REDEFINING MY IDENTITY IN AN EMPTY NEST
I have been struggling with trying to find my identity since my daughter flew the nest to university halfway around the world from America to Scotland.
I looked for books and scoured magazine articles online, trying to find ways to navigate through launching her but found nothing on finding myself in this process. Sure, we were buying things for her flat and caught up in the excitement of her first year abroad (oh yeah, did I mention she’s doing all 4 years there???) but there was a hollow hole in my heart.
It was a busy time, but I also strangely had a lot of downtime just feeling sad, and lonely for the impending empty nest waiting for me back in America.
I found the trite lists of things to do like practice self care, duh, been doing that anyway, but really, to find something meaty to dig into who am I and what comes next, was sadly lacking on social media and in self help books.
Here are some of the questions that helped me start this new phase of my life as I walked the beaches of Scotland, journaled in the cafes in England and came home to start charting my new course in life at 55 years old!
- What are my values?
- Who are my peeps? How can I nurture current and new friends in my life?
- What are my strengths in the face of complexities and uncertainties in life?
- What hard situations have I already been through and how did I do it in the past?
I did a lot of traveling alone after I left her in Scotland. I was journaling in a cafe in Paris, overlooking the burnt down Notre Dame Cathedral, thinking, “Now isn’t THAT a perfect analogy for my self identity?”. What do I need to do to rebuild my identity stronger and for myself? Reflecting in my journal on the basic foundations in my life that I already have, helped me start to building a new identity.
I will always be a mom to an incredible daughter who lives with a chronic pain disease and still manages to fly half-way around the world to pursue her dreams, but as I have become more of a supporting actor in her life story, I can, at the same time, learn to step in and take the lead in my story!
Stay tuned for the story of the 30-ish French professor who tried to pick me up in London and what I learned about myself and my marriage!!!
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