Don’t you just love a good “Aha!” moment?  There’s nothing like that glorious instant of understanding when the “Huh?” becomes “Duh!”

Whether it’s a fact or formula that you’ve struggled to comprehend or an emotional breakthrough that crystallized what really matters to you, the newfound clarity is welcomed—if not downright celebrated.

At the age of 41, I’ve had enough of these light-bulb moments to pique the curiosity of aliens from galaxies far away who work tirelessly to crack the flashing code. 

But there’s one realization, in particular, that truly changed my life.

Five years ago, my husband and I uprooted our kids from our Bay Area hometown to move a few hours north-east to essentially live large for less. We moved into a bigger house with a smaller mortgage. We were giddy and probably more than a little smug by thinking our friends and neighbors were suckers for staying put in the land of crippling rents and house payments. We thought we had it all figured out.

We moved into that big house that felt even bigger when we had no one to invite over to it. In hindsight, I see this might have been an early flicker to my light-bulb moment that I couldn’t recognize until later. How ironic that we left a home that was too small to entertain all of our friends and family members in, and traded it for a big house with not one interested soul to invite over.

Somewhere on those loan documents for the new house was some implied text that explained we would be strangers in this new town, but we couldn’t possibly envision how this would feel.

The sense of isolation grew so strong for me that I was ripe for my lightning bolt of aha-osity. The jolt hit me inside the local Safeway as I cruised the aisles without seeing a single familiar face. This was such a contrast to my experiences at home, where I subconsciously built in 15 minutes of chat time when estimating how long it would take to buy groceries because I ran into so many friends and acquaintances I enjoyed.

So then it hit me—If I dropped dead right there in the snack aisle, would anyone even care once the mother of all clean-ups on aisle 7 was complete?

That was all it took to make me realize that I am a deep-root setter who needed to flush a commode clogging amount or realtor fees down the pipes and take my family back home where we belonged.

The beauty of this discovery was that it allowed me to stop dwelling on the perceived greener grass of other cities and, instead, make a concerted effort to appreciate and grow the level of connectedness I feel in my community. My efforts have slowly morphed into a full-fledged passion that I want to share with others, so that no one has to envision their lonely demise on aisle 7.