After Life Changes: How Ordinary Days Help Us Find Our Way Back to Living
The Ordinary Days That Sustain Us Through Life's Chapters
One sunset at a time.
For the past few years, I’ve written often about transitions.
Our lives are full of them: loss, divorce, retirement, health changes, job or career endings, moving between places, adopting a puppy, doing things alone for the first time without a life partner, and the deaths of significant people.
These are the moments that divide life into “before” and “after.” They deserve our attention because they change us.
But recently I’ve been wondering if we spend too much time focusing on the milestones and not enough time talking about what comes next.
Because most of life isn’t a milestone.
Most of life is just a lot of little stuff—tasks necessary for existence.
It’s the finance meeting that needs to be scheduled.
The hearing aid appointment.
The pantry that finally gets organized after weeks—or years—of putting it off.
The outdoor furniture cushions that need to be tied down before the summer storms.
Cleaning the garage to unload a lifetime accumulation of junk.
The grocery order.
The dog food.
The walk.
The goose family.
The sunset.
Nobody puts those things in their obituary.
Yet these things are where life is actually lived.
After my husband Bill died, I expected grief to be the story. And for a long time, it was. For a while, I wasn’t interested in much beyond remembering. I lived with the memories of our together times.
But grief isn’t what fills most days now.
What fills most days is:
Deciding what to eat for dinner.
Paying bills.
Taking care of Percy.
Calling family.
Watching the weather.
Maintaining two homes.
Remembering to charge my watch.
Life continues to arrive disguised as ordinary tasks.
And I’ve begun to think there is something important about that.
We often assume meaning lives in the big moments.
The promotion.
The wedding.
The retirement.
The move.
The diagnosis.
The loss.
But what if meaning is built somewhere else?
What if a meaningful life is largely made up of things that don’t seem meaningful at the time?
A few days ago, I watched a family of geese making their way across the water and up the shore.
Another evening, I stayed outside long enough to see a gray day end in a brilliant pink sunset.
This week, I finished organizing a pantry that had been bothering me for several years.
Today, I framed and hung my first watercolor painting from my first painting class.
I held Percy last night while we watched, and he barked at the orange sliver of the moon sinking into the lake.
None of these moments changed my life.
Yet each one made my life feel more complete.
The same is true of people I share time with.
A dinner with family outdoors in a restaurant built in a former sanitarium, and my first taste of a smoked Manhattan.
A conversation with a friend on my porch.
A phone call with my sister in Chicago, Colorado, or Munising.
A chat with a woman who stopped to pet Percy and share with me her dog’s death, as I walked on a St. Petersburg street
A brief exchange with a woman who delivered flowers and warned me to watch Percy outside because an eagle stole her twenty-year-old dog.
These moments rarely announce themselves as important. We usually recognize their value only later.
Perhaps that’s why we almost overlook them.
We’re looking for significance when what we need is attention.
The older I get, the more I suspect that a meaningful life isn’t built from dramatic moments alone.
It’s built from small acts of care repeated over time.
Taking care of our homes.
Taking care of our health.
Taking care of our relationships.
Taking care of the responsibilities that arrive each day, whether we feel inspired or not.
Not because these things are exciting.
Because they sustain us.
They create the conditions that allow us to keep showing up for what matters.
Maybe that’s the part nobody talks about.
Not the transition.
Not the rebuilding.
But the ordinary days that follow.
After life changes, ordinary days are how we find our way back to living.
One pantry.
One walk.
One family dinner.
One sunset at a time.
The days filled with lots of little stuff.
The days that quietly become our lives.
Thank you for reading and for sharing this season of life with me.
One of the lessons I’m still learning is that life doesn’t usually return through dramatic moments. More often, it returns quietly—in familiar routines, ordinary responsibilities, unexpected conversations, and small moments of beauty that ask only to be noticed.
As you move through your week, I hope you’ll notice one ordinary moment that reminds you life is quietly unfolding around you. It might be a walk, a conversation, a family meal, a favorite view, or simply someone—or something—that makes you smile.
If this reflection resonated with you, please consider sharing it with someone who is navigating a major life transition. We rarely know what another person is carrying, and sometimes the gentle reminder that ordinary days still matter is exactly what someone needs to hear.
I also share shorter reflections throughout the week in Substack Notes about values, ordinary life, Percy, books, beauty, and the everyday moments that continue to teach me what matters most. This week, I wondered whether I was enough for Percy after his best friend went home. His answer surprised me.
Until next week,
Susan
What ordinary moment has quietly sustained you lately? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.