Hi Sunflower!
There's a great book called, "The 52-Week Life Passion Project", by Barrie Davenport and it takes you step by step in finding yourself and what you like to do. I read it in a few days, instead of taking a year, and it has lots of great ideas. It's really good that you are working on this now. I worked on it, after my daughter was grown and on her own, and empty nest syndrome was a 5 year nightmare for me. The great thing about it, is you can try something and if you don't like it, you try something else. If you like something, stick with it until you want to try something new. Take it from me, it's not good to be overly dependent on other people whether they are family or friends. I had/have trouble "playing by myself" and I've found since there aren't many friend opportunities in my area, that I need to find things to do to be content on my own. It's hard, but is a necessary skill to learn in life in order to be happy. It is not selfish, but women are taught from a young age, that we are supposed to be caregivers and are to focus on everyone, but ourselves and we're somehow "bad" wives or mothers if we do things for ourselves. Not true. It is a disservice to ourselves to believe this and if we don't change our thinking on it we are in for a miserable time in life. Look to your childhood for things you enjoyed doing then. You can revisit them, as an adult. You can Google hobbies and there are thousands of things to try. I'm really proud of you and I'm glad that you are finding that you need to do things outside of your family, because the longer you wait, the harder it is to break out of that cycle. I'm speaking 100% from personal experience. Oh, and it's not bad to do things with your family, we just need to do things for ourselves and by ourselves too. For instance, I'm going to start a ceramic dog collection and go to antique shops and flea markets. My husband said he'd go with me, but would be looking at different items. I want to get back into showing dogs and maybe breeding one litter of puppies and show them also. This is something I will be doing on my own, because my husband's favorite dog is the Miniature Dachshund and I'm not a fan, because the ones I've had have been destructive. If I were to get Mini Doxies, my husband would be involved, but since I'm looking into the Brussels Griffon, I'll be doing it by myself. If there's a weekend when he doesn't want to go antiquing, then I'll still go by myself. So, I'm not depending on him going, I can do it alone. We do have coffee out, weekly together, so like I said, it's good to have things to do with your family and things to do separately. The sooner we practice doing things independently, the easier it will become. I read a book where there was a 9 square grid of your life and it had hobbies, family, friends, etc. listed, so that when your child leaves the nest, you still have 8 grids of a filled life and it won't be so void. For me, I was 100% focused on my daughter, therefore I had only 1 grid; it was her, and when she left I was devastated, because I had nothing else in my other grids to fall back on, if that makes sense. Well, I got really passionate about this subject, because it hit home for me, I hope it didn't come off as a lecture - ha ha. Maybe I still act like a Mom when I should act like me :) :) :) This is an exciting time of exploration for you! Let us know what you try, and like I said, you can try an endless list of things and hop back and forth, do some things and not others, it's all up to you and what you like and you will discover yourself along the way by doing this. I rediscovered my Artistic side, although it never left me, but I didn't consciously think about it. HAVE FUN!
Shari
