Nobody tells you how hard it is. Everyone talks about the freedom, the quiet house, the rediscovery of yourself. Nobody mentions the grief.

Watching your children grow into adults, follow their own path, need you less. It’s the hardest thing a parent goes through. You can’t prepare for it.

For most of my twenties and thirties I was a single parent. My kids were the center of my days and the shape of every decision I made. I gave everything I had to raising them. That season is over now. They’re grown, figuring out this thing called life. I’m a text or phone call away, but I’m living life with me as the priority for the first time.

And I was standing in a life that didn’t look like mine anymore. Nobody needed my full attention. The days were quieter. The calendar was suddenly empty. There were days I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

What I kept coming back to, once the quiet had gone on long enough, was something I’d known about myself for a long time and never had room for. For years I’d made a joke about it — when the kids are grown, I’m getting a van and traveling the world. The van isn’t happening. But the world still is.

I am done waiting. I want to see all of it. Starting with Greece.

So I started booking trips. I still work a 9 to 5. I haven’t sold everything to move across the world. Not yet. I always have a trip booked. I have learned that I need the forward motion. The quiet days sit better when they have a plane ticket on the other side of them.

I don’t call this the empty nest era. I call it the free bird era. That’s what it’s starting to feel like.

Tabiétoile is where I document all of it. The trips, the trails, the moments that make me stop mid-step and reach for my camera. The things solo travel shows you when there’s nobody else there to share the view.

I started this because I spent a long time waiting. I’m not sure what I was waiting for. This is me, done waiting.

This blog is me, flying.