It started with a song.

After an eighteen-hour workday, I was driving home when Mammoth’s Distance came on. I had heard it before, but this time something about it stayed with me. Perhaps it was the exhaustion or the quiet of the drive, but I found myself thinking about someone I once shared my life with. I wondered if he had found the peace he was searching for. I hoped he was happy. More than anything, I hoped he was okay.

The next morning, Dierks Bentley’s Long Trip Alone found its way into my morning commute. That song stirred something different, reminding me of the companionship I have always valued: conversations at the end of a long day, unexpected adventures, and the comfort of sharing life’s ordinary moments.

Music has always been as important to me as the ocean. There is something about lyrics and rhythm that reaches places ordinary conversation cannot. A song can instantly transport me to another time, another place, or a feeling I haven’t experienced in years. What fascinates me is that I never know which song will do it. Sometimes I wonder whether those unexpected moments are little nudges from above, reminders to pay attention to feelings I might otherwise overlook.

These two songs did exactly that.

Three years ago, my life changed in ways I never imagined.

I had gone to Montauk with my daughters while the man I loved moved out of the home we shared. I couldn’t bear to watch another person pack up his belongings and leave. It felt painfully familiar, stirring memories I had carried since childhood.

Montauk was already a place I loved. Ironically, he had introduced me to it years earlier. Over time, it became a destination for girls’ weekends, family memories, and quiet moments by the ocean. It was never defined by one person or one experience.

But that particular weekend, I arrived carrying a sadness I could barely put into words.

I remember the rain. I remember turning around and seeing a rainbow stretch across the sky. And I remember, with a clarity that has never left me, hearing two words.

Be still.

I believed they came from God.

I didn’t know what those words would ask of me or how difficult the months ahead would be. I only knew that in that moment, I felt a reassurance I desperately needed.

Everything would be okay.

There were times afterward when I wasn’t so sure.

What followed became a period of looking inward. I had reached another ending I never anticipated, and I needed to understand why it felt so familiar. Why did the fear of someone leaving run so deep? What was I carrying from earlier experiences that continued to shape my relationships?

Those questions required therapy, prayer, writing, and time spent alone. Some of that time was spent driving along Ocean Parkway with my music on shuffle, taking the scenic route simply because I could. The ocean quieted my mind while music often brought feelings to the surface. Sometimes a lyric stayed with me long after the song ended. Other times, the drive itself was enough.

I had to allow myself to feel things I had spent years pushing aside, recognize patterns, and learn that I could acknowledge the past without allowing it to determine my future.

That was my work.

Learning to be still meant sitting with uncomfortable feelings rather than avoiding them. It meant accepting that I might never understand someone else’s choices, establishing boundaries, and surrendering what I could not control.

There were moments when beginning again felt overwhelming. But somewhere along the way, I began finding my voice, enjoying my own company, and creating a home and a life that reflected who I was becoming.

This past weekend, I returned to Montauk for our annual girls’ weekend. The weather was spectacular. Warm October sunshine, the ocean stretching out before us, and a beautiful moon illuminating the evening sky. There was nothing I needed to accomplish and nowhere I needed to rush. I could simply sit in the sun.

Even when a little negativity found its way into the weekend, I made a conscious effort not to allow it to steal my peace. I wanted to appreciate where I was and enjoy the moment.

I was prioritizing myself.

I was there because Montauk is good for my soul. And as much as I love arriving, leaving always brings a little sadness. There’s something about driving away from the ocean that makes me wish I could stay just a little longer.

Still, I returned home grateful for the life I have today. I enjoy my independence, the quiet of my home, and the freedom to make my own decisions. I continue to value companionship and the possibility of sharing life’s adventures with someone. I’ve simply learned that I don’t have to sacrifice my peace to have those things.

I can also look back on a relationship with gratitude for what was good. The laughter, conversations, shared dreams, and ordinary moments were real. Their meaning doesn’t disappear simply because the relationship ended.

Perhaps that is what distance has allowed me to understand.

For a long time, distance meant the absence of someone who had once been part of my everyday life. But time has given that word another meaning.

There is a distance between the woman who stood beneath that rainbow three years ago and the woman sitting beneath the October sun today.

The woman who once feared another goodbye might undo her has learned that she can begin again. She can acknowledge sadness without allowing it to define her. She can love deeply, establish boundaries, and find peace in her own company.

Most importantly, she has learned that being still does not mean standing still. It means trusting enough to continue moving forward, even when the path is uncertain.

When I think back to that first song, I still hope someone I once loved has found peace. But perhaps the reassurance I heard in the music belongs to me, too.

I’ll be okay.

Three years ago, I stood in the rain and held on to those words with faith, even when I couldn’t imagine how life would unfold.

This weekend, I sat in the sunshine, grateful for the life I am living.

There was a time when I didn’t think I could do it.

But I did.

And perhaps the distance has been good for me.

Share The Scenic Route

You figure things out. You take care of what needs taking care of. You don’t wait around for someone else to do it because, most of the time, there isn’t someone else. So you learn. You adapt. You carry things, sometimes literally.

And eventually, everyone knows you can handle it.

The thing is, you know it too.

Friday night, I went back to waitressing.

I had forgotten how physical the work is: the hours on your feet, the constant movement, the strange muscles you apparently only use while carrying plates and weaving between tables. My body remembered long before my mind did.

But I had forgotten something else, too.

The social high of it.

There is something about walking up to a table of people who have chosen to come together for a meal. For a few hours, you get to step briefly into their evening. You talk. You laugh. You learn little pieces of their stories. I came home physically exhausted but energized in a completely different way.

Saturday brought the garden.

Thankfully, I had help because poison ivy and I have a long-established understanding that we should not spend time together.

Then came everything else Saturday needed to hold: the house, the errands, the laundry, and the endless catching up that happens when you are working three jobs while also trying to maintain a life.

And here’s the thing: I love my jobs.

I’m incredibly grateful that I’ve found ways to do work I genuinely enjoy. There is something pretty remarkable about being tired from a life you actually want.

But gratitude doesn’t cancel exhaustion.

I’ve built a life I love, and I’m proud of the independence I’ve found along the way. I’ve also learned to value the peace that comes with it.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t moments when I miss having someone beside me. Both can be true. I can value the life I’ve created and still sometimes wish I had someone to share parts of it with.

Maybe that’s another thing I’ve learned with age: being capable doesn’t mean I have to prove it all the time.

Sometimes I can is enough. It doesn’t always have to become I should.

My instinct is still to say, Of course I can.

My body has become a little more willing to answer, Yes. But maybe not all of it. Not today.

And perhaps that’s not limitation as much as wisdom.

Today is Sunday.

There is church. There is a cold I’m trying not to let get the better of me. There are undoubtedly things around the house I could convince myself need doing.

But I think today needs to be about reconnecting.

With my faith. With myself. With the quiet.

I spend a lot of time trying to stay ahead of work, of responsibilities, of the house, of whatever is coming next. Sometimes the weight of that is a lot.

Maybe being capable also means knowing when to put something down.

So today, I think I will.

Before Monday sneaks up again and I begin the slow ascent up the roller coaster.

I went down the rabbit hole.

And I went deep.

The strange thing is, I didn’t even realize I was doing it at first.

I had made so much progress. I had worked hard at recognizing my own needs, speaking up for myself, setting boundaries and addressing hurts that went back much further than one relationship. I had learned to recognize when I was giving too much of myself and, maybe most importantly, had begun making decisions based on my own growth and well-being.

I had walked through the door.

Yet, I kept looking back.

His 50th birthday was coming.

And I knew how he felt about birthdays.

I remembered his 40th. I remembered my 50th. I remembered the man who claimed not to care much about birthdays smiling like a little boy when the people who loved him celebrated the fact that he had been born.

So I started writing.

Fifty things about him.

It wasn’t entirely unusual for me. I’ve done things like that for people I love. Words have always been one of the ways I show people they matter.

But then fifty things became something else.

I found myself on the website of the company I had used years earlier to create a book about our relationship. In 2017, I had written our story and given it to him for Christmas. I didn’t know then that an engagement was coming. Later, his family would joke that the book was better than the ring because it captured something so personal about us.

And there I was again.

On the website.

Creating characters.

Trying to access the old book.

Until somewhere in the middle of it, I realized what I was doing.

Stop.

So I did.

Then I started looking for a journal.

Because apparently my rabbit hole had multiple levels.

I found one for a 50th birthday. It was about the memories behind you, the dreams ahead of you, the people around you and everything you carry within you.

Perfect.

Of course it was.

I could personalize it. I could write the fifty things inside. I could give him something that said all the things I still wanted him to know.

I came close to buying it.

And then I stopped again.

What was I doing?

That question sent me somewhere much more uncomfortable than any website could.

Was I trying to give him something he needed?

Or was I trying to give him what I wished someone would give me?

Did he need to be reminded that he was special?

Or did I need to be the person reminding him?

There is a difference.

And I wasn’t sure I knew the answer.

What I did know was that I still loved him.

That was the part I kept fighting against because somewhere along the way I had decided that healing was supposed to erase that.

It hadn’t.

I knew I couldn’t go back to the darkness and chaos of the end of our relationship. I knew silence was an answer, even when it wasn’t the answer I wanted. I knew I couldn’t continue reaching for someone who wasn’t reaching back.

And still, there was love.

So I didn’t buy the book.

I didn’t buy the journal.

I didn’t send the fifty things.

Instead, I sat.

I prayed.

And I waited.

It was Easter Sunday when something began to shift.

At church, our pastor spoke about resurrection - about what happens in our weakest moments and the ways God lifts us from places we think might bury us.

But it was something else he said that stayed with me.

When you have truly known and loved someone, that person becomes part of your heart. Physical absence doesn’t simply erase them.

That landed differently.

Maybe my problem wasn’t that I hadn’t figured out how to stop loving him.

Maybe my problem was believing I was supposed to.

For so long, I had treated letting go as an all-or-nothing proposition.

If I had really moved on, I wouldn’t think about him.

If I were really healing, I wouldn’t wonder how he was.

If I had truly let go, I wouldn’t still love him.

And if I looked back, surely that meant I hadn’t actually walked through the door.

I’m not sure I believe any of that anymore.

After all of the healing, the journaling, the praying, the questioning and the work, I’ve finally accepted something I spent a long time trying to talk myself out of.

I will always love him.

There. I said it.

He was my first true love.

He came into my life after I had already lived so much of my adult story, but he was the person who taught me what being in love felt like. He showed me a kind of partnership and connection I hadn’t known before.

And maybe that’s why I’ve had such a difficult time believing I could let go without somehow letting go of the love, too.

I gave him a piece of my heart, and I’ve finally realized I don’t need it back.

He will always hold a place there because he was part of my life, part of my story and part of the woman I became. Loving him changed me. Losing him changed me, too.

For a long time, saying that felt dangerous. As if admitting I would always love him meant I was still waiting for him. As if honoring what we had meant I wanted it back. As if moving forward required me to diminish what came before.

It doesn’t.

I can acknowledge that he taught me what love felt like without believing he is the only person I could ever love.

I can call him my first true love without asking him to be my last.

I can be grateful for what was beautiful without forgetting what was painful.

And I can accept that someone holds a place in my heart without giving him a place in my present.

Months have passed since I first wrote about that rabbit hole.

And I still look back sometimes.

I still pray for him.

There are mornings when his name finds its way into my prayers, and what I ask for now is simple. I hope he is well. I hope he finds peace. I hope he finds freedom from the things that have hurt him. I hope he knows happiness.

But something is different.

I no longer believe those prayers require action from me.

I don’t have to make sure he knows I’m praying.

I don’t have to remind him that he mattered.

I don’t have to find the perfect gift, write the perfect words or create one more opportunity for him to understand how deeply he was loved.

I wonder how many of us have mistaken looking back for failure.

How many of us have questioned our healing because someone’s birthday still makes us pause, a song still brings back a memory, or a name still finds its way into our prayers.

How many of us, especially women, have felt responsible for making sure someone else knows they are loved, even after loving them is no longer ours to do out loud.

Maybe healing isn’t measured by how completely we erase someone from our hearts.

Maybe sometimes healing is learning what to do with the love that remains.

I know what I’m doing with mine.

I’m giving it to God.

Love and access are not the same thing.

Prayer and pursuit are not the same thing.

Looking back and going back are not the same thing.

I can love him and continue walking.

I can hope for his healing without believing I am responsible for it.

I can pray for him without needing to be the answer to the prayer.

And I can finally say, without shame or expectation, that my first true love will always have a place in my heart.

That doesn’t mean I’m waiting.

It doesn’t mean I’m going back.

It simply means he mattered.

And maybe letting go isn’t the moment when we finally stop looking back.

Maybe it’s the moment we can look back without turning around.

I have walked through the door.

Sometimes I still look back.

But now, I keep walking.

I understand its purpose. I understand its usefulness. What I have never quite understood is the importance we place on it, or perhaps, for lack of a better word, its value.

My complicated relationship with money began long before I ever earned any of my own.

As a child, I watched money come and go in ways I didn’t understand. I watched financial security disappear and the life I knew change with it. I went from a house filled with warmth, cleanliness, and comfort to one that felt cold, dark, and desolate almost overnight. At the time, money seemed to be at the root of it.

As I grew older, I learned to read the fine print.

Money wasn’t the problem. Alcoholism was.

But the eyes of a child see things that take root in us, and somewhere along the way, money became tangled in my mind with loss, power, dependence, and control.

Perhaps that is why I have spent much of my life watching what people are willing to trade for it.

There was a time when I was financially dependent on someone else. I learned the hard way how quickly money can shift the balance of power in a relationship. What I had once viewed as shared security eventually became leverage—a way to control an outcome because one person held more monetary power than the other.

I had a choice.

Accept the terms or walk away from the deal.

I walked.

I lost nearly everything and started over from scratch.

But I wasn’t the only one who lost something.

What began as a battle over money eventually cost far more than anything that could have appeared on a financial statement. Relationships became collateral damage. A gamble made on the assumption that I would eventually cave carried consequences no amount of money could repair.

Strangely enough, there was something incredibly freeing about starting over. Maybe that was my first real rebellion against the mighty green. I discovered that losing what had monetary value did not make me bankrupt.

Starting over meant learning how to care for myself and my girls independently. I worked diligently to rebuild what I had lost, but what I gained couldn’t be measured financially.

I gained independence.

I gained confidence.

I learned that security isn’t always found in what we have. Sometimes it comes from discovering what we are capable of surviving without.

But some lessons reveal themselves in layers.

I had learned that I could survive without someone else’s money. What I hadn’t yet fully understood was how money could affect relationships even when I wasn’t financially dependent on anyone.

What I wanted couldn’t be bought.

I wanted family.

And perhaps that is why one of the saddest things I have witnessed is generosity that wasn’t really generosity at all. Money was given, but strings were attached. An initial investment became a claim of ownership. Gifts became debts waiting to be collected. Past generosity became currency used to purchase guilt, loyalty, silence, or a desired outcome.

The irony was that I had never wanted the wealth.

I wanted the people.

I watched money simultaneously build a house and destroy a home. One person saw property, value, and profit. Another saw family, history, and a place to gather.

Same asset.

Entirely different worth.

But when money becomes the measure by which intentions are judged, genuine intentions become difficult to recognize. Love can look suspicious. Belonging can be mistaken for wanting a piece of something. Protecting wealth can become so important that no one stops to calculate what is being spent to protect it.

The return on the investment may have been more wealth.

The actual cost was family.

Not every cost is immediately visible. Some reveal themselves slowly, in the changing dynamics of relationships we value.

I have watched people I love work hard and become successful, and I am genuinely happy for what they have earned. But success can create its own blind spots. We can remember what it was like to struggle without remembering how it felt to struggle.

Sometimes money simply becomes the language of the conversation—what something cost, where we traveled, what we purchased, what we can afford. And without intending to, we can leave someone sitting at the same table feeling as though they have little to contribute.

I don’t believe we should apologize for our successes or diminish our joy because someone else has less. But there is a difference between sharing our lives and allowing what we have to become the measure of them.

Perhaps the greater cost is what can quietly happen to the relationship itself.

The friendship may remain. The love may still be there. But the ease can disappear. Common ground can become harder to find. Two people can sit at the same table and experience the same conversation very differently.

We all see the world through the lens of our own experiences, and sometimes it is difficult to recognize how differently someone else may be experiencing the same moment.

Age, experience, and loss have certainly changed me, but perhaps it has been the time alone that has changed me most. Healing required me to sit with experiences I once might have rushed past and to feel the emotions that came with them—the hurt, anger, disappointment, grief, and even my own regret. Given enough time and space, those emotions eventually became questions.

What belongs to me?

What could I have done differently?

Is there something I am not seeing?

And eventually, one more:

What is worth my time and energy?

I certainly haven’t always gotten that right. Perhaps none of us do.

But I have learned that relationships require an honest accounting from time to time, not of what the other person owes us, but of what we ourselves are contributing. That kind of accounting can be uncomfortable, but I have come to believe it is far less costly than refusing to look.

Time and energy are currencies too, and I have become much more careful about where I invest them.

Not every misunderstanding needs to be corrected. Not every judgment needs to be challenged. Not every relationship can be restored to what it once was. Sometimes the lesson is recognizing what is worth continuing to invest in and what is costing too much to hold onto.

Because community requires more than having people around the table.

It requires noticing who is sitting there.

And remembering what brought us to the table in the first place.

I have come to believe that money itself isn’t the problem. I knew that as soon as I was old enough to understand that money hadn’t destroyed my childhood home. Alcoholism had. Money didn’t make the choices I witnessed throughout my life.

People did.

Money is simply currency.

We are the ones who decide what we are willing to exchange for it.

I have watched people gain and only want more. Enough becomes more, more becomes not enough, and the numbers continue to multiply while the circle of people they trust becomes smaller.

There is a peculiar kind of poverty in that.

Because when you begin measuring people by what they might want from you, eventually it becomes difficult to believe that anyone might simply want you.

Maybe that is why the phrase net worth has always bothered me.

As though a person’s worth could ever be totaled at the bottom of a page.

As though a portfolio could account for kindness, loyalty, compassion, integrity, laughter, forgiveness, friendship, family, community, or love.

Those are the assets I want to accumulate.

I don’t want to know the value of your monetary portfolio. Tell me instead about the people who would answer your call in the middle of the night. Tell me who sits around your table. Tell me who trusts you. Tell me whom you have loved well. Tell me what you have given without expecting repayment. Tell me whether the people you love know they are worth more to you than anything you own.

That is wealth to me.

Some of the poorest decisions I have witnessed were made by people who could afford them financially.

I think that may be the lesson it has taken me a lifetime to understand.

Everything has a cost.

Sometimes we pay with money. Sometimes we pay with time. Sometimes pride sends us a bill years after we thought the account was settled. Sometimes we become so determined to protect what we have accumulated that we fail to notice everything we are losing in the process.

And sometimes the greatest cost isn’t financial at all.

It is the relationship that fractured.

The family that stopped gathering.

The friendship that doesn’t feel quite the way it once did.

The person sitting at the table who no longer felt seen.

Sometimes the cost is connection itself.

I have lost money.

I have lost security.

I have started over with very little and rebuilt a life from scratch.

But I have also learned that losing what has a price tag is very different from losing what is priceless.

So yes, I intend to spend my wealth.

I will spend my time generously, but not carelessly. I will invest my energy in relationships where there is room for honesty, growth, and understanding. I will give love freely, but never again at the cost of losing myself.

I want my portfolio to look different.

Love. Kindness. Compassion. Understanding. Family. Friendship. Community. Connection.

Those are the investments from which I want the greatest return.

Because after a lifetime of watching money earned, lost, saved, spent, leveraged, fought over, protected, and used as a measure of success, I no longer find myself asking how much something is worth.

I find myself asking a different question.

At what cost?

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I used to think my light was too bright.
That perhaps if I had dimmed it, you might have stayed.
Now I know the light was never mine.
I was only holding it up.

You closed doors.
I opened blinds.
Neither of us realized we were searching for the same thing.

Peace.

You carried silence.
I carried hope.
You carried guilt.
I carried prayer.
You wondered if you were enough.
I spent years wishing you could see yourself through my eyes.
Because I never saw a broken man.

I saw the strongest man I knew.

Not because you never struggled, but because every day you chose to face a battle most people never knew existed.
I saw the hurt long before you spoke it.
The disappointment when another promise slipped quietly away.
The shame that settled across your face before I ever had the chance to tell you it was okay.
You thought you were letting me down.
My heart broke because I knew you were already carrying more than anyone should.

So I prayed.
Not that you would become someone different.
Only that one day you would see yourself the way I always did.
I wanted you to stand in the light with me.
Not because the darkness was your fault, but because I knew you deserved its warmth.

People still ask what happened.
I think it’s because they saw how deeply we loved.
They assumed love should have been enough.
Sometimes I thought so too.
But love was never what was missing.

In the end, we both had work to do.
Work neither of us could do for the other.

For years, I prayed that you would see yourself through my eyes.
Today, my prayer is different.
I pray that one day you will see yourself as God always has.
My eyes were only ever a reflection of His.

I simply trust that His Light reaches places mine never could.

So I leave the light on.
Not because I am waiting.
But because that is what love does.
It blesses.
It hopes.
It prays.
It trusts.
It releases.

Somewhere, beyond the shoreline, where the sea meets the horizon, I trust the Light is still finding its way.

Always love.
Never hate.

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I say so far because if I’ve learned anything, it’s that we are always evolving. I don’t believe we arrive at some magical age when we suddenly have life figured out. At least I haven’t.

Some of these lessons came easily. Some came through people I’ve loved. Others through motherhood, teaching, faith, nature, books, music, and simply paying attention. And quite a few I learned by getting things spectacularly wrong.

These are the things I believe today. Ask me again at 68. I hope a few of my answers have changed.

After all, I hope I never finish becoming.

There are 58 of them. Take what speaks to you. Maybe leave the rest for another trip around the sun.

1. Learn something new every single day.

I don’t ever want to reach an age when I think I know enough.

Stay curious. Ask questions. Listen to people who know things you don’t.

Some days the lesson will be profound. Other days you’ll simply learn how to get your television remote working again.

Both count.

2. There are few things better than a salty face and sun-kissed skin after a swim in the ocean.

Body surf. Dive into the waves. Let them knock you around a little. Come out with tangled hair and absolutely no concern for what you look like.

Sometimes the lesson really is: get in the damn ocean.

3. Failure is your friend.

Some of my greatest lessons have come from getting it wrong.

Failure has never sat particularly well in my belly, but maybe that’s exactly why it has been such a good teacher. When something feels hard, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m doing it wrong. Sometimes it means I’m learning.

Question. Reflect. Adjust. Try again.

Don’t become so afraid of failing that you stop trying.

4. Never underestimate the gift of a good friend.

I have been incredibly blessed in friendship.

Some of my closest friends have been in my life since high school - more than forty years of growing up and growing older together. Others found me along the way, some through my daughters, some through different chapters of my life and somehow became part of my story too. And they aren’t all women. Some of the people I treasure most happen to be men.

My oldest friends have stood beside me through the death of my mother, countless moves, divorce, heartbreak, and watched me graduate at 49. They’ve celebrated births, milestones, and eventually the weddings of our children. Newer friends have walked into later chapters and somehow known exactly how to stand beside me there.

Some friends remember who I was. Others met me somewhere along the way. The very best make room for who I am still becoming.

They’ve laughed with me until I’ve cried and sat beside me when the crying came first.

Life has taught me that you don’t need a hundred friends.

You need the ones who show up.

And somehow, I’ve been blessed with more of those than I could have ever asked for.

5. “No” is, in fact, a complete sentence.

It just took me several decades to stop adding a paragraph afterward.

6. Faith doesn’t eliminate fear. It teaches me how to walk through it.

My faith hasn’t made fear disappear. It has given me somewhere to place it.

Courage isn’t always the absence of fear. Sometimes it’s trusting God enough to take the next step while you’re still afraid.

7. Getting older is an internal age war.

Mentally, I’m somewhere in my thirties.

Physically, I’m exactly my age.

I’m particularly thankful there’s no one watching me get out of bed in the morning as I limp, crack, stretch, and attempt to straighten myself into an upright position. Give me a few minutes. I’ll get there.

My mind says, Of course we can do that.

My body occasionally responds, Have you lost your damn mind?

I never quite know which age is going to win.

And then there’s the gray hair, the gray hair I pay an obscene amount of money to disguise and turn blonde. Ironically, my oldest daughter is embracing her gray and keeps encouraging me to do the same.

Apparently, I raised a confident, independent woman who feels perfectly comfortable ignoring her mother’s example. I’d call that successful parenting.

She can embrace her gray. I will continue embracing my hairdresser.

Maybe someday I’ll join her.

Today is not that day.

Getting older is a privilege, but I also get to decide what getting older looks like for me. So I’ll appreciate every birthday, try to be kinder to the fifty-eight-year-old body carrying around the thirty-something woman in my head, and continue handing over an unreasonable amount of money to remain blonde.

They say blondes have more fun.

At 58, I have gathered enough evidence to confirm that they do.

8. Take the scenic route and ask questions along the way.

Ask why. Ask how. Wonder. Wander. Get curious.

Some of my best learning has happened on the long way around.

9. Love deeply, but don’t disappear.

This one took me a long time to learn, and if I’m being truthful, I’m still learning it.

I’ve spent much of my life taking care of other people. Some of that came from necessity. Eventually, taking care of everyone else becomes so natural that you don’t even notice when you’ve stopped taking care of yourself.

Somewhere along the way, that can become people-pleasing. You accommodate. You compromise. You make things easier. You give a little more. And sometimes, without realizing it, you begin giving pieces of yourself away.

Love deeply. Give generously. Compromise. Show up.

But keep your voice, your friendships, your interests, your dreams, and the pieces of yourself that belong only to you.

And when you catch yourself slipping back into old habits, and I still do, come back to yourself.

You can love others without abandoning yourself.

10. Laughter is necessary.

Laugh often. Laugh loudly. Laugh at yourself.

Find people who make your stomach hurt and tears run down your face.

Life will hand you enough serious moments without your help.

Joy deserves just as much of your attention.

11. You can love someone deeply and still know you aren’t meant to walk the rest of the road together.

Love doesn’t always guarantee a forever.

Sometimes its purpose is to change us, teach us, or walk beside us for a particular stretch of the journey.

That doesn’t make the love, or the road you shared, any less real.

12. There is a song for almost everything.

Music has celebrated with me, comforted me, reminded me, transported me, and occasionally said exactly what I couldn’t find the words to say myself.

A song can take you back twenty years in three notes.

Turn it up. Sing badly. Dance anyway.

13. Be still.

I am a doer by nature. I want to fix, solve, help, question, understand, and occasionally control the outcome.

Faith has taught me that there are moments when there is nothing left for me to do.

Be still and know.

Sometimes the answer comes not from trying harder, but from becoming quiet enough to listen.

14. I gave you a good foundation. Use it well.

Raising children is an exercise in letting go. You spend years teaching, protecting, guiding, and keeping them close - only to discover that your job was always to prepare them to leave you.

I gave my daughters the foundation - love, faith, values, expectations, and hopefully enough wisdom to know right from wrong.

But I gave them a foundation, not a blueprint.

They will choose, fail, recover, change their minds, and sometimes do things very differently than I would.

What they build belongs to them.

15. Buy the concert tickets. Take the trip. Stay for the sunset. Order dessert.

Life is happening now.

16. You can be right and still regret how you said it.

Say the thing. Have the difficult conversation. Speak honestly.

But know why you’re saying it.

Words spoken in anger don’t disappear when the anger does. The truth doesn’t need to be softened into dishonesty, but it doesn’t need to be sharpened into a weapon either.

You may get over the anger long before someone else gets over what you said.

17. The waves taught me that you don’t have to fight everything that comes at you.

Some waves you ride. Some you dive beneath. Some knock you completely off your feet.

Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is stop fighting the current and let the water carry you for a while.

18. Sometimes the things you’re proudest of are the things you never would have chosen.

Being a single mother was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It was also one of the most rewarding.

Something can exhaust you and strengthen you, break your heart and fill it, ask more of you than you thought you had and somehow show you just how much you were capable of giving.

19. Have the hard conversation in the car.

Some conversations are easier when you’re sitting side by side instead of face to face. There’s somewhere else to look. Silence isn’t quite as uncomfortable. You can take a minute before answering.

And nobody is leaving.

My daughters have learned to become slightly suspicious of long drives with me. Apparently, getting in the car with your mother and realizing you have a long ride ahead gives you plenty of time to wonder what she wants to talk about.

They know.

I’ve learned there is something about driving that makes room for honesty. Maybe it’s sitting side by side. Maybe it’s having the road ahead of you. Or maybe it’s simply knowing we’re both in the car until we get where we’re going.

Just choose your moment carefully.

Preferably not while merging onto the Southern State.

20. Listen to your elders.

Some of the greatest wisdom I’ve received came from my grandparents.

Age doesn’t make someone right about everything, but there is something to be said for listening to people who have already traveled roads you haven’t reached yet.

Ask them questions. Listen to their stories.

And do it while they’re still here to tell them.

21. Don’t rush to make everything easier.

We spend so much time trying to remove discomfort - for ourselves and for the people we love.

But some things are supposed to be hard. Stepping in too quickly can sometimes steal the lesson.

There is something powerful about being able to look back and say, I didn’t know how to do that and then I figured it out.

22. Learn to win graciously and lose with dignity.

Winning graciously came a little easier. Losing with dignity took some time. My competitive streak runs deep.

Competition can push you to work harder, become better, and discover what you’re capable of but character shows up in what you do when someone else wins.

And, for the record, I’m still not saying I like losing.

23. You don’t outgrow needing your mother.

You just learn how to carry her with you differently when she’s no longer here.

24. Money is a terrible measure of wealth.

We place far too much importance on money and far too little on the things we can’t buy.

I’ve seen firsthand what happens when money becomes more important than people. It can create resentment, competition, control, and divisions where there once was love.

Make enough to live. Be responsible. Save for tomorrow.

But never become so focused on what something costs that you forget to ask what it might cost you.

25. Learn to enjoy your own company.

Take the time alone. Go off in search of something by yourself. Drive somewhere you’ve never been. Walk the beach. Find the lighthouse. Sit at a table for one.

There is a difference between being alone and being lonely.

Solitude has given me room to think, write, heal, pray, explore, and discover what I actually enjoy when no one else’s wants or needs are part of the decision.

Don’t wait for someone else to want to go.

Sometimes the best person to take on the scenic route is yourself.

26. The greatest gift I can give my daughters is knowing they can survive without me.

My instinct will always be to protect them, help them, and make things easier.

But the goal was never to make them need me forever.

It was to raise women capable of standing on their own - women who know how to think, choose, fail, recover, and build lives that belong to them.

Their independence doesn’t mean they love me less.

It may be some of the greatest evidence that I did my job well.

27. Forgive so you can move forward. Choose better, not bitter.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean what happened was okay. It doesn’t mean I forget, and it doesn’t always mean the relationship returns to what it was.

I forgive because I need to keep moving.

I don’t want something that happened to me to have the power to keep happening within me.

There is always a lesson.

Take it with you. Leave the bitterness behind.

28. We always go home.

Family has always mattered to me, and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate it differently.

We don’t always agree. We tease. We annoy one another. We offer advice that may or may not have been requested. And I’m fairly certain there are moments when we all wonder how we could possibly share the same DNA.

But don’t mess with one of us.

We show up.

Through different generations and different seasons, that has remained true. We gather. We eat. We tell the same stories we’ve probably told a hundred times. We laugh. We disagree. We celebrate. We grieve.

Some of my favorite memories have begun around crowded tables.

I’ve learned that family doesn’t have to agree on everything to know where it belongs.

And somehow, we always go home.

29. Read. And please, never stop reading.

Books allow us to enter lives we will never live, places we may never visit, and experiences we may never have.

Reading asks us to see the world through someone else’s eyes. It builds compassion, develops empathy, and challenges what we think we know.

We see the world through our own experiences. Books give us the chance to see it through someone else’s.

30. Not everything is meant to be shared.

I’ve learned this one partly by getting it wrong.

When I look back at some of the things I once thought were okay to share, I cringe and occasionally wish I could take them back.

Privacy isn’t secrecy.

Some moments, relationships, struggles, and joys deserve to belong only to us.

Tell your stories, but remember that you don’t have to tell all of them.

A life doesn’t become more meaningful because other people witnessed it.

31. Never underestimate the impact of something small.

Some of the most meaningful messages I’ve received from former students have thanked me for something I said or did years earlier, something I barely remembered doing. At the time, I simply knew it was what that student needed.

Years later, when former students reach out or I get to know them as adults, I’m reminded that teaching was never just about what happened between the bells.

We don’t always get to see the ripple we create in someone’s life.

The little things aren’t always little.

32. Don’t overlook the ordinary days.

Not every beautiful moment needs to be an adventure.

Sit by the fire. Drink your coffee slowly. Read the book. Make dinner. Watch the sunset from your own backyard. Have the conversation that goes nowhere and somehow means everything.

We spend so much time waiting for vacations, celebrations, milestones, and special occasions that it’s easy to overlook the life happening in between.

Some of the best parts of life aren’t particularly exciting.

They’re simply good.

33. You are allowed to change your mind.

New information, new experiences, and growth are perfectly good reasons to see something differently than you once did.

Changing your mind doesn’t always mean you were wrong before.

Sometimes it means you know something now that you didn’t know then.

34. The best relationships are reciprocal.

I’ve learned this in every part of my life, with family, friends, love, colleagues, and students.

Relationships aren’t meant to flow in only one direction.

That doesn’t mean everything is always fifty-fifty. Sometimes someone you love will need more from you, and sometimes you’ll be the one who needs to be carried for a while. Life happens. The balance shifts.

But over time, there should be a give and a take. Both people should feel heard, valued, supported, and able to show up as themselves.

I’ve spent enough of my life being the one who takes care of things to know how easy it is to mistake giving for loving.

I’ve learned that healthy relationships make room for me to receive, too.

Reciprocity isn’t about keeping score. It’s about knowing that both people are willing to show up for each other.

35. Know the difference between having enough and always wanting more.

There will always be someone with more.

If your definition of enough keeps moving, you’ll spend your entire life chasing it.

Some of the richest moments of my life haven’t cost me anything.

36. The tide taught me to trust the rhythm.

The water pulls away from the shore, and somehow we trust that it will return.

Life has its own tides—people, seasons, joy, grief, certainty.

I’ve learned not to panic every time something recedes.

Sometimes we’re simply being asked to be still long enough to trust what comes next.

37. Keep a little bit of your younger self with you.

Be spunky. Push a boundary occasionally. Get excited. Be ridiculous.

Growing older does not require becoming old.

38. Write it down.

Writing has been one of the greatest tools of healing in my life.

There is something about taking an emotion that feels tangled inside of you and searching for the words that match it.

Sometimes I don’t know what I’m feeling until I begin writing.

I play with words, move them around, cross them out, try again and somewhere in the process, I find the truth I couldn’t quite name before.

39. Don’t confuse keeping the peace with having peace.

They are not the same thing.

40. Be the lighthouse, not the lifeboat.

A lighthouse doesn’t jump into the water and rescue every ship that struggles.

It stands firmly where it belongs and shines.

It offers light, direction, and a reminder that the shore is there but the ship still has to navigate its own way home.

There is a difference between loving people and rescuing them.

41. Gratitude doesn’t mean you have to feel grateful every minute.

I can physically feel when I’m off - cranky, overwhelmed, frustrated, or just not myself and I’ve learned to admit it.

I’ve also learned not to rush past the feeling. Check in with it. Ask what it’s trying to tell you. I’m allowed to feel whatever I’m feeling.

But I don’t want to live there.

Eventually, I remind myself how incredibly blessed I’ve been. Life hasn’t always given me the outcome I wanted, but again and again I’ve discovered that not getting what I wanted didn’t mean I wasn’t being given what I needed or perhaps being led somewhere I couldn’t see yet.

Gratitude doesn’t erase disappointment. It helps me put it in perspective.

I can have a bad day and still have a beautiful life.

42. Teaching has taught me that the teacher is always a student, too.

I may be the one standing in front of the classroom, but I’ve never believed I’m the only one doing the teaching.

My students challenge my thinking, introduce me to perspectives different from my own, make me laugh, and keep me young. What I’ve learned from them over the years is immeasurable.

They’ve also kept me humble enough to know when my shoes aren’t cool, my slang is outdated, and I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.

Apparently, they can also call me bro now.

Do you have any idea how frustrating this is for an English teacher?

Capitalize. Spell out your words. UR is not your.

At 58, I’ve accepted that comfortable shoes eventually become more important than cute ones.

Being called bro, however, may take another trip around the sun.

43. You don’t have to agree with someone to love or respect them.

We aren’t always going to see things the same way.

A strong relationship doesn’t require agreement. It requires enough respect to listen, enough curiosity to ask why, and enough humility to consider that someone else’s experience may have led them to see something differently.

That doesn’t mean abandoning what I believe or agreeing simply to keep the peace. It means making room for another perspective without automatically making the person holding it wrong.

Some of my best relationships are with people who challenge the way I think.

We don’t have to see the world the same way to make room for one another in it.

44. Joy doesn’t need to be earned.

There will always be another responsibility, another bill, another deadline, another reason to wait until everything is handled.

Everything will never be handled.

Make room for joy anyway.

45. Stop waiting for someone else to give you closure.

Sometimes closure is simply accepting that you may never understand everything that happened.

You can still move forward.

46. I hope we never lose the art of words.

In a world that moves faster and faster, I hope we don’t lose the patience to read deeply, write thoughtfully, wrestle with an idea, or search for exactly the right word.

Words matter.

They can wound, heal, connect, challenge, comfort, and change us.

I’ve built much of my life around them.

I still believe in their power.

47. Let people surprise you and celebrate them when they do.

Don’t decide someone else’s limits for them.

People grow. They stumble. They work hard. They figure things out. And sometimes they accomplish something neither they nor anyone around them was quite sure they could.

I love those moments.

Clap for people. Tell them you’re proud of them. Get excited for them. Let them have their moment without making it about you.

Someone else’s success doesn’t take anything away from mine.

There is enough room in this life for their joy to become part of mine, too.

48. Trust yourself enough to choose.

Listen to advice. Ask questions. Consider what people who love you have to say.

Then remember that you’re the one who has to live with the decision.

I’ve made good choices and terrible ones. I’ve learned from both.

At some point, you have to trust yourself enough to choose your own road.

49. Play.

Body surf. Dance. Be ridiculous. Try something you’re terrible at. Laugh until you can’t breathe.

Being responsible and being playful aren’t opposites.

You are never too old to play.

50. A good life doesn’t have to look impressive.

It doesn’t need an audience, a perfect picture, the biggest house, or a list of accomplishments.

Sometimes a good life looks like people you love, meaningful work, enough money, something to look forward to, a fire to sit beside, a book worth reading, and peace when you put your head down at night.

That’s plenty.

51. Sometimes people have to be ready to receive.

My instinct has always been to fix things. Explain myself better. Reach out again. Find the words that might help someone understand my heart or bring us back to the table.

I’ve learned that understanding requires two people willing to listen and receive.

Sometimes one of us simply isn’t ready.

I’ve learned to accept what people are showing me without begging them to stay or chasing them down trying to make them see things differently.

But letting someone be doesn’t mean closing the door forever.

People grow at different times. Perspectives change. Hurt softens. And sometimes, with enough distance, we can look back and remember there was love there, too.

If someone I once loved or cared about someday pulls out a chair and asks me to sit down, I hope I’ve grown enough to take the seat.

Not necessarily to return to what was, but to listen, understand one another a little better, and perhaps leave the table with more peace than we brought to it.

Life is too short to carry every hurt forever.

Sometimes peace is enough.

52. Make the phone call.

Especially to the people you love.

Someday you’d give anything to hear their voice again.

53. Give people room to become.

Don’t hold someone forever to a version of themselves they’ve outgrown.

We’re all evolving.

Leave room for other people to change and hope they offer you the same grace.

54. Don’t compare your real life to someone else’s highlight reel.

Social media can give us thirty seconds of perfection.

The perfect vacation. The perfect family. The perfect relationship. The perfect home. The perfect moment.

But thirty seconds isn’t a life.

We know every messy, complicated, ordinary detail of our own lives, yet somehow we compare all of it to the carefully chosen moments someone else puts on a screen.

That’s not a fair comparison.

Enjoy the pictures. Celebrate the accomplishments. Be happy for people when good things happen to them.

Just remember: you’re watching the reel.

You’re living the real.

55. Ask for help.

This one is still hard for me.

I’ve spent so much of my life figuring things out, taking care of things, and being the person other people could depend on that asking someone else for help doesn’t come naturally.

And if I’m being completely truthful, sometimes I don’t ask because I don’t want to risk being disappointed.

If I do it myself, I know it will get done. I don’t have to wonder whether someone will show up. I don’t have to feel let down if they don’t.

But I’ve learned that protecting myself from disappointment also denies people the opportunity to show up for me.

Needing someone occasionally doesn’t make me less capable.

Sometimes I have to give people the chance to be there for me.

56. Save the pictures.

There was a time when some pictures were painful to look at. It would have been easier to delete them, to remove the reminder and avoid the discomfort that came with seeing a life that no longer existed in the same way.

I’m grateful I didn’t.

Instead, I had to sit with the discomfort for a while. I had to allow the pictures to hurt until, little by little, they didn’t hurt quite so much.

Healing changed what I saw.

Eventually, I could look at a photograph from a chapter that ended and no longer see only the ending. I could see the moment that existed when the picture was taken. I could see the happiness. I could see who I was then. I could see that something could have been real and beautiful even if it wasn’t meant to remain the same forever.

And most importantly, I could see the love.

I’ve learned that healing doesn’t always require erasing the things that hurt. Sometimes it means allowing yourself enough time to look at them differently.

Memories stay in our hearts, but pictures allow us to see the love, too.

57. Pay attention.

To people. To your body. To the words you use. To the way someone makes you feel. To what brings you peace. To what keeps repeating itself.

To the ocean. To the quiet.

To the ordinary Tuesday you might someday wish you could have back.

Life is teaching all the time.

I’ve learned to listen.

58. I hope I never finish becoming.

There are still things I want to learn, places I want to see, people I haven’t met, mistakes I haven’t made, questions I haven’t asked, and versions of myself I haven’t discovered yet.

Another trip around the sun sounds pretty damn good.

Which one are you learning right now?

Or better yet, what would you add?

For years, I thought I was behind. I didn’t become a teacher in my twenties like many of my colleagues. By the time I walked into my first classroom, I had already lived another life. I had worked different jobs, raised my daughters, experienced success, endured heartbreak, and learned more lessons than I ever expected.

Looking back, I don’t think I was late.

I think I arrived exactly when I was supposed to.

Maybe I was always meant to take the scenic route. It’s rarely the fastest way to get somewhere, but I’ve found it’s where most of life’s lessons are learned.

If I’m being honest, I’ve always been a little restless. As a child, that restlessness usually got me into trouble. I was spunky, spirited, and never afraid to push the boundaries just enough to see what would happen. I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I simply wanted to know why.

The truth is, I still do.

I’ve never been satisfied with the first answer. I’m always looking for another perspective, another possibility, another way to solve a problem. There are times when it’s exhausting, and I wish my mind would slow down for just a little while.

I’m not exactly sure what you would call it. Curiosity? Problem solving? Intellectual restlessness? Maybe it’s simply a stubborn determination to understand the world a little better.

Whatever it is, I’ve learned to embrace it.

The scenic route satisfies something deep within me. It’s how I learn. I need to understand how things work, why people think the way they do, and what I might have missed the first time around. I don’t mind taking the long way if it means arriving with a little more wisdom than when I started.

As a teacher, I’m constantly encouraging my students to ask questions. Don’t settle for the obvious answer. Wonder. Challenge ideas. Look at things from another perspective. We don’t always have to agree with one another, but understanding why someone thinks the way they do makes us better thinkers and better people.

The funny part is that I don’t always realize I’m doing the very thing I encourage in my students.

Someone starts telling me a story, and before they get to the ending, I’ve interrupted three times.

“Wait...who was there?”

“What happened before that?”

“Why did they do that?”

Apparently, I need context. Lots of it.

My poor friends have probably learned that telling me a two-minute story somehow turns into a twenty-minute conversation because I’m determined to recreate the entire scene in my mind. Sometimes I stop and laugh at myself. Should I have been a detective? A lawyer? Am I even listening anymore, or have I become part of the investigation?

Even when I’m lesson planning, I always know my objective and the skills I want my students to walk away with. The delivery? That’s anyone’s guess because it all depends on the questions.

I never really know what I’m going to ask because I don’t know what my students are going to say. One response leads to another question, another discussion, and before you know it, we’ve gone somewhere I never expected. Those are usually the best lessons.

Perhaps that’s why I love teaching with such a passion.

Every day, I get to spend time with adolescents. They question everything. They challenge ideas. They test limits. They haven’t yet accepted that there’s only one way to think or one path to follow.

Neither have I.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always felt at home in high school. They keep me young, not because they make me feel like a teenager again, but because they remind me never to lose the wonder, the spirit, and the willingness to question that I had as one.

Failure has been another one of my greatest teachers. It has never sat well with me. Not because I can’t handle it, but because I can’t stop thinking about it. I need to know why it didn’t work. What did I miss? What can I do differently? Failure doesn’t make me quit. It invites me to learn.

I’ve realized that I’ve never been meant to follow someone else’s path.

I was meant to find my own.

I’ve written about much of that journey along the way, mostly for myself—pages filled with questions, observations, lessons, and thoughts I was still trying to understand. Lately, I’ve found myself returning to some of those words and seeing them differently. They served me well tucked away in journals, but maybe some of them are ready to be shared.

My hope is that in sharing my questions and what I’ve learned along the way, they might invite you to reflect on some of your own.

Maybe sharing them is simply the next turn on my scenic route.

It hasn’t been straight, and it certainly hasn’t been easy. There were unexpected turns, steep climbs, and a few roads I wish I hadn’t taken. But every one of them shaped the person I am today. The little girl who asked too many questions became the woman who still believes that the best learning begins with one simple word:

Why.

Looking back, I wouldn’t trade the scenic route for anything.

It taught me resilience when I failed, patience when I wanted answers, and compassion as I came to understand other people’s stories. It satisfied a curiosity that has never really left me and led me exactly where I was meant to be.

I didn’t become a teacher because I had all the answers.

I became one because I never stopped asking questions

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