Living with Zen: Finding Peace Through Life's Transitions

Transition doesn’t check your age, job title, or family status. It arrives whenever life decides to shift—whether you’re leaving home for the first time, watching someone you love step into a new chapter, or quietly changing on the inside while everything on the outside looks the same.

For some of us, transition doesn’t arrive all at once. It comes in stages. Certain chapters have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Others blur into each other, overlapping seasons of who we’ve been and who we’re becoming.

One of the biggest transitions in my life is happening right now with my son, Maui, who is now a freshman in college. When I first started blogging, he had just been born. Now he’s living and studying in Massachusetts, far away from our home in Florida. The span between those two moments holds so many lives I’ve lived.

Before having Maui, I spent much of my time in motion—traveling overseas to work with jewelry and gemstone factories and pearl farms. I was on planes quarterly for international trips and monthly for domestic ones, always moving, always managing.

When he arrived, everything shifted. The center of gravity in my life changed. I became an all‑in, all‑done mommy who also happened to be running a corporation. My roles didn’t disappear; they rearranged themselves. My days were suddenly filled with feedings and emails, lullabies and logistics, bedtime stories and business plans.

That, too, was a transition in stages—learning to move from one role to another, sometimes gracefully, sometimes clumsily, all within the same day.

His Transition, Too

This hasn’t only been a transition for me. It’s been a big change for Maui, too.

He’s not just “away at school.” He’s in a completely new state, in Massachusetts, far from the familiar heat and rhythms of home in Florida. He’s learning to build a life there: new friends, new routines, new responsibilities, new versions of himself that don’t need me in quite the same ways they used to.

From my side of the relationship, I feel the ache of that distance. From his side, there is the excitement and uncertainty of stepping into adulthood—figuring out who he is, what he wants, and how to stand on his own two feet.

Watching him navigate this has reminded me that transition isn’t reserved for any one age or stage. It happens to all of us, over and over again:

• A child leaving home.
• A parent redefining life after caregiving.
• A career shifting directions.
• A relationship beginning, ending, or changing shape.

Transition is part of being alive. At any age and at any stage, we are always, in some way, learning how to let go of what was and gently meet what is becoming.

Preparing for the Next Beginning

Parenting keeps changing as your child grows, and we change with it—through newborn nights, school years, teenage seasons. I’ve transitioned through those stages over the years, but nothing quite prepared me for the quiet that comes after your child actually leaves home.

Now that Maui is away at college in Massachusetts and I’m here in Florida, I’m starting over in a new way—learning what life looks and feels like with more physical distance, more silence in the house, and new rhythms to my days.

Looking too far ahead can still feel overwhelming, so I come back to the same approach I’ve used in other seasons of transition: step by step, moment by moment. One small step, then another.

My hope—for you and for me—is that as we walk through these changes, we’ll gather beautiful memories along the way and gently prepare our hearts for whatever the next step looks like, in whatever form it arrives.