Then my relationship of 16 years ended and I was alone. It should have been terrifying \u2026 but it really wasn\u2019t. I realized I can do things on my own, my way, and my happiness is absolutely as important as anyone\u2019s.<\/p>\n

My oldest daughter and I went to Paris the first time about four years ago and were instantly addicted. At this point, she has lived there for three years. Her courage to just jump in made an impact on me. Now it feels natural to hop on a plane to hang out with her, or travel to new countries by myself, or experience the beauty of our own country. I\u2019ve finished hikes I never thought my body could handle and I\u2019m starting my masters in nursing. Who knows what I\u2019ll do next…<\/p>\n

Now my 15-year-old has a goal of attending college in Iceland. I love that they both want to do things that would have terrified me at their\u00a0age. But I also realized that my girls and I may never live on the same continent at the same time again. What comforts me is knowing no three females will ever be as close as we are.<\/p>\n

I was never able to picture myself at 40, probably because I didn\u2019t think there was anything worth picturing. But I\u2019m here and it\u2019s wonderful. I can be a good mom, take care of my responsibilities and still have the experiences I\u2019ve come to love.<\/p>\n

I can only imagine things getting even better, so bring on 50.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*Check out other pieces in my blog series celebrating<\/strong> our many different views of 39ish Life!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Love more,<\/p>\n

Dana<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u200eI find it difficult to write about myself without worrying it sounds arrogant. I\u2019ve made different choices than most but, to be clear, I don\u2019t think my choices are better. Just better for me. I had my two girls very young.\u00a0I\u2019m sure at that time most people thought my life was pretty much spelled out for me, and it was for a long time. I became a nurse and worked to pay for the \u201cnormal\u201d life with my significant other. I always knew something was just missing. That kind of life didn\u2019t make sense to me. Then my relationship of 16 years ended and I was alone. It should have been terrifying \u2026 but it really wasn\u2019t. I realized I can do things on my own, my way, and my happiness is absolutely as important as anyone\u2019s. My oldest daughter and I went to Paris the first time about four years ago and were instantly addicted. At this point, she has lived there for three years. Her courage to just jump in made an impact on me. Now it feels natural to hop on a plane to hang out with her, or travel to new countries by myself, or experience the beauty of our own country. I\u2019ve finished hikes I never thought my body could handle and I\u2019m starting my masters in nursing. Who knows what I\u2019ll do next… Now my 15-year-old has a goal of attending college in Iceland. I love that they both want to do things that would have terrified me at their\u00a0age. But I also realized that my girls and I may never live on the same continent at the same time again. What comforts me is knowing no three females will ever be as close as we are. I was never able to picture myself at 40, probably because I didn\u2019t think there was anything worth picturing. But I\u2019m here and it\u2019s wonderful. I can be a good mom, take care of my responsibilities and still have the experiences I\u2019ve come to love. I can only imagine things getting even better, so bring on 50.   *Check out other pieces in my blog series celebrating our many different views of 39ish Life! Love more, Dana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[23],"tags":[194,161,145,19,158,21,193],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.39ishlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Stephanie1-e1516204218310.jpg?fit=708%2C921&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":false,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7h0AN-38","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.39ishlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.39ishlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.39ishlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.39ishlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.39ishlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.39ishlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":787,"href":"https:\/\/www.39ishlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions\/787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.39ishlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.39ishlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.39ishlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.39ishlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}