In 2011, it crashed to a halt.

My Mom had been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. If you’re not familiar with cancer, then I will tell you that stage 4 is when it has moved from where it originated into other areas of the body. So my hobby was shut down. All of my extra time was spent on phone calls between my parents and my siblings. It was also spent driving 12 hours (one way) to my parents house because Mom had a setback and was in the hospital again. Who had time to read? Not me. And I definitely didn’t have the mental capacity to do justice to a review.

2013 changed my life.

January we moved my parents down to live with us, because my Dad needed help with my Mom’s care and we lived in a warmer, Southern climate. They thought that might help her. May my oldest child graduated from High School. June we were told that my Mom’s cancer had come back after being in remission for 2 years. We spent the summer juggling family member visits. September my Mom lost her fight with cancer. October my husband retired from the military. Talk about life making an impact. Mine imploded.

So I did what I always do when I have an issue I need to work through. I looked inward and started trying to fix it. I read so much self-help. All about dreams, changing your life, living life to the fullest. No, not about grief. About living life to its fullest.

Anti-role models

If that’s even a thing, or if I just made it up, it’s what my parents were. I wanted to be whatever they weren’t. I knew I did not want to be my Mom. I did not want to die at 64, still working, not having met any of my life’s dreams and bitter for it. I did not want to miss out on taking that big trip overseas. I did not want to wait to try my dream.

So, I started exploring writing as a career option again. Now remember I did not know that you could make money from blogging. I started back to college to obtain a degree in professional writing. I still knew I would not make a good author, but there were other occupations where I could use my writing skills. After a year of going crazy because of how many Power Point presentations I did, 1 for every class that I took, I knew that this was not the right path for me.

Bring on the certifications!

Then I tried my hand at a copywriter certification. And while I discovered that selling is not my bag either, I did have the opportunity to take a 4 day course on how you could start a money-making website. Huh. Who knew. But at this time I had spent so much money and so much time on writing fields I didn’t want to go into, I did not try this one immediately. All I could think was that maybe writing wasn’t for me after all.

Maybe I need to do something where I’m in service to others. Taking care of other people is the 1 thing I’ve always been told I’m really good at. I was really good at helping my Mom with her physical and occupational therapy exercises so maybe something along those lines. I knew I didn’t want to end up in the medical field, so I thought I could be a personal trainer.

And I did. I became a certified personal trainer. But I realized that I’m a very reluctant exerciser. So, no, not a good fit.

Then I saw something about becoming a paralegal and thought yes I could help people with their legal issues. I did great with the coursework. It turns out I’m a fantastic learner. But you want to talk about needing to be able to pay attention to the details. That was one of the highest requirements for the job. So, not for me again.

Life is what happened

During this time our oldest child had moved out of the house and our second child went away to college. It hit me hard. Half of my family move out in the same month. We were becoming empty nesters. I didn’t know how to be an empty nester! I knew how to take care of my kids, and how to run my house and work my job. But I didn’t know what to do with the extra time that I was starting to have. You can only read so much.

So I dove back into the self-help. I looked online for some tips and tricks, some idea of how to navigate this time. Do you know what I found? Nothing that related directly to me.

During all of this I kept coming back to 2 things: I wanted to write a blog and I wanted to help other people. This time I knew my dream. I just didn’t know how to make it a reality. So, I did what the self-help books were advising me. I was getting in tune with myself, I was acknowledging my dreams, setting my goals, and changing my habits.

Finally, at the end of 2020

I came across an ad for a free 5 day blogging course, and I knew this was the time to create the blog that I was looking for when I did my own research. I had heard from others that they too were struggling with the same thing I was. How do you deal with the empty nest? What do you do for fun? How do you fill the time? What about the lifestyle changes that come with just getting older? And the places we get to go!

My mission at Life After the Kids is to create a community for empty nesters where we can connect and share ideas on how to fill our time now that we have a little bit more of it. I will cover topics in Lifestyle, Entertainment aka Fun, Businesses and charities, and vacations to take/ travel destinations to explore.

I will bring you my authentic, honest self. I hope to entertain you. You will be accepted for who you are and where you are at in your life. And I ask that you do the same for everyone else who becomes a part of the community. Hateful talk will not be tolerated

Until next time,

Take care of you & yours!