The Detour I Didn’t Plan

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Do you ever wonder if life is leading you to a place you are meant to be? That there is a plan only the universe knows, and it is constantly changing as you live your life? I thought I had my life and my retirement figured out.

I was going to travel with Brandon and live happily ever after. But the thing about plans is that when the other person is on a journey of their own, sometimes that affects those great plans you thought you had. Retirement came, and my well-thought-out plan took a major detour. I was alone and had to decide what my life looked like now.

Painting a New Picture

What do you do when you reach a time in your life when you have an empty canvas and can paint your own beautiful scenery? When you get to shape your life the way you want to live it for the rest of your life? I know what I do. I set goals. Goals that will give me the life I want without sacrificing any part of who I am. I create projects that keep me busy and push me out of my comfort zone. I am never still and always seem to be in motion. For the first time, I am in control of my life and my happiness.

Retirement gave me the freedom to use my time the way I want and to work toward becoming a better person physically, mentally, spiritually and financially. What I never really understood before retiring is how much influence I have over all four of those areas. I get to decide how much time and effort I put into them. I get to decide what balance means to me.

Restoring More Than My Health

That brings me to Project Restore.

One of my main projects has been getting my health back so I can live the life I want to live. I want the energy and stamina for all those hikes and adventurous trips I still plan to take.

Instead of expecting the healthcare system to do all the work for me, I decided to become an active participant in my own health. I created a feedback system that helps me understand my body and gives me better information to bring to my doctors.

I took my diagnoses, test results, blood work and doctors’ notes and put them into files. I started tracking my nutrition and physical activity in Myfitnesspal, along with my weight, measurements and monthly pictures. But I also started tracking things the scale can’t measure. Pain levels. Emotions. Sleep. Digestion. Cravings. The things that brought me joy and the things that stressed me out.

For me, pain and emotions can go hand in hand.

Once a week, I put all that information together and looked at my progress. For once in my life, I wasn’t focused only on the number on the scale. I was looking at my overall health.

What I Started to Discover

And something started happening.

Over the past three months, I have lost five pounds and about fifteen inches. But those aren’t even the most important things I’ve discovered. I’ve identified things that trigger my emotions and affect my pain levels. I’ve seen connections between my food choices, emotional health and digestion. I’ve learned that some of the simplest, slow exercises can transform your body without needing a hard, fast-paced exercise routine.

Most importantly, I’ve learned that loving myself is an important part of Project Restore.

I’ve learned to trust myself and understand that putting in the time every day pays off.

This isn’t a quick-fix project. It’s a commitment I am making every day to become the best version of myself—not because someone else thinks I should, but because I want to. And I am not perfect at it. I have made mistakes. That’s one of the things I like about the health system I created for myself. Yes, it shows me when I didn’t follow my plan, but it also shows me all the good things that came from another week of waking up and trusting the process.

I don’t want to feel like I am on a diet with a bunch of set rules until one day I say, This is too hard. This isn’t working. I don’t have time for this. I want this to be a journey I can be proud of as it leads me toward the life I want to live.

Finding Purpose Along the Way

Project Restore isn’t the only thing I’ve been concentrating on.

I created my Beyond Survival™ series, something I am incredibly proud of and something that pushed me far outside my comfort zone. I got to take my passion for helping people and put it into books that have the potential to reach far more people than I ever could by volunteering at one homeless shelter.

If you’d like to see what came out of that journey, you can find my Beyond Survival™ Participant Workbook on Amazon. I also created a Beyond Survival™ Facilitator & Teacher Manual for churches, shelters, nonprofits, and others who want to use the program to help people move from crisis to stability—and from stability toward purpose.

I created Roadside Gossip.

I started my own publishing company.

And now I am working on a novel that is pushing me to my limits while also making me excited about my future.

The Road Ahead

Yes, I still plan to travel. But this year I decided that before I took my life on the road, I wanted to create systems and routines that work for me wherever I happen to be.

The RV or camper van can come in the spring. When it does, the routines I am building now can come along for every adventure. I can focus on the beauty in front of me as well as the beauty inside of me. Life is a journey. It doesn’t have to be boring or predictable. Sometimes the destination changes. Sometimes another person’s road takes them somewhere different from where you thought you were going together. And sometimes the detour turns out to have a purpose of its own.

When that camper finally hits the road, Roadside Gossip will be coming along for the ride. And I already have a growing list of places I want to see in Retirement Travel Bucket List: It’s Time to Hit the Road.

Until then, I’m beginning to realize there is plenty of road to travel without ever leaving home. Only you can decide what you allow into and out of your life. Only you can make the changes and begin building the life you want.

One day. One step.

From Stability to Purpose.