September has felt like a month of firsts for me. Some of them have been tiny, almost ordinary moments that could easily pass unnoticed if I wasn’t paying attention. Yet those are often the moments that land the hardest. Last weekend, my daughter, who has just turned ten, brought me a cup of coffee in bed. A friend helped her with the hot water, but the rest was all her: the idea, the excitement, the careful walk upstairs, the pride on her face as she handed it to me. I genuinely cannot remember the last time anyone brought me coffee in bed, and there was something about that small act of love that stopped me in my tracks.
At the same time, another first has arrived. She has started at a new primary school and no longer really wants or needs me to walk her right to the gate. I can open the car door, watch her get out and see her walk in by herself. Practically, it is freeing. No parking, no rushing across the road, no extra ten minutes added to the morning. Emotionally, though, it is something else entirely. There is a little ache in watching your child become more independent, because every new freedom for them is also a tiny letting go for you.
Empty nests don’t arrive overnight
I know there are parents going through much bigger versions of this right now. Friends whose children have left for university, parents suddenly experiencing the quiet of an empty house and asking themselves what life looks like next. I am grateful that I am nowhere near that stage yet. My daughter is only ten and I still have years of school runs, activities, conversations, arguments, cuddles and chaos ahead. But I am beginning to understand that empty nests do not arrive overnight. The loosening starts much earlier, in small moments. They stop needing you to pour the cereal. They entertain themselves for an hour while you work. They walk into school without looking back.
And that is where motherhood can quietly turn the mirror back on us. When somebody needs you a little less, even in a healthy and completely normal way, you suddenly notice the parts of your own identity that have been pushed to the edges. Who am I between piano practice, hockey, drama, swimming, work, food shopping, laundry and keeping the whole machine moving? What makes me feel alive when nobody is asking me for something? What do I want to build, experience, learn or become simply because it matters to me?
What I see in the women I work with
I see versions of these questions in the women I work with all the time. Some are mothers reaching the empty-nest years. Some never had children, by choice or circumstance, but still arrive at a point in midlife where the old markers of success no longer feel enough. They have built careers, businesses, homes and lives that look good from the outside, yet find themselves asking: what am I actually striving for now? If I am working sixty or seventy hours a week, who or what is all of this for? What do I want the next chapter to feel like?
These questions are showing up in my own life too
Those questions are beginning to show up for me too. I am carving out time for fitness because it matters deeply to my physical and mental wellbeing. I am trying to build a business that supports my life rather than consuming it. I have even dipped my toe back into dating, which has forced me to confront another uncomfortable truth: as a single parent, availability and spontaneity are not always mine to offer. Being told that my limited availability made dating difficult hit harder than I expected. Not because I believe I should sacrifice my daughter or my responsibilities, but because it reminded me that there are parts of me, the woman, not just the mum, that want room too.
There is guilt in that as well. When I work while my daughter is home, even if she is perfectly happy and capable of entertaining herself, there is still a voice that says I should be making the most of every minute. I know how quickly childhood moves. I want to be present. Yet presence does not have to mean disappearing from my own life. Perhaps one of the things our children need to see is that their mothers are whole people too: people with work they care about, bodies they look after, friendships, ambitions, curiosity, joy and dreams that do not vanish when they become parents.
The real invitation in these little goodbyes
Maybe that is the real invitation in these little goodbyes. Not to mourn every new piece of independence, and not to rush our children backwards because we miss being needed, but to let their growth make room for ours. The coffee in bed was a first. Walking into school alone was another. There will be many more. I want to notice them, feel the tenderness of them and still allow them to be what they are: signs that I am raising a human being who is gradually becoming capable of standing in her own life.
And while she is becoming more of herself, perhaps I am being invited to do the same. I do not want to wait until the house is empty to ask who I am. I want to rediscover that woman now, in the middle of motherhood, in the small spaces between responsibilities. Not by abandoning the life I have built around my daughter, but by remembering that I belong inside that life too.
I don’t want to wait until the house is empty to ask who I am. I want to rediscover that woman now, in the middle of motherhood, in the small spaces between responsibilities.
With love,
Zoë x
Women’s Transformation Architect
Creator of The HER Method™
