Press play. 🌿

This isn’t a morning reflection tonight.

It’s a late night one.

Today is the one-year anniversary of my husband, Don’s, passing. His time here ended on May 11th, 2025 — Mother’s Day.

I’m recording this tonight, though I’ll probably post it tomorrow. And I want to say right up front — this is not a grief post. It’s a reflection. Some thoughts I’ve had over this last year about who I’m becoming, the peace I’ve found, and the desire to keep showing up for this life adventure.

Because at the core of all of it is something I didn’t fully expect to find.

A relationship with myself.

When I left my job in 2021 to rediscover who LauraJo is, I honestly didn’t know what I was looking for. I’m not even sure I could have told you what I expected to find.

What I know now is that I had been running on adrenaline for so long it felt normal.

I’d actually suffered from adrenal fatigue a few times over the years — my body was keeping score even when I wasn’t paying attention. And when I finally stopped, it took me nine months to a year to truly come off that high. To allow myself to be still without guilt.

And through that stillness, I discovered peace.

For years I had been trying to meditate, trying to quiet my mind — but I was so busy in my head there was no peaceful place to land. And then one day, the quiet came. And it was beautiful.

That peace didn’t mean my life was perfect. It didn’t mean I had everything figured out. It didn’t mean things went the way I expected.

What it meant was that I could feel good in the moment. I could live more intentionally. I could hold hard things without being flattened by them.

And I am so grateful I had done that work before November 2024 — when Don and I began having the real conversations. When we knew that what lay ahead was palliative. When we started talking honestly about his passing and what life might look like for me after.

That inner work gave me the capacity to hold grief differently than I would have five years before.

Life is an adventure. Not a perfectly mapped out journey.

Adventures rarely unfold exactly as planned.

I thought the next chapter was going to include Don physically beside me. Instead, this adventure changed shape. And I am still here. I still get to participate in my life. I still have next steps to choose.

The image that has brought me the most peace — and I don’t even know exactly where it came from — is this:

Don and I walking a path together for 43 years. Five children. Six grandchildren. Walking this path side by side.

And on May 11th, 2025, those paths diverged.

He went on to his what’s next. And I continued on mine.

Our paths have diverged — for now. I don’t know if they come back together at some point. I like to think they do. But right now, he has gone one way, and I have gone another.

And that image has given me such comfort. My love for him still exists. It’s just different now.

For the first time in my adult life, I am on this path alone.

I went from living with my parents to marrying Don at twenty — and I was with him for 43 years. This is genuinely new territory.

And there is something both tender and freeing about that.

I get to live with grief and also have peace. To feel sadness and also feel deep gratitude. To miss him — to miss who I was when I was with him — and also feel excitement about what’s still possible.

As I’ve said in many conversations with friends: joy and sorrow can coexist.

That’s not a coping strategy. That’s just the truth of being human.

I’m also so grateful for the people surrounding me in this season.

This past weekend I was surrounded by family. One of my daughters who lives out of state flew in Friday night and surprised me Saturday morning. She said she woke up Friday morning and felt like she should be here — and so she came.

I spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday evening with three of my daughters, my son-in-law, and my triplet grandkids. My son and his family were part of the weekend too — and somehow I ended up seeing all six of my grandchildren in one day, including an unexpected run-in at Texas Roadhouse that made everyone laugh.

I have friends who are witnessing this chapter. Widowhood is unfamiliar territory for most of the women around me — new territory for all of us. And the beauty of being supported while still finding my way is something I don’t take lightly.

I feel less alone while still being on a deeply personal path in this adventure.

Life rarely unfolds according to plan. Control is always an illusion — a false sense of security we carry until we don’t.

The peace I feel now comes from the relationship I’ve built with myself over these last few years. I’m not seeking outside validation for the decisions I’m making. This is an inside job.

And I’ve learned to trust that I’ll know the next right step — and that I’ll know it at the right time. I’ve let go of the need to “figure it out.”

That trust has given me freedom.

Just recently, I listed my house on February 1^st. A big work project came up at the end of March and consumed everything. And then one night in April — around midnight when I finally finished — something shifted internally. Three days later I thought: I’m ready to move now. Bring the buyer.

Not because the house was more ready. Because I was.

That moment reminded me — again — that when I trust what I feel, I do know. I always know.

The work I did didn’t keep me from grief.

But it helped me stay connected to myself inside the grief.

I’m learning to trust the next right step instead of needing the whole map.

I still miss him. And I am still here.

Peace is not the absence of grief. The grief is there — and it shows up at the strangest moments, out of nowhere, when I least expect it. But I no longer believe that life has to go according to plan to be meaningful. That I have to produce a certain thing or be a certain way.

I’m allowing life to unfold instead of demanding that it show up in a particular form.

And honestly — there is so much freedom in doing that.

✦ Ponder on that.

How is grief showing up in your life — not just the grief of losing someone, but the grief of plans that changed, paths that shifted, versions of yourself you had to let go of?

Is life an adventure you’re living — or a journey you’re grinding through?

What small awareness, if you could notice it, might make a difference in how you feel when you wake up tomorrow morning?

Or maybe even better — what’s keeping you awake at night?

Maybe that’s the place to start. Feel free to share in the comments what your thoughts are about what might be keeping you awake at night or standing in your way, keeping you from living your life’s adventure.

Make it a great day. 🌿

Press play to hear this one in my own voice. Some things need to be spoken.

How long can you sit with something — thinking about it, turning it over, knowing something needs to change — before you actually do anything about it?

Does that sound familiar?

I’ve been thinking about that lately. And it took me back to late August 2020.

I was at my desk, working late. Because that’s what I did.

A thought popped into my head:

Hey — it’s COVID. People can’t go into classrooms anymore. I wonder if they’ve put the real estate licensing classes online. No driving. No set schedule.

I stopped what I was doing, pulled up the Arizona School of Real Estate website, and yes. I was right.

COVID was doing what COVID did. And I was doing what I did — working late, managing life, trying to hold it all together. Sixty to eighty hours a week. A good salary, a good job, and absolutely no time left over to wonder who I was outside of all of that.

But in that moment, something shifted.

I can look back now and know I wasn’t really looking for a real estate career. Something else was emerging.

What I was really looking for — underneath all the hours and the busyness and the exhaustion — was some sign that I could still do something different. That it wasn’t too late. That I wasn’t so locked into who I’d been that I couldn’t find something that brought me joy. That was fun.

That there was still a LauraJo in there somewhere who didn’t just want to work.

Who wanted more.

I remember going to find my husband and talking it through with him.

Am I nuts to be doing this?

He was his usual loving, supportive self. Reminded me that I can do whatever I set my mind to doing.

So I signed up for the licensing course on September 1st. Finished it in two and a half weeks. Studied, passed the school exam on a Saturday, and signed up for the state exam the very next day — September 20th.

I still remember standing outside the testing center, waiting to go in, listening to people talk about coming back for their second, third, even fourth attempt. These were experienced Realtors — people with licenses in other states — talking about how difficult the Arizona exam was.

One of them looked at me and asked how many times I’d taken it.

Oh, this is my first time. I just passed the school exam yesterday.

They laughed.

Well, good luck. You’ll be back.

No, I said. I’m going to pass it.

They laughed some more. Like I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I passed.

It was September, which means it was still very warm — let’s be honest, hot — in Arizona. I came out of that testing center with that piece of paper in my hand, got into my car, turned on the AC, and just sat there.

And I remember thinking:

Oh my gosh. I can still do hard things. I can still commit to something and actually follow through.

Something shifted in that moment. Quietly. The way the most important things usually do.

Because what I realized later — what I’m still noticing in myself sometimes — is that there’s this space between knowing something and actually moving on it. I had been thinking about change for a long time without actually doing anything about it.

Maybe you know that space too.

I didn’t end up selling real estate.

What I ended up doing was something I couldn’t have named yet — rediscovering who LauraJo is. What she wants. Who she is underneath everything she’d been doing and being for everyone else.

I had lost myself somewhere along the way. And I needed to find my way back.

That question — who am I, really? — is part of what this space is about.

Not because I have the answers. I don’t.

But because I’ve learned there’s something powerful about being willing to ask the question at all. As one of my daughters once reminded me: get curious.

So maybe that’s where we begin. Not with a plan. Not with an answer.

Just with the question.

Who are you, underneath it all?

You don’t have to answer that yet.

Just ponder on that. Notice what comes up.

And here’s what I really want to leave you with today:

How many of us are sitting in that same space — feeling a gentle nudge, a quiet yearning, knowing something but still just... thinking about it?

What’s something you’ve been thinking about but haven’t moved on yet?

Don’t answer out loud. Just notice.

Ponder on that.

Press play if you want to hear this in my own words — that’s where this space will probably feel most like me.

Make it a great day! 🌿