Reading: #73: Reinventing By Moving To A New City (Lesley Jane Seymour)

When your adult children have finally moved on to their own lives, some women find the only way to jumpstart their own bliss is by relocating. “I’d always imagined we’d live forever in our big, beautiful suburban home where I’d given birth to my daughter two days after moving in 24 years earlier,” says CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour in conversation with Covey Editor at Large, Deborah Marquardt. “But once she and my older son had vacated the nest, the house felt like a mausoleum to sadness; every inch reminded me of their childhood and reinforced how they were now finally gone. Plus the town is so kid-focused that I could walk down the street naked and if I didn’t have a child with me no one would notice.” Seymour and her husband downsized in New Orleans, a city they’d visited on vacation for 30 years. “We wanted warm weather, a university town — where we can teach or learn, interesting culture, diversity of age and economic backgrounds, beautiful housing, a lower cost of living, and people open to newbies. We got them all — and more. Plus we have a 31-year old marriage. Sometimes you just have to jump off the high dive in order to start learning and rediscovering yourself — and your spouse — again.”