What Do You Do Now? Navigating the Quiet After They’ve Flown

I’m sitting here on my couch, in what I guess I’d call my part-time home now, with my two dogs for company. And I’ve found myself asking this huge, echoing question: What am I supposed to do now?

For so long, my life revolved around my kids. They were everything—my end-all, be-all. And now they’re these amazing grown humans who have flown the coop. They barely respond to texts, they’ve got their own lives, and suddenly I’m here wondering how to fill that space they’ve left behind.

No one really tells you this part about motherhood. They don’t teach you in the “mom business” that one day, it’s going to feel like your kids have sort of “broken up” with you. That’s how it feels sometimes, right? You know you did your job well because they’re independent, but no one warned you how much that independence would tug at your heart.

So here I am, and maybe here you are too, if you’re reading this. We’re sitting at that too-empty dining room table or on that couch that used to have kids climbing all over it, asking: what now? And maybe the answer is we find new ways to fill that space—with our own passions, with new projects (like this website!), and with the understanding that it’s okay to feel a little heartbroken along the way.