MEET NANCY

Writer, Business Owner, Wife, Mother, Stepmother, Grandmother, and Fellow Chickadee

I did not write this book because I had everything figured out.

I wrote it because I needed to read it.

For much of my life, I knew how to work hard, take responsibility, care for others, and keep going. I built a successful career, raised a family, navigated painful relationships, experienced the ending of a twenty-one-year marriage, and began rebuilding a life I had not expected to live.

I learned how easy it can be for a woman to become defined by what she provides, what she accomplishes, and what other people need from her.

I also learned that beginning again does not mean everything before it was wasted.

There came a time when I had to stop blaming, waiting, and hoping that someone else would hand my life back to me. I had to become a faithful steward of the woman I was becoming.

That process was not quick, polished, or painless. It required me to look honestly at my health, my relationships, my beliefs, my boundaries, my joy, and the ways I had made myself smaller.

But little by little, I began to hear my own voice again.

My life today includes my husband, Patrick, our family, our animals, our farm, my State Farm agency, flower-filled tables, meaningful conversations, unexpected adventures, and a growing commitment to multiply joy wherever I can.

It is not a perfect life.

It is a life I am present for.

I am sharing these lessons because I believe there are women everywhere who are still caring, still carrying, still trying—and quietly wondering whether there is more of themselves waiting to be found.

There is.

You are still there.

—Nancy Fitzgerald