How to Figure Out What You Want After Years of Caring for Everyone Else

Wine helps. Just kidding.

Mostly.

After years of caring for everyone else, your life can become a running checklist of everyone else’s needs:

• Getting kids to games, appointments, practices, and school events
• Fixing dinner after a long day
• Managing the house
• Keeping track of schedules
• Remembering who needs what and who likes what
• Making decisions around everyone else’s routines
• Holding it together even when you are exhausted

Then one day, the house gets quieter.

Maybe the kids are grown. Maybe you are divorced. Maybe life shifted in a way you never expected. Maybe you are still working, still managing a household, still handling responsibilities — but now it is just you.

And suddenly, this weird question is staring you in the face:

What do I actually want?

Not what does everyone else need. Not what will keep the peace. Not what makes sense for the family. Not what someone else thinks you should do.

What would I choose if nobody else had an opinion?

What do I want?

And honestly?

I had no damn idea.

When Life Doesn’t Look Like You Thought It Would

When I got divorced, circumstances happened. I lived with family for a short time. Then I moved to another state and lived with my daughter and son-in-law.

That was not exactly where I pictured myself at 50.

I thoroughly enjoyed living with them, and I am grateful for that time, but it was also hard not having my own home. For the first time in my adult life, I had space to think. I had time to notice what I wanted without someone else’s opinion hanging over me.

And that sounds like freedom, right?

It was.

But it was also confusing.

When you have spent years caring for everyone else, making decisions for everyone else, and adjusting yourself around everyone else, you can lose track of your own preferences.

I didn’t just wonder what I wanted to do with my life.

I wondered what my favorite color was.

That sounds crazy, I know. Like, “Come on, Sheri. You know what color you like.”

But I really didn’t.

Coming Back to a House Full of Memories

I got the house in the divorce and eventually moved back into our family home. It was the first time in my life I had ever lived alone.

I remember standing in that house, looking around at the place that held so many memories. I felt everything at once: happy, sad, relieved, overwhelmed, proud, and exhausted.

It was my house.

But it didn’t fully feel like me yet.

And I did not know where to start, so I started with the only thing I did know.

I started with what I didn’t like.

Start With What You Don’t Like

The living room had been painted yellow above the chair rail probably 20 years ago. As a family, we had picked what was supposed to be a light yellow.

Well, over the years, that light yellow somehow turned into full-blown yellow cab.

And I do not care for yellow.

The kitchen was a different yellow. More like dirty mustard. Also not a favorite.

So there I was, staring at these walls thinking, “Nope. This is not it.”

I had painted before, but I had never really done it the right way. I had mostly just slapped paint on walls and hoped for the best.

This time, I decided I was going full tilt.

I watched YouTube videos. I read about paint colors. I learned about preparing walls, primer, brushes, rollers, lighting, and undertones — all the stuff you don’t think matters until you are standing in a room with twelve gray paint samples on the wall wondering why one looks purple, one looks blue, and one looks like wet cement.

Choosing a color was exhausting.

But eventually, I primed the big room. Then I moved into the kitchen. And slowly, little by little, I started taking back the space.

Not in some dramatic movie-scene way.

More like a woman in old clothes, covered in paint, trying not to step in the tray while wondering what she got herself into.

Then Came the Deck

Another thing I discovered was that I love my backyard and being on my deck.

The deck is at least 30 years old. A few years back, we had put under-decking underneath it that was supposed to drain water away.

Except it drained toward the house.

Helpful.

That stuff was causing damage, and I knew it needed to come down. So one warm summer day, I decided I was doing it myself.

Let me tell you, it was a big, spider-infested project.

Halfway through, I took a video and basically had one of those, “Oh my gosh, what have I done?” moments.

But I kept going.

And I got it down.

Then I bought a sander and a power washer. I sanded. I washed. I sanded some more. Then I stained that deck with a brush.

A brush.

Not exactly a small weekend project.

But with every board I worked on, I felt a little more like myself. I was tired, sweaty, probably irritated, and covered in whatever comes off a 30-year-old deck — but I was doing it.

For me.

The Bedroom Border That Had to Go

Then there was the bedroom.

It still had this very 90s wallpaper border that had probably been there since the house was built in 1989.

That border had to go.

There was also a shutter on the inside of my bathroom window that I was determined to remove. The border was a pain, but the shutter caused a full-blown meltdown.

Not a cute little frustrated sigh.

A real “why is this stupid thing still attached to this stupid window” kind of meltdown.

But I got it off.

Then I painted my bedroom the color I finally realized — again — that I loved.

Aqua. Teal. That beautiful blue-green color that feels calm but still has personality.

My personality.

No one else’s.

And that was it.

That was the color.

That was what I loved.

Teal Became More Than a Color

Once I figured out that I loved aqua and teal, I started seeing how much I wanted that color around me.

I painted the window wells a beautiful teal. I started adding that color throughout the house. Not because anyone else liked it. Not because it matched some interior design rule. Not because it was trendy.

Because I liked it.

That may sound small, but it wasn’t.

Choosing a paint color became the catalyst for choosing other things.

It helped me realize that finding yourself again does not always start with a huge life plan. Sometimes it starts with a wall color you hate. A room that doesn’t feel right. A deck that needs work. A border that has been annoying you for years.

Sometimes you figure out what you like by finally admitting what you don’t.

The Little Things Matter Too

Once I started paying attention, I noticed more.

I like having a light on in my bedroom before it gets dark so I am not walking into a dark room.

I like all the doors closed when I go to bed — closets, cabinets, dresser drawers. Shut them all.

I like watching a storm roll in while drinking a cold beverage on my deck.

I like doing laundry just for me. Notice I said like, not love. Let’s not get carried away.

I like being able to go to the gym at 9 p.m. on a Friday if that is what I feel like doing.

I enjoy the silence when I walk into my house after being away.

Not lonely silence.

Peaceful silence.

I like walking barefoot in my yard.

I like staying up late to finish a project without judgment.

I like knowing that if I make a mess working on something, it is my mess. If I change my mind, I can change it. If I want teal window wells, teal window wells it is.

There is something powerful about realizing you do not have to explain every little thing anymore.

You Don’t Have to Know Everything Right Away

If you are in a season where you are trying to figure out what you want after years of caring for everyone else, please know this:

You are not weird if you don’t know.

You are not behind.

You are not broken.

You may have spent decades making life work for other people. That takes love, strength, organization, sacrifice, and a whole lot of mental load nobody sees.

So if you finally get some space and think, “Now what?” — that makes sense.

You may not immediately know what you want your life to look like. You may not know your style. You may not know what hobbies you enjoy. You may not know what kind of home feels peaceful. You may not even know what color you like.

Start smaller.

Start with what makes you cringe.

Start with what drains you.

Start with what makes you say, “I hate that.”

That ugly wall color? Start there.

That cluttered corner? Start there.

That routine that no longer fits your life? Start there.

That thing you have kept because someone else liked it? Start there.

You do not have to reinvent your whole life in one weekend. You just need one honest place to begin.

The Best Way to Find What You Like

The best way I have found to figure out what you like after years of caring for everyone else is this:

First, figure out what you don’t like.

That sounds simple, but it works.

When you remove what feels wrong, you create space for what feels right.

When you stop living with things just because they have always been there, you start noticing what actually fits you now.

When you stop asking, “What will everyone else think?” and start asking, “Do I even like this?” — that is where you begin to come back to yourself.

For me, it started with yellow walls, dirty mustard paint, a spider-infested deck project, a stubborn bathroom shutter, and a 90s wallpaper border that had overstayed its welcome.

It led me to teal.

It led me to peace.

It led me back to myself, one project at a time.

And if you are in that place too, start there.

Start with one thing you don’t like anymore.

Change it.

Then pay attention to what shows up next.