As a women over 60 I finally stopped trying to squeeze into the old dream.
I spent decades chasing my dream. But I never expected to find it one floor up, in my own timing, and on my own terms.
Ya know how sometimes you have the thing you’ve prayed for, longed for, cried over… But you just can’t see it yet?You just can’t feel it?
That was me. Until this week.
I’ve spent the better part of 40 years trying to create a life that feels like home.
Not just a cozy house or a new zip code.
I’m talking about soul-level home.The kind of home where I feel like I belong—to myself, to someone else, to something bigger.
And under all that dreaming and striving, what I’ve always really wanted… was family.
But let’s be honest: The people I share DNA with? Not exactly my cup of tea.
We don’t align, we don’t connect, and when I’m around them, I don’t feel seen—I feel tolerated. And more recently, one of my own daughters has chosen silence.
No explanation. No closure. Just… gone.
It’s a quiet, cold kind of grief. And as I’ve come to learn, I’m not alone.
There are millions of parents dealing with this new epidemic of estrangement.
But that doesn’t make it any less disorienting.
Still, I wasn’t going to sit in it and call it fate.
I’ve always been a planner. A declarer. I chart a course—and then life, or God, or some mischievous universal force laughs and says,
“That’s cute. Let me show you a better way.”
And through a nudge here, a whisper there, my soul gently reroutes me.
I was feeling dissatisfied lately—restless, unsure, a little lonely even with good things around me. No matter how I reframed it, the dream of having real family kept slipping further away.
But here’s what I realized, finally:
My dream of family was tangled up in something I no longer want—marriage.
I don’t want the husband, the house with matching mugs, the shared bathroom, the compromise. But somewhere deep inside, I’d made family = marriage.
And that subconscious tie?
It was blocking me.
Keeping me from seeing the very thing I already had.
Because he’s been telling me for months now:
“You’re part of my family.”
And I heard him. I did. But it didn’t land.
Not really. Not in my body.
Until one day this week, as I was working on this painting something cracked open within me. It had frustrated me for days, I did not love this painting, let alone like it. I just couldn’t continue painting in green. (uhg) So, in great frustration I decided to dramaticly alter the landscape and let my frustration lead. Then suddenly—boom. It was alive! I used a color I NEVER use, but I felt it was a lost cause, so what? Turns out that is exactly what was needed. And now I get to joyfully finish this piece by creating some harmony of color in the background.
.
Now here it was before me: Electric. Rooted. Unapologetic.
And I wanted to share it with someone who mattered.
I sent it to him—the man upstairs. The one who’s been in my hallway and my heart in complicated, tender, undefined ways.
And for some reason, this time, when I hit send, I thought:
If I’m family… then this is what family does.
We share. We ask for help. We knock on the door. We drop off paintings and cheeseburgers. We sit with each other when life hurts. We show up, unannounced but needed.
And just like that… I saw it.
I already have everything I’ve ever wanted.
The freedom. The community. The family.
It didn’t come in the package I expected.
It came in the form of small kindnesses.
Of chosen bonds.
Of neighbors who feel like kin.
Of a life that fits me perfectly, because I finally stopped trying to squeeze into the old dream.
This is what rewiring looks like.
Not retiring from hope—but rerouting it.
Not clinging to how it should’ve looked—but saying yes to how it actually feels.
And if you’re anywhere near where I was—tired of wondering if you’ll ever feel at home in your own life again—then maybe this is your moment too.
I created REFOUNDATION for women like us. It’s not a cheerleader workbook or another vision board exercise.
It’s a clear, soulful tool to help you figure out what’s still working in your life… and what no longer fits. It meets you where you are—before the new dream arrives. Before the clarity. Before the spark.
It helps you clear space for what your soul already knows is next.
If you’re ready to feel relief instead of restlessness…
To rebuild with your soul, not against it…
This is your guide
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👉 Grab REFOUNDATION here.
One more thing.
For the first time in my life, I’m not making a plan. I’m letting life respond to who I am now. And what I’ve discovered is better than anything I could’ve scripted.
This life? It fits. And that feeling…That quiet, delicious rightness…
Is everything I’ve ever wanted.
Now I get to ask,
What else?
With joy, not fear.
With soul, not striving.
Because we don’t retire.
We rewire.
Wonderful. Makes me want to do an identity change just so I can join you!
Right there with you. Our dreams are in the way of so much.