Coming out of devastation and loss … over two years of it … all kinds of loss and change that I never wanted … it’s time. It’s time to choose to retrain my thinking, reflect on where I’ve been, where I’m going, where I want to be … take a different perspective. It’s just time.
2023 – my youngest graduated from high school and went to college. Significant because I was a stay at home mom and got my identity all wrapped up (happily) in being mom. And I’m still mom to all three of those adult boys but they don’t need me … not like they used to. And although his graduation and going off to college filled me with indescribably pride and joy (all three will be graduated from college in May), there was grief.
2023 – my mom passed away, rather suddenly, in days. There are no words to describe her amazing, what she meant to me, and the vast hole her absence is in my life, especially in the last two years since she has been gone. Heaven is precious because she is there. The grief was and still is intense.
2024 – my golden retriever had cancer and we had to say goodbye after 10 fabulous years. Growing up years for my three boys. The best dog ever. Precious, loving, playful, low maintenance. Watching him slip from this life in that tiny little room where we all wept was a punch in the gut. One I never expected to be so heavy. But it was.
2024 – five months after my Golden crossed the rainbow bridge, my 14 year old Yorkie had back pain we could no longer manage with pain meds. He left this world in my arms. I felt his heart slow and then stop and his body relax to nothing. He was my comfort in the first years we had him. A spunky cat-like personality that managed to give me great joy. I still miss him.
2024 – my husband of 26 years confessed infidelity and left less than two weeks later and moved in with another four years younger than our oldest son. Blindsided. So many lies. So many betrayals. The shock, the heartbreak, the humiliation, the self-doubt, the blow to self-worth … That grief is indescribable.
But in came 2025 … I have three boys. All three got engaged. All three had engagement parties. My middle graduated college. Two got married, one in the fall and one in the winter. I moved to a little garden home 40 minutes away with no memories, no footprint but mine. I got me another Golden Retriever, Lucy. And all that in the midst of and following the finality of divorce. Single at 52.
Life never stops throwing curveballs.
Good and bad. Happy and sad.
But it’s time. It’s time retrain my brain. I’ll grieve some of these losses, maybe all of them, the rest of my life. But I’m gonna live. I’m gonna thrive. I’m gonna take two steps forward and probably one step back … or ten … until I make it. Until I become a woman that I am proud of. Be a mom my boys wanna brag about and be around. Be a sister that is fierce. Be a friend that my people turn to and can depend on. Be the stranger that is kind.
Today I am grateful. I say today because tomorrow I may not be. That’s why we take things day to day. Sometimes minute by minute. And we learn out of habit, right? So, today, January 6th, 2026, I’ll start my habit. I’ll sing to some worship music. I’ll dance to some secular (and I can’t dance, mind you, it’s all a mess). But I’m joyful. Content. Lonely sometimes. I wasn’t supposed to live this season, life in my 50s, empty-nesting, alone. But here I am. And I feel myself getting stronger and stronger, little by little.
What more could a girl ask for? And in the asking … I’m learning to ask myself for what I want and what I need, and not other humans. Maybe it’s not their job to fill the gaps of what I need. So, I’ll ask myself. And give myself what I need. And God … I ask Him for a lot too … because He can take it. Because I’m on his mind. Because I’m his daughter. I’m royalty because I’m HIS.
Time to metaphorically get out this bed of grief, take a shower, fix my hair, slip on my leggings and sweatshirt and WAKE UP. Get out there and live my life believing I can still make a difference. Because gosh darn it … I am amazing.
Just Amy 