Fall Forward
It’s been a month.
Which feels like something I need to keep reminding myself of. I didn’t just move yesterday. This isn’t week one chaos. The boxes are gone. The walls aren’t echoing anymore. I know where the forks are. I have a rhythm.
And also, this is the first time in my adult life that no one is waiting for me to come home.
That sentence lands differently than I expected.
Empty nest is such a polite phrase. It sounds seasonal. Temporary. Like everyone should clap and say, “Look at you! Freedom!”
But the reality is quieter.
The girls don’t need me in the same way. They’re building their lives. As they should. I’m proud of them in that deep, cellular way only mothers understand.
And still.
There’s a shift in the energy of your body when you’re no longer the center of daily gravity.
For decades, my energy went outward first.
Schedules. Appointments. School things. Emotional temperature checks. Logistics. Late-night talks. Even love has a momentum to it when you’re actively mothering.
Now the momentum is different.
Some evenings I come home and realize no one is about to ask me anything.
No one needs a ride.
No one needs dinner.
No one needs reassurance.
And I don’t quite know where to put that energy yet.
Part of me wants to immediately fill it.
New hobbies. New goals. New structure. Be productive. Reinvent yourself. You’re 47; this is your era.
The other part of me feels tired.
Not depressed. Not lost. Just… like I ran a long marathon of caring and I’m only now noticing my legs are sore.
In my downtime, I feel this urge to recover. To recharge. To sit on the couch and let my nervous system exhale.
And then, almost instantly, the guilt.
Are you wasting time?
Shouldn’t you be doing more?
Is this what you moved for?
It’s absurd when I say it out loud.
No one is grading my evenings.
No one is monitoring my productivity.
But somewhere along the way I internalized the idea that rest has to be earned through exhaustion. And even then, it should look purposeful.
This week I caught myself feeling guilty for having a calm day.
A calm day.
Work was steady. I went for a walk. I ate well. I didn’t cry about the girls. That part feels important. I’m crying less now. The ache is softer. Less sharp. More like background music instead of a siren.
And instead of celebrating that, my brain wanted to escalate it.
Shouldn’t you be building something?
Shouldn’t you be maximizing this chapter?
Shouldn’t you be further along in your “living again” era?
And that’s when the healthcare parallel slid back in.
You know that phrase, “we’ll call if anything looks concerning.”
It’s meant to soothe.
But it leaves you suspended.
Silence becomes a test.
No call. Okay. That’s good.
Unless it’s not.
Unless something got missed.
Unless you misunderstood.
It’s amazing how quickly we treat quiet as suspicious.
I’ve refreshed a portal like it was a slot machine. I’ve stared at my phone like the absence of a call contained hidden data.
This month, I realized I do the same thing with my own life.
If it’s calm, I assume I’m missing something.
If I’m resting, I assume I’m falling behind.
If no one needs me, I assume I’m less relevant.
Which is such a brutal thing to admit at 47.
I have built a life. Raised children. Led teams. Managed crises. Held space for everyone else’s emotions.
And now that the daily intensity has shifted, I’m standing here asking myself who I am when my energy isn’t being actively pulled outward.
It’s not a crisis.
It’s quieter than that.
It’s rediscovery.
I’ve started picking up pieces of myself that were always there but never had room. Music playing just because I like it. Writing because it feels good, not because it’s strategic. Walking at sunset without explaining where I’m going.
Tiny habits of joy.
Day by day.
It’s almost embarrassingly simple.
But simplicity feels foreign after decades of momentum.
There are nights I sit on the couch and feel both lucky and exposed.
Lucky because this space is mine.
Exposed because there’s nothing distracting me from myself.
No immediate demands.
Just the slow work of rebuilding new rhythms.
I thought living alone would feel dramatic. Cinematic. Big declarations.
Instead it feels like rehabilitation.
Not from something terrible. Just from constant output.
I’m rediscovering my own personal energy, what it feels like when it isn’t already spoken for.
And sometimes, in the stillness, I want to interpret that as emptiness.
But it isn’t.
It’s recovery.
It’s recalibration.
It’s my body learning that it doesn’t have to be on call all the time.
There’s something deeply humbling about realizing how much of your identity was tied to being needed.
And something equally powerful about learning to enjoy being chosen, by yourself.
No callback came this week.
No urgent update. No crisis. No dramatic shift.
Just a string of ordinary days.
And instead of reading into it, I’m trying to let that be enough.
The girls are great.
Work is fantastic.
I am good.
And for once, the quiet doesn’t have to mean anything more than that.
Day by day, I’m building new habits. Of joy. Of health. Of presence.
I’m crying less.
I’m resting more.
I’m living again, not in a loud way. In a steady one.
And maybe that’s the real plot twist at 47.
Not reinvention.
Just learning how to be here without waiting for the phone to ring.
