The day my son Andrew left for Virginia Tech (his brother Tom was already there), I went for my morning walk around Lake Thoreau in Reston.

A neighbor joined me, and when she heard both boys were at college, she asked, “Oooh, you must be so lonely, suffering from Empty Nest Syndrome?”

I smiled. “I don’t have an empty nest—I have an open nest.”

She blinked. “A what?”

“An open nest. Empty means no one’s home. But I’m here. My sons aren’t absent—they’re happy, healthy, and exactly where they’re supposed to be. We’re still part of each other’s lives. We’re all free to come and go.”

“Wow,” she said. “I never thought of it that way.”

Another woman at a recent event told me, “You know what I’ve realized? The reason I’m stuck is because I keep telling myself a story about how stuck I am.“

Bingo. The good news is – we can do things differently anytime we choose.

We can change for good as long as we update old habits today, not someday.