It was 6:30pm and I had just gotten in the door from taking my then 2 and a half year old to gymnastics. Those days were so busy; a new baby, a busy toddler and a husband who (at the time) was getting home from work each night as dinner was finishing. At times, life felt like a whirlwind and on those days my goal was simply, ‘survive the chaos’, as I knew that in a few months we would be out of the newborn phase and things would start to get easier again. I had lived this chapter of motherhood before, raising a tiny baby into a toddler and somewhere along the line had survived that first year of sleep deprivation. Through those sleepy days and reheated coffees, I loved my maternity leave and being with my babies every day, giving them all of me and soaking up those baby snuggles while watching Bubble Guppies with my toddler. But that maternity leave ended up being very different for our family.
One month after my youngest daughter was born my dad started having panic attacks. After trying a number of medications his doctor sent him for an MRI. Fast forward to that night after gymnastics. Rushing in the door with my girls, my dad Facetimed to say he had been called in to see his doctor that day – only one day after the MRI. His doctor had delivered the news that what he’d been experiencing wasn’t panic attacks after all, and that they had found a brain tumour that was likely cancerous. Cancer. Brain cancer. I can remember the words ‘brain cancer’ rattling through me. I sat on the stairs in shock while my dad reassured me everything would be okay and that he’d be fine.
Hanging up the call, I sat on the stairs as the chaos swirled in slow motion around me – the baby was crying, my oldest daughter needed a snack before bath time and my husband had just walked in the door. Looking around I wondered how I was going to raise my young family, return to my full time job after my maternity leave ended, and commute 2 hours every couple of weeks to the cancer hospital to be with my father. There were so many priorities pulling me in different directions and I had no idea how I was going to manage it all. My mind goes back to that night quite often – to the moment my whole world changed – and I often think about the person I was then and who I became after my dad passed away three years later.
Although I miss my dad everyday, his passing gave me a new perspective on life. I remember sitting by his bed on the night he died thinking to myself “His story has ended, but I still have the chance to write mine exactly the way I want it to be”, chaos and all. In the year following his death, I repeated that thought to myself often, taking a long hard look at who I was, what was important to me and what I wanted my life to be like. There were many things I loved and other things I knew I wanted to change. I used to be someone who took on more than I could handle, always being pulled in multiple directions and never feeling like I had time for what mattered most. I did things ‘just because’, following the status quo, and going through the motions without necessarily wanting to, but not knowing what I wanted instead. It was in that year that I decided to let go of the idea that life is supposed to be done in a certain way, and instead decided to create a certain life for myself and my family.
Whether you yourself are coming out on the other end of a storm that’s changed you, or you’re just ready to create your life the way you want it to be, I hope these tips help you navigate your way:
1. Give yourself grace.
Deciding you want things to be different and taking action to create that life for yourself can be hard. You may or may not get it right the first time around, so give yourself permission to test things out, to grow and to pivot as you discover more about yourself and what you want for your life.
In the weeks and months following my decision to let go of what I thought my life should be like, I changed my mind a million times as I discovered what I wanted it to be like. My first decision, craft Saturdays with the kids! Nope, too many sparkles to commit to each week. A gym membership so I could have time to myself as I got back to a healthy lifestyle! Nope, I really do prefer to workout at home and I honestly don’t consider exercising to be ‘me time’ (a healthy lifestyle should be something you make time for no matter what, if that’s important to you). No TV on the weekend for the kids! Who am I kidding, I desperately needed the short break that an episode or two provided. What I’m trying to say is, you may or may not know exactly what to do as you shape your life into what you want it to be – and that’s okay! I learned to roll with punches and go with the flow, if it worked and felt good in the moment then that was great, if it felt good that day but not the next then it was okay to change it up again. A plan is only as good as the results it produces, and it’s the results I care most about. Give yourself permission to do whatever feels right.
2. Live your values.
Have you ever intentionally considered what it is you value? When my life got turned upside down it was really hard for me to manage everything I was responsible for because I had never really stopped to think about what was most important to me, which left me unable to prioritize anything. When we were told my dad only had 4 months left to live and my stress hit an all-time high I started having panic attacks in my cubicle at work. I remember my best friend telling me that if my leg was broken I wouldn’t think twice about taking time off work to heal, yet for some reason it felt wrong to take time off to manage my stress level, be with my dad and ultimately lessen the load. After a number of people I cared about shared how worried they were about my stress, I decided to take a leave of absence from my job to focus on my family and my last few months with my dad. It was the best decision I ever made and the start of my journey toward living my values.
In the process of discovering what was important to me, I started by making a list of everything I cared most about and then challenged myself to consider whether each thing on the list was there because I truly valued it or because somewhere along the way I was told it needed to be important. Once I had my list, I chose my top 3 values and still refer to them to this day when making big decisions about my life. When you know what’s important to you it becomes easier to confidently make decisions that are right for you.
3. Even in the middle of chaos, try your hardest to pay attention to the things happening around you that bring joy to your life.
It was so hard during my 3 years as a caregiver to let myself feel joy because it almost felt like if I did, then I was being disloyal to my dad and his terminal illness. But what I learned is that feeling joy doesn’t lessen the rest of life’s worries. Joy amidst chaos is like that sudden warm day during the winter when the sun shines so brightly you wonder if spring is on its way, only to wake up the next day to a blizzard. It gives you a moment to pause just long enough to bank a memory that may serve you when the chaos mounts again. Feeling those moments of joy can also be a necessary reminder that good things can happen even during not-so-good times – there is a light at the end of every tunnel.
The last Christmas I had with my dad we made him his favourite meal – ribs and twice baked potatoes. His cancer had spread and he now needed a walker. He could only speak a few words but was always so full of expression that we still managed to know what he was thinking most of the time. As I stood mashing the potatoes I watched his eyes widen when he realized I was making twice baked. I paused in that moment of joy to soak up the look on his face as he pushed his walker to the side and started the slow process of standing on his own to be with me at the counter. I remember thinking that this would be the last time we ate Christmas dinner together, but that WOW, this was an awesome memory I’d cherish for the rest of my life. In that moment, I felt the joy that came from cooking my last Christmas dinner with my dad.
4. Your story is YOUR story.
It doesn’t matter who you were yesterday, last week or last year if it’s not who you want to be today. Your life is just that – YOURS. You don’t need permission to change or to decide to live your life differently. There will be people whose opinions matter to you and those whose lives might be affected by your decisions, but in the end only YOU get to decide what’s best for you.
After my dad passed it very quickly became clear that working a full-time job was no longer what was best for me or my family. After feeling like I missed out on some of the big moments of my girls’ life when my dad was sick, it was really important to me to be there for them moving forward. So, one year later I accepted a part-time position at my current workplace, giving up certain coveted benefits of full-time work and sacrificing elements of the life my family was used to living so I could work less hours. But for my husband and I, re-writing our story the way we wanted it to be included dropping off and picking up our kids every day from school and having the flexibility for at least one of us to be present for all of the moments that mattered. After I had accepted the new part-time job, there were people in our life who expressed their opinion about what they believed was right for us and our family, and what we should and shouldn’t be working to achieve. This is where understanding your values is so important. Although we were making a financial sacrifice for me to work part-time, we both valued time spent parenting our girls more than financial gain at this point in our lives. Knowing our values helped us confidently make a decision about what was best for us and how we wanted to live our life going forward. Even if the opinions of others are well-intentioned, no one knows what’s best for you and your life better than YOU. In those moments we simply smiled and thanked those people for caring so much about our family and our future.
As I write about this now, it’s been 4 years since my dad passed away. The chaotic days with managing both a toddler and a newborn have passed, my kids have grown taller and are (finally!) sleeping through the night. I’ve done the work to process my grief and feel deep gratitude for all that I learned about myself and the perspective on life that I gained from supporting my dad through his terminal illness.
No matter what you decide to do next, know that it’s never too late to start writing your story the way you want it to be and to start making decisions that are right for you. And if you’re ready to get started, we’ve got you covered through our free downloads.
You are in charge of where you go from here!
~Ashley
Join our email list to receive our latest blog posts, inspiration and ideas for designing a life you love!
