Maybe I Can® with Debbie Weiss

Ep. 128: Embracing Life's Unseen Transitions

• Debbie Weiss • Episode 128

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I wasn’t expecting to attend my son’s college graduation alone. But there I was—proud, emotional, and deeply aware of who was missing.

In this episode of the Maybe I Can podcast, I share what it felt like to face a moment that should’ve been joyful… but also brought up grief and reflection. Life has a way of shifting underneath us—sometimes without our permission—and I know I’m not the only one who’s had to figure out how to move forward from something I didn’t choose.

✨ If you’re navigating an empty nest, coping with loss, or simply feeling unsure about what’s next, this one’s for you.

💬 I talk about:

  • The emotions that surfaced sitting alone at graduation
  • How I’m learning to honor what’s missing while still showing up
  • The pain and power of transitions
  • Why I believe even now… maybe I can

You are not alone. And even when life surprises you, there’s still hope—and strength—on the other side.

JOIN THE WAITLIST for my new Group Coaching Program! 
https://www.debbierweiss.com/workwithdebbie

👇 Timestamps
0:00 Intro
1:15 Sitting alone at graduation
4:42 When transitions choose us
9:10 Embracing life’s pivots
14:25 Maybe I can… even now
19:03 Final thoughts

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Speaker 1:

Hi and welcome back to the Maybe I Can podcast. I'm your host, debbie Weiss, and thank you so much for tuning in. Whether it's your first time or you've been here before, I want you to know how much I really appreciate it, because I know how many podcasts there are out there, because I am an avid listener myself, so truly, truly appreciate it. Today I am here to talk about embracing life's transitions, because the one thing we know is that change is the only constant. Things in our lives, in our worlds, in every aspect, are always changing. It's actually when things stay stagnant that really our life becomes stagnant. But sometimes we just are excited about those transitions. Other times we don't see them coming and they're really a gut punch. And you know, sometimes actually and you know sometimes actually, probably most of the time even if we're excited, there's a lot of fear that comes with a big life transition. And the reason that I chose to talk about this today is because it is Memorial Day that I'm recording this and I just got back yesterday or the day before from my youngest son's college graduation and it was really an incredible experience. As a matter of fact, I don't know if you possibly had seen, if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook.

Speaker 1:

I made a video prior to me going to the graduation saying that it was bittersweet because, of course, my husband wouldn't be there. For those of you who don't know, he passed away almost two and a half years ago now. It was December 30th 2022, when my son was just in the middle of his sophomore year, and so, of course, that's one thing that made it bittersweet. But the other thing that I was concerned about was that I was afraid I was going to feel uncomfortable and extra sad because I was going alone. My older son couldn't come with me. My mom was in Florida. She wasn't able to come. I didn't have any other friends or family that they would have come, honestly, if I had quote unquote insisted, but I didn't want to do that, and so I was concerned about walking into. He graduated from a big university and so some of the graduations there were actually three ceremonies that he was a part of, but two of them were pretty big and they were in their football stadium and just the idea of me walking in alone, being amongst all of those families, I thought would be uncomfortable, and I was. I don't want to say I was dreading it because I was very excited for my son and so proud of what he's accomplished, and to see how he's grown in these last four years is just beyond, especially when looking back at some of those pictures from his freshman year. It's amazing at this stage of life how much you change in such a short time, just like in high school too, right. I can remember driving my older son into high school, dropping him off when he was in ninth grade and looking at other students who had full beards and mustaches and thinking, oh my goodness, I'm dropping my little baby off, like in this world of men. And you know, here we are eight years later and he's turned into a wonderful young adult. I'm happy to say that things turned out much better than I anticipated.

Speaker 1:

I'm very proud of myself that I didn't really focus in on the being alone part and actually I kind of embraced a little bit of the being alone part because there is an upside I could really go whenever I wanted. It was a lot easier for me to get a good seat. You know how people leave like that one seat in between your party and the next, hoping nobody comes. Well, yeah, I got the good seat and I really didn't have to answer to anyone, and when my son was off partying with his friends and I was hanging out in my hotel room by myself, I actually really embraced it. I worked a little, I read a little, I watched some Netflix movies. I door dashed my dinner one night and I actually thought this is kind of nice. It's different than being home, because when you're home there's always a task, a chore, a something, but here not so much. So I'm proud of myself. I actually enjoyed it, and I can't remember exactly what my father used to say, but it was something about like the anticipation of the event is always worse than the event itself, and that is definitely what happened here. So congratulations to Ben, to all his amazing friends.

Speaker 1:

I'm very excited to see where life takes you and you know college graduation, getting married, becoming a parent, sending your kid off to college, right, becoming a parent, sending your kid off to college right, Becoming an empty nester these are kind of transitions that we want to happen, right. Even though they're a big transition, they're most of the time very exciting and you know what we really think of as the path of life. So they're not unexpected. They're things that we look forward to. It could also be, you know, getting promoted or getting a new job, changing careers or retiring, like these are all pretty common things that we usually see and prepare for. They're easier to plan for and they're easier to navigate because they're typical, right.

Speaker 1:

But then there's those unexpected and or unwanted transitions. It could be that you got fired or laid off from a job. It could be that you are suddenly dealing with an illness right out of the blue. And you know, when I say that I was thinking to myself. Whenever I think about a sudden illness, I really do always think about something that is, you know, either terminal or really serious, or you know you're afraid that it's you're going to die from, whatever this illness is.

Speaker 1:

But back in my mid-30s I had an illness that hit me out of the blue that changed my life, or should I say an injury? At the time I was playing tennis, from I don't know, probably three or four times a week Doubles, not singles, but three or four times a week. And back then, gary, my husband and I, we were probably playing golf once a week, maybe going to the driving range, and I used to play tennis. I say competitively, I don't mean like I'm a really good tennis player. It was an adult league and I was on a team and we would go and play against other clubs, that kind of thing and I started to have back pain and at first, you know, I thought, oh, I must have twisted something, slept wrong.

Speaker 1:

Long story short, two years later the pain had intensified so much so that I had to stop playing everything. I was going to doctors. Nobody could really tell me what it was and you know, I would get sent to go to physical therapy, try an injection in your back, and none of those things worked. And it got so bad that I could not even stand or walk for more than a minute or two. I remember going to a wake and there were no seats and I was standing in a group of people and tears were streaming down my face because the pain was so unbearable. I actually sat on the floor in the funeral home because that would alleviate my pain. In the end I wound up needing a spinal fusion and I think I was I don't know maybe 34, 35, 34 or 35 when that happened, and it was a birth defect that I never knew about. And over time, as I grew and you know, I also struggled with my weight, which I'm sure was a contributing factor. It caused a piece of bone to be pressing on a nerve and that's two years Like that upended my life.

Speaker 1:

I mean tennis, honestly, that was like it was my full-time hobby Besides work. I didn't have any kids at the time. This was what I did. This is kind of like it was my identity and the idea that I lost that was devastating tennis and never was able to do so at the same level or same intensity. And I had my hips replaced and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and I finally said you know what? It's not worth it anymore. And I got past that and I developed new identities and new hobbies and all the things. But that was something that was completely unexpected and unwanted. That really did change my life. Naturally, when we think of unexpected or unwanted things, it is developing some kind of very serious illness Losing a loved one.

Speaker 1:

As I mentioned, I lost my husband two and a half years ago, unexpected. He had been ill two and a half years ago, unexpected he had been ill. He had actually been ill with all different things for many, many years but then unexpectedly was diagnosed with a terminal blood cancer unrelated to any of his other illnesses that rocked our world. I mean, what? How could this be unrelated? This is not something that I want. How do I become a widow 59 years old? This is not the plan. This was not the plan. Right, it's never the plan. But it's so funny because we all know that eventually we're going to die. We all know we don't know when that day will come, but you just never think it's going to happen to you and it has to happen to someone, and it can happen to any of us. Right, and not something that we wanted.

Speaker 1:

And you know, you walk around in the beginning feeling like, why me? This is so unfair, it is jarring. There are just so, so many emotions that you go through and, in the end, emotions that you go through, and in the end, I think that this is when you really have to dig deep down. And I'm not saying don't feel the grief. And I'm not saying that it's not fair. I'm not saying any of those things, but I feel this has forced me.

Speaker 1:

My husband's death forced me to go through a transition. I was actually already, I had already started down that path, but it forced me to grow in so many other areas of my life that I didn't want to. I didn't want to learn about things that I wasn't interested in, that he took care of, and I didn't want to go to places by myself and I didn't want to and I didn't want to do a whole list of things. And there's still a whole list of things I don't want to do. But I've proven to myself that I can do them. And now I'm a different person and now I am trying to reimagine a life that I never imagined before.

Speaker 1:

It also can happen if you get divorced or, you know, if you're not married but you're with your partner for a very long time and you lose that significant relationship. I mean, it's the same kind of feeling like you're part of a couple for so long and you have shared dreams, and now you find yourself after all these years that it's just you, and where do you go from here? It does force you to transform in ways that you never wanted to, but I do believe that in the end not that it's a gift, I'm not saying it's a gift I would do absolutely anything to have my husband back here in a second, as long as he was healthy, right, as long as he was healthy, I would want him back here in a second. As long as he was healthy, right, as long as he was healthy. I would want him back here in a second. But I am proud of the person that I have thus far transformed into and will continue to transform.

Speaker 1:

And then sometimes there's transitions that we just don't really think about, like maybe it's relocating to a new place. I'll tell you, I watch HGTV and House Hunters all the time and I'm always amazed at people who relocate so easily and readily, because growing up, oh my goodness, I was very set in my ways. I, you know, lived in the same house since I was a baby and my parents came to me when I was like 15 or 16 years old and they said they wanted to move. And not only did they want to move, they wanted to move to a completely different town and send me to a completely different high school, and I freaked out A meltdown. So in the end thank you Mom, thank you Dad, hopefully you're listening I won them over and we moved, but we actually stayed within the same school district.

Speaker 1:

So my point being people don't often have that choice. People have to relocate for work, or maybe they retire. Maybe that's what you want to do. I mean, I think about now? I've lived in the same area for about I don't know maybe 29 years. This is my home, this is my hometown, I have my places, my doctors. You know the whole routine.

Speaker 1:

And when you upend that, even if it's something that you want to do, it kind of forces you to transform, becoming an empty nester. You know, now my youngest son is back under my roof. I don't know how long he'll be here, but I'm very happy to have him back. And my older son still lives with me, so I am not a true empty nester. However, even though they live here, they both have their own lives, which is kind of different, right, when you raise your kids for so many years, your life evolves, revolves around them and their schedule, and all of a sudden that stops and they're driving and they have their own friends and their own jobs and their own lives and they don't need you anymore and that's what we want, right, that's, you know, the idea of parenthood. But it leaves kind of like a set of mixed emotions where they're just off and now you're trying to figure out what do I do with my life?

Speaker 1:

Because for so long it was about them and what do I want it to be about? It's kind of like the transition I have gone through and that I hope to inspire you to go through is the changing of my mindset. Is the changing of my mindset discovering new passions and careers and hobbies and really going within to say, okay, how much time do I have left? I don't know, but all I know is that I am now going to start living purposefully. I am going to take a look and see what are my dreams, what are my desires and what can I do to move myself in that direction. Because I don't want to be that person who gets to the end of my life and is there with regrets for the things I didn't do or I didn't try or I did everything what anybody else told me to do. No, I want to be there for my loved ones, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

But my trajectory now is my own personal reinvention. What do I want to be doing? Pursuing hobby-wise, travel-wise, love life, whatever it is, every single aspect of my life. I now have the opportunity to transform and reinvent life and that's what I have been doing, and it requires so much self-reflection and you know, I really didn't understand in the beginning, just what doing the work quote unquote meant. And now, after doing the work for many years.

Speaker 1:

And now, after doing the work for many years, I completely, completely understand, because so many of our thoughts are subconscious. We don't even know half the time what we're thinking, what we desire. And it takes work, it takes slowing down, it takes being intentional, it takes listening to podcasts, reading books, joining groups, finding a mentor, finding other people who are kind of like on that same journey as you. Because, let me tell you, so often my friends and family, especially in the beginning, they looked at me like I was absolutely crazy, because they weren't in the same place that I was. And the only thing that's really moved me forward is making sure that I'm always in the room, and most of the time.

Speaker 1:

Nowadays, by the way, it's not a physical room, it's a virtual room, but I make sure to put myself in rooms with other people who are on this same journey, trying to figure out what do I want, how do I get there, what, who am I right? What am I good at? What do I want the rest of my life to look like, life to look at, look like. And it's about finding that support. Looking within ourselves, regardless of where we are in any of these transitions Transitions either unexpected and not good they really are an opportunity to reinvent yourself and to grow.

Speaker 1:

Even when it doesn't come with an invitation, not what you wanted it's really how we navigate these transitions, because they're going to come. They're going to come whether we want them to come or not, and so when they do, let's make sure to make the most of them. As I wrap up today's episode, I want to encourage you to think about your own transition, those you've faced, the ones you're going through now and even the ones you're preparing for in the future. And remember, it's all about embracing change and growing through it.

Speaker 1:

If you're ready to take the next step in your own journey and navigate your transitions with more clarity and confidence, I invite you to join my upcoming small group coaching program, sprinkle Forward, a guided coaching journey. It's specifically designed for women ready to take charge of their lives, build resilience and embrace new possibilities. It begins in July and the spots are going to be limited, because I myself, personally, have found that small groups are the best for something like this. We want to make a safe place where everyone feels comfortable sharing their vulnerabilities and, like I said, I found that being in these rooms, where everybody is on the same path and the same page and we can all support each other through it, is invaluable. So to get all the details and join the wait list, just head to the link in the show notes. You don't have to go through this journey alone. Let's sprinkle some courage and possibility into your life together. Thank you so much. Keep sprinkling all those wonderful colors and I'll see you next week.

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Debbie Weiss

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