A personal introduction. Press play for sound.
Living alone doesn’t have to mean being lonely. I learned that the hard way.
The daily rhythm that gets you out of bed. The phone call you’ve been avoiding. The plan that makes staying in your home feel like a choice, not a sentence.
Instant download · 66 pages · Read on any device
Where This Started
The house got quiet, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
When Gerald passed, the house got quiet. Not peaceful quiet. The kind where you notice the refrigerator humming and try to remember the last time you said something out loud to another person.
I had thirty years of helping other families sort out their options. I still hadn’t sorted out my own. Two things I knew for certain: I didn’t want to move, and I didn’t want to turn into a woman who slowly disappeared inside her own house.
So I worked it out one season at a time. What I do before nine in the morning. Who I call on Sunday. What this house really costs me in a year, written down instead of guessed at. What my daughter needs to know before anybody has to decide something in a hurry.
This book is that. Not a system, not a program. Just what one woman living alone in Greensboro figured out.
“Solitude is a choice. Loneliness is what happens when you stop choosing.”
A Day With Marilyn
This is my daily rhythm. You can have it.
- 6:30I wake up and make coffee. Real coffee, in a real cup.
- Before 9I call someone. Not because I have to. The day goes better when I do.
- Mid-morningI walk. Same route, most days. People know me on it now.
- LunchI eat something I didn’t microwave.
- AfternoonOne thing for the house. One. Then I stop.
- EveningI write down one thing that went right.
That’s the whole system. It took me two years to build it, and it gave me my days back.
What’s In It
Six things I wish somebody had told me
These aren’t rules. They’re things I figured out, one Tuesday at a time.
- The morning routine that gets you out of bed with a reason.
- The phone call you keep putting off, and the words to start it.
- What your house actually costs, on one page, without guessing.
- The conversation your children need to have with you, even if nobody wants to.
- How to stay put without the house turning into a trap.
- When to ask for help, and who to ask first.
Who’s Writing
I’m Marilyn.
I’m 68. I live in the same house in Greensboro that Gerald and I bought in 1987. He’s been gone five years now, and I have no plans to sell.
I spent thirty years helping families through senior living: front desk, then admissions, then move-ins. I saw what works and what falls apart. It wasn’t until I was on my own that I understood how hard it is to ask for help, or even to know what help to ask for.
I’m not a doctor and I’m not a therapist. I’m a woman who learned something about living alone by doing it, and I wrote it down because my friends kept asking.
— Marilyn
The Book
Living Alone, Not Lonely
66 pages · 10 chapters · Instant download
- The daily rhythm that keeps you connected
- The money conversation nobody wants to have
- What to do before a crisis, not after
- How to stay in your home, and when to consider something else
Read it for thirty days. If it hasn’t earned its $17, ask me for a refund and you’ll get it. The book stays on your device either way.
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