First Claim

There is a void. And there isn't.

That's the part I can't explain.

My children don't need me the way they once did. The life I spent decades building around motherhood has become quieter, and sometimes that quiet feels enormous.

But my life isn't empty. Far from it.

I'm in love. I'm traveling. I'm climbing mountains. I'm writing. I'm discovering pieces of myself I didn't have room for when everyone needed something from me.

So perhaps what I'm feeling isn't a void.

Maybe it's space.

And maybe I haven't learned yet that space doesn't always have to be filled.

For the first time in my adult life, no one has first claim to my available space anymore.

Somewhere between Colorado and Houston, I realized I wasn't homesick for a place.

I was homesick for two different versions of myself.

One was the woman I'd been for most of my adult life—the mother whose children needed her, whose house held everyone's things, whose purpose was rarely something she had to question.

The other woman was newer. She slept under the stars in Utah. She hiked mountains. She watched the man she loves jump off a perfectly good cliff and wondered briefly whether loving him should require additional insurance.

I don't know yet which one is my next chapter.

Maybe that's the problem.

Maybe I've been assuming I have to choose between them.

Houston holds so much of who I've been. My children. My home. Decades of memories and life around being needed.

Colorado holds something different—love, mountains, adventure, and pieces of myself I'm only beginning to discover.

Maybe my dogs will be there. My things will be there. I'll write there, establish my own routines there. It won't be simply another visit or the place I escape to. Pieces of Houston will come with me, because I will come with me.

Maybe I don't have to abandon the woman I've been to discover the woman I'm becoming.

I love the outdoors. That doesn't mean I have any particular desire to throw myself off the side of it.

My love and our friends climb. They rappel off cliffs. Apparently standing at the top of a perfectly good mountain and admiring the view isn't enough for these people.

So I hiked with them.

And while they strapped themselves into a harness and did their daredevil shit, I found my own piece of Utah, opened Hemingway's Men Without Women, and read.

I didn't feel left out.

I didn't need to become them to belong there.

I can share my available space without giving someone else first claim to it.

Maybe this next chapter isn't about deciding who gets first claim. Maybe it's about finally realizing I already have it.