Remember this and I am 100% serious … You worked your ass off since you were 26 years old to put yourself through college, to get a professional career a bit later in life, saving for your retirement, hustling all through your last years as a social worker and up into this moment in your side business. Sharing your creativity and gifts with so many people along the way. No one deserves to go to Paris more than you right now.

That’s what you worked for. That’s the vision you had way back when you were young and YOU made it happen.

You have a healthy mind and body that you pour time and effort in to make this possible. YOU have more than earned some time to enjoy the fruits of all that labor.

I think it’s ok to mourn the loss of it and have some low feelings about the transition, but I hope you can recapture your joy a bit and remember how hard you worked to be able to do Paris JUST for you!

THE ABOVE statements are a series of texts I received from my daughter just before I boarded my flight to Paris. I was telling her I was “not feeling myself”, and I was hoping going this trip may help sort out what is going on with me. I really am a rather focused person, but since fully retiring my boutique, I have been feeling out of sorts. Why did I put her response in this post? Mainly as reminder to me about what a remarkable daughter I have and to make sure these words of wisdom are never lost. These texts brought me to tears. I really had no idea my daughter thought so much of me, I knew some, but I didn’t know just how deeply. So, in a way, this post is really for me and for my daughter. But, it might also be a reminder for all of us to speak our hearts to one another, you never know what words of encouragement, like these, can do for the soul.

We certainly all go through life changes, readjustments and retirements – if we are so lucky – and although it can be a disconcerting time, it can also be a time of rediscovery, and remarkably, more time to focus on other things; like family and creative endeavors and other enjoyments, rather than all that goes into working.

So, on this journey to Paris, I won’t run myself ragged around Paris, like I used to. Instead, I will slow down, take a bunch of things off my plate and simply be in Paris just for me. I will continue to sell on my ETSY sites and work on projects for those who follow along, but I really want to be purposeful and remember the reason I am in Paris, right now. Today.

Thank you so much to my daughter, Rosie, for being my best friend, my true joy and my sage.

I love you forever, Mom.