Renovating a Life
After the unexpected changes of last summer, my life was in need of a makeover.
In October, I wrote about experiencing the Growing Pains of job loss and big empty-nest feels. To help process the changes and sort out my priorities, I had to reassess the story of who I am and how I allocate my resources (time, energy, funds). For a quarter-century, I’ve viewed myself as a single parent balancing motherhood and career. Before being a parent, I was completely focused on developing expertise in my profession. Decades later, I have the opportunity to change perspective and make different choices about how I want the next part of my life to look.
Grab your crayons!
I needed to visually “see” the story, so I took out my crayons and drew a house. Nothing fancy - pretty much a square. I dubbed it my Life House, and divided it into different-sized rooms representing important aspects of my life: Family, Friends, Employment, Health & Fitness, Spiritual Practice, Volunteer Work, and Travel. I color-coded each room. I can’t take credit for this exercise. It’s probably something I learned years ago in a self-help or creativity course…the stuff in the attic of my mind that I pull out when needed.
Welcome to my home
Imagine mentally walking through this house with me. Larger rooms, once filled with parenting responsibilities, a dog, and my son’s friends, now seem to echo and collect dust. The once-vibrant career room is in flux as I try to decide what the next phase of my work life will look like, and how to prioritize creative writing so it’s more than an avocation. Indeed, this metaphorical room keeps changing from office to storage, writing corner, exercise, and then to a guest room. Oh, you know that room. And there are other rooms, which never received enough attention when I was busy with parenting and work, that could be expanded to include more friendships, health priorities, spiritual practices, and the volunteer work I’ve been meaning to revisit and now have more time to pursue. This activity helped me to see how the rooms in my Life House no longer align with the realities of my present circumstances and need major renovations!
It’s understandable why parents renovate or downsize their homes once the kids become adults. Perhaps making physical changes to a dwelling facilitates that crucial mental shift. Or maybe it’s just a distraction from facing the hard truth that the lifecycle continues and our identities transform. Nothing stays the same.
Under construction
As the project manager of this personal renovation, I’m redesigning my Life House. It’s time to adjust room sizes and reconsider their purpose to better reflect my choices for deeper connections, community, and well-being as I age gracefully and fiercely. I’m setting specific goals and milestones for how I use the space, leaving some areas open for new growth as my life continues to evolve. Like all of us, I am a work in progress!
Maybe this offers you some inspiration as you close out 2025 and consider how you intend to create your life in 2026. Be resourceful - draw it, build it, or even write a song about it! Whatever the challenges and opportunities, we always have choices - even in what seems the darkest of times - to redefine who we are. I hope you’ll share with me some of your own experiences with life renovations so we can learn from each other!
Traversing new terrain
I’ll leave you with a poem that I recently published in the London Writers’ Salon 2025 Anthology: Writing in Community, Vol. 5. May it bring you courage for your own life transformations!
Unsolicited Advice from a Well-Versed Crone
~ J.Catherine Tetrault
Long have I walked this path
barefoot, lighthearted, booted, burdened,
shaped by its wisdom
as sage to its lessons and
oracle to its mysteries.
Should wandering bring you through forest or field,
bracing, breezy, steamy, stagnant,
will you linger to examine every bud and leaf,
the roots and ruts that challenge you, or
side trails enticing you astray?
Trust the path and give yourself to it
through brilliant meadows, far and wide,
or hidden woodlands, dense and deep,
dampening your skin with earthy sweat.
Should you meet a mountain pass,
dry, dusty, thick with mud, slippery stones,
do you stop to question
the placement of pebbles and boulders, or
twists and turns of the ascent?
Steady your resolve and climb
along narrow footpaths hugging ridges,
and steep rocky trails,
making your heart pound.
Should you reach the water’s edge,
gentle stream or fierce sea,
must you measure the crossing, when
the tide will carry you and
wind and flow will set your course?
Meet the currents as they are
near the sound of lapping water,
the froth of foaming waves
leaving a salted kiss upon your lips.
The journey will shake your core,
demanding humility,
stealing innocence,
granting courage,
bestowing wisdom.
Thank you Joan for your reflections and the invitation to meet uncertainty with creativity. I can find it so easy to slip over that edge of panic/overwhelm when trying to contemplate the future and how different the landscape is than how I thought it would look. At the moment it feels like for me the "answer" is in learning how to listen deeply. After a few "false" starts, it's becoming clearer how much my thinking is still mired and entwined within old narratives, of my own and of societal structures I'd like to leave behind. I'm returning from 8 days of silence with my zen center during an intensive practice period and discovering myself feeling softened and also more fierce from that time. It's been some time since I put the brush to the page with my watercolors and your suggestion has me wanting to create space for that this week, as I continue to settle in back to the "real world" and continue to practice this way of listening deeper.
Thank you, as always much to contemplate, feed on and digest. Love you openess and invitation to participate in our own process and share!