A year has passed.

The house is empty again; my older one went back to college; the younger is studying abroad.

Quiet moves in. Counters stay clean; stuff gets put away and stays there.

And the silence stays.

I’ve made some changes, which are good and pointing in the right direction.

Until now I’ve been living a life for my daughters. I am still committed to them 100% (and more) but I have also found the strong desire to live for myself. Start living my own life.

Which sounds a bit selfish. But I’ve never been selfish. And if I think about it more, being a tad bit selfish after 22 years is OKAY!

As a first step, I’ve moved back to the master bedroom.

One day I was lying on my bed (in the small dinky room) thinking; and realized that it’s time to become an adult again; have the large spacious room with the connected bathroom. There’s no reason for me to be in the small dark room that was my older daughter’s during high school and which I traded out with her to make her feel better when she stayed home and didn’t move away from college as a Freshman. But now she has her own apartment in LA, has a boyfriend, is doing extremely well…. So there’s no reason for me to stay in that room.

So we’ve made the move and it feels GREAT! I actually didn’t think how great it would feel. I feel liberated, grown up, ready for any adventure that comes my way! YAY!

(If you think about it, I may, just may one day, bring someone home and it would be weird to go into a small cramped bedroom, instead of the “adult” room”)

My second step, and this is kind of embarrassing, I put together a “weekly plan” for myself. Otherwise, I will always procrastinate and not start doing the things I plan and would love to do as a single empty nester parent.

So I’ve created a table and started plugging in what I will be doing….Things will change of course and there’s great flexibility in the table (you can always delete, copy, paste, etc.)

Example (just a start; still under construction):

	M	T	W	T	F	S	S
Early AM	Run		Run	OR Run		Run	OR Run
AM						Write in coffee shop	OR Write in coffee shop
All-Day						Hiking OR Cycling	OR Hiking OR Cycling OR Volunteer (min. 1x/ month)
Early PM
PM		Yoga (6:15-7:30)			Dance	Friends/ Date?	Friends/ Date?
Before Bed	Stretch & Meditate (10’)

And there will be other steps.

Like, continuing to figure out what things I want to do outside of work. I really would like to create a life that enables me to meet new people and experience new things.

To be continued……soon.