I have been struggling with “who the hell am I?”, now that my primary role of Mom is not front and center in my life. My daughter decided to go to college (all 4 years) in Scotland. Talk about an empty nest!!!

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. I found… the trite, “take up a hobby”-really? “Get a mani-pedi” (insert eye roll here), or take up meditation-” OH JUST BITE ME!!!”, I wanted to scream! How are the above going to fill the Grand Canyon of a hole in my heart???

When I left her in Scotland, I went to visit my brother and his family in Paris. (yeah, I get how lucky I am that I get to travel:) but back to the HOLE in my chest…yeah, that!

I was traveling alone one day in Paris while my brother’s family worked and went to school and I was sitting at a cafe overlooking the burnt down Notre Dame Cathedral. As I journaled, I thought that it was an apt description of how I felt. Burnt down and hollowed out, but how can I rebuild a new identity now that my daughter has flown the nest?

Here are some of the questions that I journaled sitting at that cafe, that helped me start this new phase of my life. I had a lot of alone time as I walked the beaches of Scotland, journaled in the cafes in Paris, traveled home via London and started charting my new course in life at 55 years old!

1) What are my values?

2) Who are my peeps? How can I nurture current and new friends in my life?

3) What are my strengths in the face of complexities and uncertainties in life?

4) What hard situations have I already been through and how did I do it in the past?

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!!!