“Sometimes you have to let go of the life you planned to make room for the life that’s waiting for you.” ~Joseph Campbell
My new motto? Always have a backup plan.
Life rarely goes as you’d imagined.
January 16th, 2001. That’s the day my life trajectory changed irrevocably. That’s the day that would lead me to, eventually, living alone—to being divorced. That’s the day my ex had a ski accident that changed the lives of every member of our immediate family. But today, I don’t want to talk about him or that. I want to talk about my story, about me. About my aftermath of living alone.
Several years ago, when the last of my daughters graduated from college, loaded her ‘how-can-she-possibly-carry-that!’ backpack, hugged me tight, and boarded a plane for South America with a one-way ticket, I felt a hole in my stomach the size of a meteor crash pit.
I knew so many things at that moment. I knew I had a world of worry ahead of me that would last the duration of her adventure-with-no-end-date.
I knew I’d be going home to an empty house—that was now going to stay empty.
I knew that the axis of my world had suddenly tilted—and nothing would balance the same again.
For years, my married-with-children life had been a whirlwind of stereotypical womanhood: mothering, managing, and multitasking. The house hummed with commotion, packing lunches, planning dinners, visiting teenagers’ shoes haphazardly piled near the front door, family events, lively conversations, and belly laughs—oh, and at a certain point, some derailing by hormone gyrations.
And now? Just me, my omnipresent ADHD-fueled piles of stuff, and a fridge that I wished someone else would clean and organize.
The divorce (after forty years of marriage)? Now, almost a decade in the rearview mirror. The full-time career hustle? Quieted (and mostly regretted). The calendar? More “me-time” than meetings or dates with girlfriends. And let’s not forget the increase in doctors’ appointments compared to before.
On almost every front, I was no longer needed the way I had been.
When my marriage ended, my ex took more than a suitcase and half of our belongings and money. He took our vacations, traditions, and huge parts of my lifestyle—and he unpacked them somewhere new, with someone new.
That reality offered me a chance at a whole new beginning that was all my own but was also utterly unnerving.
Once the noise of change and terrible transitions falls away, what’s left is the deafening question that every fiercely feeling, fabulously flawed woman eventually faces: What do I do with the rest of my life?
The Mirror Doesn’t Lie (But It’s Kind of a Jerk Sometimes)
Here’s the thing nothing can prepare you for when you find yourself alone and start spending real, unfiltered time in solitude:
You meet yourself.
Not the curated version of you that shows up for work, friends, family, or festivities. The real you. The unedited, unmoored, occasionally unhinged version. You with the foibles, flaws, fractures, fixations, fragile truths, and all. At least, that tends to be what you see at first. You’ll also see (sometimes it’s eventually) grace and grit, wisdom and warmth, compassion and courage, intuition and integrity.
And that self you meet, they have questions.
They want to know if you’re proud of how you’ve spent your life. They want to know what you’ve been postponing. And they really want to know why you walked into the kitchen three times today and still forgot what you were looking for.
Being alone strips away distractions. It’s like standing naked in front of a full-length mirror under too-bright lighting. Every flaw feels fluorescent. Every fear comes forward. And every false story and excuse you’ve told yourself asks to be rewritten.
And then there’s the way the outside world begins to see you…
Ma’am? MA’AM?!
I have a calmer demeanor than I used to, but I still feel vibrant. Vivid. Volcanic, even. I know more about the world and myself than I ever have—enough even to realize how little I do know, and that’s half the fun.
And yet, I’ve entered the bizarre “Ma’am Zone.”
You know the one. Where the teenager at the store calls you ma’am while offering to carry your bag. Where the girl in the drive-thru hands you your latte with a chirpy “Here you go, hon.” Grrrrr. (I sometimes educate them that treating ‘older’ people like that is insulting vs respectful).
It’s the zone where people assume you’ve stopped wanting to have wild sex, don’t understand memes, or can’t connect your Wi-Fi extender without calling your child for help. (Um, guilty of the latter. But still.)
It’s where invisibility starts to sneak in—everywhere. You’re not quite old, but you’re no longer relevant or worthy of giving an opinion.
And the most jarring part? You still feel like your younger self is alive and well inside—just now with reading glasses, joint supplements, and a slightly shorter fuse for nonsense.
But here’s the truth: the Ma’am Zone isn’t a punishment. It’s a portal.
Because once you stop chasing approval from the outside, you finally make room for deep reverence on the inside.
Once you stop chasing approval from the outside, you realize your value isn’t measured by someone else’s opinion of you, by your waistline or taut skin, or your appeal to potential partners.
Your value is in how you carry your story, how you exemplify your self-worth, how you show up for others, and how much damn freedom you finally give yourself to just be.
Of course, there are still moments that rattle your chain—like when technology moves faster than your thumbs or when recalling a name or a word requires a full-blown brain excavation.
And it’s not just the memory lapses. It’s the quiet, creeping suspicion that you’re becoming a little… invisible. That in a world obsessed with youth and novelty, you’ve somehow been nudged toward the “used-to-be” pile.
But here’s my radical revelation: This isn’t the end of anything. It’s the beginning of everything.
Learning is My New North Star
This chapter I’ve found myself in—this curious, living-alone, transitional place—it’s a gift. And for me, that gift is the opportunity to dedicate copious amounts of time to learning. Not to impress, not to advance, not to earn letters behind my name. But to be alive.
Learning has become my reason for being in this last season of my life, however many decades that may be.
Oh, I still love deeply. I still mother, I still show up for friends, and I still need connection and community as much as I need air—but these next years of living alone? These are for taking in as much as I’ve given out.
I’ve begun to inhale books, devour documentaries, and dive headfirst into research rabbit holes like a woman on a mission to make up for all the times she didn’t have time and had to put her own curiosity on hold.
I’m back in therapy. I want to finally let go of the weight I don’t want to carry anymore. I want to learn to expand, to evolve, to live in full-blown self-worth, and to stay awake in a world that wants to lull me into irrelevance.
This isn’t just something I do—this is how I live now. Fully. Inquisitively. Intentionally.
I’m learning how to sit in silence without spiraling into regrets and should-haves. How to laugh at myself without lacerating my spirit. How to treasure time without tallying accomplishments.
My Best Friend at the End of My Pen
Amid all this sorting and shifting, quiet rooms and candid reckonings, new beginnings and necessary becoming, there’s one constant that’s never judged me, rushed me, or asked me to explain myself in under two minutes: my journal.
It’s actually been a good (almost better) substitute for my ex, who has known me since I was in my late teens.
No matter what kind of day I’m having—scattered, soulful, soaring, or stuck—it’s always there, waiting.
The page listens like no one else can.
It holds space when I can’t hold it together. And more often than not, I find my best thoughts, my bravest truths, and my clearest next steps scribbled somewhere between the rambling and the real.
That pen? It’s not just ink. It’s true: caring for and being honest with oneself.
And when my brain short-circuits—when I can’t remember if I paid a bill or why I walked into the kitchen for that third time—I turn to my journal. Not because it fixes everything but because it filters the fuzz.
Journaling is where I untangle the mental spaghetti. It’s my personal pause button, my brain’s backup drive, my place to dump the digital overload of modern life and actually hear myself think again.
Some days, it’s a sanctuary. On other days, it’s a sass-fest. But either way, it saves me. From forgetting. From overthinking. From disconnecting from the woman, I’m becoming.
Permission to Be Real, Forgetful, and Free
I’m learning to get curious instead of compliant.
I’m reclaiming my relevance not by proving myself but by being myself—beautifully, brutally, brilliantly real.
I’ve swapped out striving for savoring.
I’ve put down the perfectionism and picked up the pen.
And on the days when I forget what I was saying mid-sentence, I just say, “Well, clearly it wasn’t worth remembering!” and carry on.
No, I don’t have it all figured out. Thank goodness for that.
Life now feels less like a checklist and more like a what-kind-of-day-do-I-want-today? (Note: It’s sometimes a day in bed with snacks and a streaming obsession).
Some days are disco. Others are enlightening. Some days, I still feel sorry for myself. But all of them are mine.
So, if you’re standing in that strange, sacred space between who you’ve been and who you’re becoming, let this be your permission slip:
You don’t need to reinvent yourself.
You just need to remember yourself.
Not who the world wanted or told you that you were supposed to be. Who you are. Under the roles. Behind the titles. Beneath the noise.
There’s magic there. There’s freedom. And yes, there’s still plenty of fire.
A Few Questions to Light the Way
Who am I becoming now that no one’s watching?
What do I want to learn—not to be useful, but to be lit up?
Where am I still dimming my joy because I think it’s “too late”?
What would it look like to stop fixing and start feeling?
Where do I still matter most—to myself?
About Jill Grumbache
Jill Grumbache is the sometimes hilarious, always compassionate wit and founder of Holistic Journaling Ink. She is an unwavering advocate of women’s self-growth and education. She helps women find clarity, courage, calm, and a sense of humor through the written word. Jill is a lifelong journaler, communications specialist, beneficial journaling educator, certified journaling facilitator, and emotional intelligence coach, as well as an award-winning writer and recovering overthinker with ADHD (the latter being one of her favorite traits!). Reach her at jill@holisticjournaling.ca or www.holisticjournaling.ca.
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