Healing Through Adventure: Learning to Live Fully Again

There’s a quiet kind of courage in choosing a new life after nearly fifty-seven years in the same place. Not because you were running from anything… but because something inside you whispered, “You’re ready.”

That whisper is what brought me south into new landscapes, new rhythms, and new seasons of myself. And now, five years later as I prepare to turn sixty-two, I can look back and see how much that choice transformed me. Not all at once. Not with fireworks. But gently, steadily… with every step I took into something unfamiliar.

People often think healing only happens in moments of stillness. But for me, healing has come just as much through movement, walking new trails, discovering new places, letting myself explore without hesitation or apology. I spent so many years giving, caring, and making sure everyone else was okay. Somewhere along the way, I learned to make room for myself, too.

And maybe that’s why the trolls caught me by surprise.

Yes… trolls.

Just yesterday, my daughter, my grandson, and I visited a spot in North Carolina where traveling troll sculptures were on display along a series of winding, wooded trails. Huge, expressive, whimsical creatures tucked between trees and branches, waiting like gentle giants for visitors to find them.

It wasn’t a grand, life-changing adventure.
It wasn’t a bucket-list trip.
It was simply a day of wonder and somehow, that made it even more meaningful.

We walked the trails, letting curiosity guide us, and every time one of those trolls revealed itself through the leaves, it made all of us smile. Real smiles, the kind that light up your whole chest. The kind that reminds you you’re alive.

What struck me most wasn’t the trolls themselves but how easily I said yes to the experience. Years ago, I might have overthought it. I might have hesitated. I might have said, “Maybe next time.”

But now?
Now I say yes to moments, to experiences, to adventure in all its shapes and sizes.

Because somewhere along these five years living in the South, I discovered a truth that reshaped everything:

Healing doesn’t always look like mending wounds.
Sometimes it looks like expanding your world.

I’ve spent so much of this season exploring sometimes with family, sometimes on my own. Long drives. Quiet trails. New places. New routines. New parts of myself. I’m not afraid of going solo anymore. In fact, I often crave it. There’s something freeing about showing up for your own life, exactly as you are.

And yes, the trolls taught me something too.

One of the photos from that day shows me inside a woven rope net smiling, playful, completely unbothered. And the symbolism didn’t hit me until later.

I wasn’t stuck.
I wasn’t trapped.
I climbed in willingly.
And I climbed out just as easily.

That’s been the theme of this season of my life:
Choosing where I go, who I become, and what I say yes to.

I think back to the years before the move years of caregiving, responsibility, routine, and doing what needed to be done. I didn’t resent any of it. But I also didn’t realize how much space life still had waiting for me on the other side of all of that.

Moving south wasn’t an escape.
It was an opening.
A permission slip.
A promise to myself that I would keep growing, keep exploring, and keep choosing experiences that make me feel awake and present.

And now, as I look toward my sixty-second birthday, I can honestly say:
I am living life more fully now than I ever have before.

Adventure has become a form of nourishment for me just as much as stillness, or nature, or writing, or caregiving, or the work I do helping others find balance and strength again. It all weaves together into something I never expected: a life that feels both grounded and expansive at the same time.

This is what I want people navigating heavy seasons to know the mature-age community I guide, and anyone finding their way through life’s changes:

You don’t have to wait for the “right time” to choose yourself.
You don’t need a grand reason to explore.
You don’t have to justify wanting more life in your life.

Healing can look like walking a trail to find wooden trolls with your family.
It can look like taking a drive just because the sun feels good.
It can look like visiting a new place alone, simply to see what’s there.
It can look like saying yes to things you once brushed off.

And most of all…
healing can look like carrying love in a new way, a way that expands your world instead of shrinking it.

That has been the greatest gift of this season of my life:
I’ve learned that joy doesn’t replace what came before.
Adventure doesn’t erase the past.
New experiences don’t mean old ones didn’t matter.

They all intertwine.
They all count.
They all shape the person I continue to become.

So, yes this little troll adventure?
It felt like a reminder.
A nudge.
A wink from life saying, “There’s still so much here for you. Keep going.”

And I will.
Because five years ago, I chose to step into the path that was already laid before me trusting it, allowing it, and growing through every moment of it

If you’re reading this and you feel a tug toward something new, something lighthearted, something that sparks even a tiny bit of wonder… follow it. You don’t have to uproot your whole life. You don’t need a map or a plan. Just take one small adventure. Let yourself wander. Let yourself be surprised.

You deserve that.
We all do.

And who knows, maybe on some unexpected trail, in some unexpected moment, you’ll rediscover a piece of yourself that was waiting there all along.

“If this landed with you, there’s more of my story waiting to be discovered.
You can explore the full Widow to Wellness series, a collection of reflections, moments, and truths from my path of healing, growth, and choosing life again.”

👉 Continue reading the Widow to Wellness series: Click Here

In support,
Claudette Paulin Eames 🌿
Entrepreneur, Mentor & Certified Mental Wellness Coach
Supporting the mature-age community to rebuild calm & strength one gentle step at a time.