This Wasn’t the Plan. But It was the Right Thing.

Home sweet home for several years…

I used to live in a cabin in the woods.

Deer in the yard, an army of ducks splashing in the backyard lake, and only five minutes from my husband’s job—total peace. We had just started getting the hang of the empty-nest thing. After years of holding our breath, we could finally exhale.

Then it all unraveled.

I’d just spent the last stretch of my grandmother’s life helping manage her care as her medical proxy alongside my mother. It was a sacred kind of hard, making decisions no one wants to make, watching someone you love slip away piece by piece. After her passing, my family fell apart in quiet, complicated ways, and within the next year, I lost two more members of my immediate family. The grief barely had time to settle before life pushed forward.

I was still clawing my way back to normal when I met and remarried (a decade after divorce) a man with a past full of fire and a hell of a lot of resilience. His life had been big, loud, and public. Mine had been quieter but, by all means, no less turbulent.

Our story was already messy, so it only made sense that we tied the knot in the middle of it. Because when you’ve lived enough life, you stop waiting for the perfect moment. You create it.

We jumped on his motorcycle one afternoon and headed for the courthouse. The sky cracked open halfway there, soaking us before we could even find parking. We turned back—but only for dry clothes. We weren’t about to let a little rain stop us. We were married in a tiny back office, with two elderly clerks as our witnesses, still damp and grinning like idiots.

A few days later, we flew to Italy for two weeks. That was our “real” wedding—Venice, Tuscany, Rome, Amalfi. We wandered, we ate, we stood in quiet churches and loud plazas and swore we’d come back again. It felt like taking something back from the wreckage. Like breathing again, for the first time in years.

For a second, it felt like maybe the universe would let us have this. Peace. Love. A new chapter.

We were travelers, collectors of moments.

We zipped through the treetops of Puerto Rico, smoked cigars in Havana, rode horses along the shoreline in the Dominican Republic, climbed volcanoes in Costa Rica, and made memories in many other places. And we had a dozen more pins to drop on the map.

But peace is fragile. And family doesn’t stop being complicated just because you get a second chance at life.

The pandemic hit. Our daughter moved back in. And eventually, circumstances beyond our control led to two more children coming to live with us full-time. It wasn’t sudden, and it wasn’t simple. But after years of hoping for a better outcome, we stepped in.

We refused to let them become another statistic.

We left our quiet life behind, moved from the woods to the city, and adjusted to new routines, new roles, and new realities—doctors, schools, and courtrooms—all while helping them adjust to a new reality and trying to give them the stability they deserve.

It wasn’t the plan. But it was the right thing.

And sometimes that’s enough.

And for now, at least, this is the life: backpacks by the door, appointment reminders on the chalkboard, and shoes everywhere for some reason. Not the dream we mapped out—but the one we chose. On purpose. Together

I’m still learning how to be what they need.

I’m still learning what this version of my life looks like.

But I’ve stopped waiting for things to get “back to normal.”

This is my life right now. Unearned, imperfect, relentless…and worth every damn step.

Author’s Note: This is one of many chapters. Some names, details, and timelines have been intentionally blurred for privacy—and for peace. The point isn’t perfection. The point is truth, as I lived it.