I help women 55+ to gently step into their first chapter of solo travel after a major life transition in order to revitalize their lives. As a 64-year-old retired teacher, author, and life coach, I was growing uncomfortable with how seductively comfortable my life had become in the small mountain town in BC, Canada, where I’d been living for the past 5 years. The same realization from a decade earlier after the death of my 23-year-old daughter. What was I doing with my one wild and precious life? What do you do when you’ve lost your vitality? When the zest that buoyed you through decades seems to have vanished? It’s a question we ask ourselves when inertia threatens our very existence. One I asked myself 3 years ago, when I sensed my vitality plummeting. One, I hazard, many of us ask in our lifetime. Death, it turns out, is incredibly life-affirming. Whether it’s yours (pending) or someone you deeply loved. It jolts us from our default state of ‘taking life for granted’ and demands that we participate 100% in the life we have left, however long that might be.
“What if I died next?” was the question that consumed me for months after my daughter died. “What do I want my life to look like now? How do it want to shape my “one wild and precious life”? What does that even look like?”
To live a life as wide as it is long had been my modus operandi for as long as I could remember, and I needed to widen my life. So, in 2022 I gave up my apartment (again), packed my few belongings into a carry-on suitcase, and flew away. What followed was 14-months of travel with no agenda. No, but I knew that far off lands would offer me the space to see beyond what I looked past at home. I’d learned from a decade earlier, after my 2-year journey leaving my daughter’s ashes around the world, that long-term solo travel can revitalize me like nothing else can. My bestselling book, The Suitcase and the Jar: Travels with a Daughter’s Ashes tells the story of that transformative journey. These deep inner journeys take time. Time to figure out how we want to shape our future, especially after a difficult transition: the loss of a loved one, an empty nest, a divorce, the nagging sense that our post-retirement lives lack purpose and meaning. Travel shifts our perspectives on grief and on finitude, confirmation that to live a vital life is the best legacy of love. Yours and mine. And let's always remind ourselves that getting older doesn’t mean we’re ‘done and dusted’. It means there’s a next act and we get to write it! Join me, won't you...
