trajectory of how I got to where I am but I finally made the turn from struggling empty nester to happy mom with two grown children. I also reinvented the way I see my love life and made it what I wanted it to be without the constraints of losing myself to please another. I am not sure where I would be had I not embarked on the road less traveled but I wouldn't change a thing.

My work journey ended recently on my terms to do life in a new way and make those near and dear to me a bigger priority. I'm not sure yet what that looks like or how I want it to work but just like before, I will figure it out. I won't be running at 1000 miles per hour any more but that's good because I don't want to. I will still be discovering new things about myself and shifting priorities as I see fit. However, I am more of a seasoned veteran on how to do that after the last 5 years and I will always bet on myself to get it done, figure it out, make the plan , bloom where I'm planted and continue to ask myself the question "Now what"?

#StayCurious