At some point along the way of finishing college, starting my career as a ballroom dancer, becoming a wife, and then a mother, I assumed I had grown up.  So when I turned forty-eight and my only child went away to college, I was scared.  The map of the well-trodden path disappeared.  There was a dark, empty silence.  A proverbial, intimidating, blank space.

What I didn’t know then, but can see with hindsight, is that the quiet was a chance for me to accept change.  To grieve.  And finally, the opportunity to let go.

Then my soul made it’s first tentative whisper…

and the more I listened, the more I heard.

This time, I am the one asking the question.  And I am also the one answering it with the enthusiasm of youth and the wisdom of age… What do I want to be when I grow up?