Ctrl + Shift….. New perspectives

It was Sunday November 30, 2025. A bleak and boring afternoon and also bloody cold. I was walking the dogs and listening to my podcast. Truly boring until it wasn’t.

The dogs were unbelievably boisterous that day and for whatever reason, even though they had ACRES of land to romp and play, they chose to come charging up behind me and inadvertently took me out at the knees. It was so fast that I couldn’t even feel the world stop. I was flung up in the air and came crashing down to earth, smashing my wrist and ankle on frozen ground. I heard the bones break. It wasn’t pretty. I know this because it was one of those painful moments when you actually have to roll over and be sick because of the pain.

I gingerly lifted my head and looked to see the damage. My hand was curled like an aging wicked witch and I couldn’t move it. Broken. Definitely broken.

I am no stranger to broken wrists. Heck, I broke my right wrist the first time in 2019 and again last November. Both were “sport” injuries which made for good stories. This was nothing exciting, almost pathetic but terribly painful.

I was able to move to my side to get my phone. I called my family. This would have been a good time for someone in my family to answer. But no answer. Terrific. Now I was going to die out in the wilderness. Great.

I lay back down and contemplated what freezing to death might be like. I realized that it could take a while. Sure it was cold but it was a November cold, not January cold in Eastern Canada. It seemed like a better plan to try and figure out how to walk back to the car. That would be faster except that everything hurt. Even my foot. I would later learn that I broke a bone in foot. That would explain the pain.

I am not sure how but I finally made it back to the car and tried the family again. No answer. More voicemail. If I had been having a heart attack, I can assure you I would be dead before anyone answered. Like seriously, it’s not like I call them every hour of every day. Surely, twice in under an hour might have sparked some concern? “No problem family, I’ll be fine”.

Thankfully, a friend called just when I wasn’t sure what to do next and she was there in five minutes to pick me up to take me to the hospital. As for the dogs, I locked them in the car. F#ckers.

I remain eternally grateful that our little town has a hospital and a wonderful medical team. The xray confirmed that the wrist had shattered rather nicely and because it was pretty bad, they had to do a closed reduction. This sounded very civilized or maybe anything sounded good when under the influence of fantastic drugs.

A closed reduction is painful. They have to try and put the bones back into some sort of alignment which involved separating the bones and trying to put them back so they looked kind of straight. More drugs, a light anesthesia and at least the bones were stretched and kind of back together.

At this point, there might have been a little too much punch in the pills and I was sick. So sick. But good news, my family finally noticed that I was missing and arrived at the hospital. “Find My Friends” app is a miracle. It was Owen who kind of wondered where I was and noticed I was at the hospital. He thought I was visiting someone until he noticed multiple calls. Two and two still makes four and he came to find me and then called the rest of the family. To Megan’s credit, she was legitimately out of cell service. The new joke in the family is that they are going to get me a panic button to wear when I go out alone. Funny.

It was nice to have them there. Also, Wayne held hand while I barfed. I’m not really sure why he got me a garbage can as a barf bag. Hospitals have those cute little plastic bowls but oh no, nothing but the best for his wife.

Fast forward to the next day when my daughter Megan drove into the “big” city for an ortho consult. It was really incredible. Almost abandoned in the woods and less than 18 hours later I had surgery and was sent home with a plate and 9 screws in my arm and bundled up in a cast with strict orders not to pick up anything; not even a teacup for the next six weeks.

Great. The holiday season in a cast. That should be easy.

“Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re  gonna get.” ~Forrest Gump

My tombstone will never say “she lived life in free flow”. It will likely say,
“Shelley Sim – control freak and addicted to lists and yellow stickies” True story.

I have tried to control most things. The weather was exempt. My children were not. Well, until they fired me and I became redundant to their lives. It was bound to happen. They cut the string and it felt like being thrown off a building and falling aimlessly into an abyss. I wasn’t sure how I was going to land, if I was going to land, what would catch me.

I landed. It was messy and my ego was bruised. Twenty nine years I had control of the clan and then I didn’t. Who was I if not their “mother” with an abundance of unwanted advice? Now, I was an invalid and dependent on the children to drive me. I guess not all my unwanted advice wasn’t useless and unwanted as they willingly took up the task of “Driving Miss Daisy”. Megan even decorated the house for Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, surely this was a domain where I could still have that sliver of control to keep the traditions. If only.

I dislike Christmas. It’s like Instagram on steroids and I cannot compete. I am not perfect. Yet I try. Christmas 2025 was not my best.

A shattered wrist made me dependent on others. I strongly dislike being dependent. Asking for help is uncomfortable. The universe was certainly having a good laugh.

There are a few things that anchor our Christmas season. The biggest is that our family leads a community dinner for December 24th. For this year, it was anticipated that we would be making over 550 meals. For someone that can’t stand cooking, there is irony that this is the event that I am passionate about. What I do believe is that I am not the only one that dislikes Christmas and preparing meals is a way of ensuring that people feel seen and that they belong. It’s an effort and I am eternally grateful to my community that they care the same way I do. Food costs are high and yet, my little community gives generously. It’s not just the donations but also the 70 volunteers that gather to peel hundreds of pounds of vegetables and deliver meals as well as serve to those who come to the sit down evening dinner on December 24th. Normally, I have it all “under control” Until this year. This year, I was royally f@cked.

One should never order food under the influence of opioids. Why I felt it was a good idea to order LESS food than 2024 knowing that I had over 100 more meals to prepare still boggles my mind. It was a startling moment on the night of December 23rd when we ran out of food. Help. I needed help.

I called everyone I could and by some miracle, everyone I called answered with further generosity. More volunteers came, the grocery store delivered and our new little boutique market cooked more ham in their fabulous new ovens. While I am not a fan of Christmas, I do appreciate a good miracle. The universe may laugh as I am humbled but it smiles when I finally get the message. Sort of. There was more to learn.

With Christmas Eve behind us, I could focus on the family and Christmas Day. We have certain traditions and this year, I had my mom and her husband, my dad and his fiancée along with my father-in-law. We also had our youngest son Owen and we were excited to have our daughter Megan and her fiancée join us for Christmas morning. So far so good.

The plan was for us all to gather first thing Christmas morning but we had to wait for Megan and her partner. Her fiancée has his own family traditions. He needed to go see them. Really? They live here, “our” family had come from afar. Can’t we be the priority? Rude. So we waited. They arrived and it was lovely. Different but lovely and yet, I confess to being irritated. I had a vision of what it was supposed to be and had a difficult time bending to having to wait. Sharing is not one of my strong suits. I also was missing our eldest son who was thousands of km’s away working in Alaska. It was a “gap” and it went against “tradition” and how I wanted it “to be”. Oh wait, is that the Universe having another laugh. I think it is.

Christmas dinner was also going to be different. Megan was hosting at their place with all her fiancée’s family. Twenty eight people in total. We arrived and I felt awkward. My awkwardness manifested as annoyance. I made a big deal out of small things. Why did HIS family have stronger presence and where was the “tradition”? Please give me back control so that I could “manage” this. Now the Universe was just howling with glee.

I was upset because things were changing. Things weren’t as they once were, where it was familiar and comfortable. I wasn’t just redundant, now I felt that I had lost my place. Of course this isn’t true. Things just shifted. Traditions were changing and the family was expanding. From the outside, this should be a seamless passage but it’s harder than it looks. Again, the theme of 2025, holding on too tight and not seeing that the chapter that was about to unfold included new traditions and the opportunity to be accepted into a larger family that had so much to give.

Megan’s fiancée’s family is nothing but lovely and kind and caring. I just felt outnumbered. He has a BIG extended family. What I should have seen was a family opening their arms but I was still stuck in wanting to “control” what it should be, how it “used” to be. Everyone else had wonderful desserts, I ate humble pie.

My dad wasn’t feeling well so I took him and his fiancée back home. I was glad for the time with him and enjoyed the rest of the evening but I lamented that we weren’t all together sitting by the fire in front of the Christmas tree. The rest of the crew stayed at Megan’s and participated in the Cornhole competition. Who plays Cornhole at Christmas? They did and Bert, my father-in-law at age 86 got second place! He was a star!

Christmas was different than I had hoped and imagined. This mid-life bit really is tricky. People move on. Things change. Evolution. Not that it really worked out for the dinosaurs.

Life moves on. The Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, gave a superb speech this past week at Davos. He said, “We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy,”. While my life is not world politics, the sentiment applied. I was holding onto nostalgia and not adapting to change.

My daughter has a wonderful husband to be. She is marrying into a large family that loves to be together and is very eager to embrace us. I want to also embrace them and have to let go of what was and be enthusiastic about new beginnings but I wanted it on my terms. So silly. How lucky we are that she has found such love with so many people. It’s a mother’s dream that her daughter is so loved and yet, I was a stick in the mud. That needed to change. I needed to change. I needed to grow into a new reality that come with new traditions and new relationships. I was just mourning old ways and if I kept holding on, I would be left out. Did I mention the dinosaurs? I wasn’t being left behind, I was being invited to be a part of something new.

When I visited my sister in November, she gave me a book called SHIFT – 7 Mindsets for an Inspired Midlife, written by Peter Reek. It seemed timely to pick it up post Christmas. Barely into the book, everything “shifted” for me.

“The first half of life is all about building – identity; achievement a place in the world. But the second half invites a different kind of work. It calls us inward. It ask us to loosen our grip on the self we’ve so carefully constructed and begin the gentler, braver process of release. Our focus shifts from crisis to opportunity. It’s a change to refocus, redefine, and realign our lives with our deeper, more spiritual aspirations.”

“Embracing midlife is recognizing and seizing the opportunity that comes with age. It’s shifting from a mindset of acquisition to one of meaning and purpose. As we navigate this journey, we can find peace in the transition, knowing our experiences have equipped us with the wisdom to live more authentically and purposefully. The second half of life provides us with the opportunity to leverage the hindsight of the first. We can step more deeply and confidently into who we are and focus on the relationships and pursuits that are most important to us. We can also let go of those things that have kept us from doing so.”

He goes on to say that our best years are not behind us but ahead of us. “The second half doesn’t start with a blaze of glory, but with a deep breath. A lighter step. A willingness to let go of what no longer serves us.” “The road ahead isn’t about become someone entirely new. It’s about becoming more of you. Clearer. Kinder. Less burdened by the weight of proving, and more alive to the wonder of simply being”. Lastly, this stage of transition is a paradox. “The quiet mark of wisdom. Learning to live in the stretch between what was and what’s next”.

Living between what was and what’s next; Control-shift. A way forward. I get that now.

Much of 2025 was about this paradox. I was trying to hold on when in fact, it is about what’s comes next. This sentiment has given me comfort. I’m not alone in this transition. It’s real. It happens to many of us and it’s scary letting go of what grounded us for so long. Who are we without our habits, traditions and patterns? I haven’t been sure where I now fit or where I belong but that is because I was trying too hard to hold on. I didn’t realize that if I just let go, I might feel free. If I let go, I might find more. How to let go of control and shift into new beginnings.

I found solace in the following parable.

In a small village, there lived a woman who often felt weighed down by habits, routines, and fears she wished she could outgrow. One evening, while working at her old computer, she accidentally pressed Control + Shift, and her application updated instantly—new layout, new perspective.

She paused.

It struck her that life, too, has its own “Ctrl + Shift” moments.

Control, she realized, was about recognizing what she could hold in her own hands—her choices, her reactions, her willingness to grow.

Shift was about lifting herself just a little higher—changing her angle, her mindset, her approach.

And so she began to practice this quietly powerful command in her daily life:

• When old frustration returned, she pressed Control—taking ownership of her response.
• When fear whispered familiar doubts, she pressed Shift—choosing a different thought.
• When life presented the same problems again and again, she pressed Control + Shift—updating herself instead of waiting for the world to change.

Over time, people noticed that she walked with more calm, more clarity, more purpose.
Someone once asked her, “What changed?”

She smiled gently.
“Nothing around me changed,” she said. “I just learned the power of Ctrl + Shift—to take control of the moment and shift who I am becoming.”

So here I am in 2026. Shifting. Understanding the need for a reset. Being willing to update myself. My resolution for 2026 is to do more things that I think I might be terrible at. So far it has been incredibly fun. With a broken wrist, I couldn’t join in on winter activities and had to search out new activities. I joined a group making homemade cards. Most of the group made four, I was happy to have completed one. I painted ceramics. My creation was worse than anything I could have done in a kindergarten class and resembled an underwater Armageddon. Despite the instructors belief that it would look “better once fired”, it was still awful but I had a great time.

I’ve also taken up Cornhole. It’s fantastic! Once I laid down my obnoxious bias of what it “should be”, it gave way to new connections and I’m having the time of my life exploring new hobbies, new relationships and new ways to connect. Maybe midlife is actually something to look forward to. Maybe, it’s awesome.

Life is messy, transition is hard and the curve balls are brutal and the Universe laughing doesn’t help.

What I have learned is that I if I lean in, I find better connection and can be delighted by the unexpected. Way back in an earlier post, I cited “it doesn’t happen TO you, it happens FOR you.” True story.

2025 was a difficult year. Not knowing where I fit, wondering if I was relevant and being confused about what would feel the void. I left 2025 feeling grateful for the lessons of connection and the glorious results of being vulnerable and asking for help. It has opened my world wider. I don’t have to have control. I can have vision and I can enjoy the ride and the many wonderful people that I meet along the way. I want to make the shift and let go of the control. It’s had its place but no longer and that feels so much lighter.

Yes, I’m scared. I don’t know what it will look like. It’s humbling and it’s hard but it’s far more fun than holding on to what no longer works. Nostalgia is not a strategy; it is what was and those memories are beautiful, it’s just not the future of our reality. I need to adapt. Maybe it’s ok to let go of things that no longer work. This might mean letting go of relationships and habits that used to be comfortable but they no longer work. It’s doesn’t have to be dramatic rather soft change that allows me to live more authentically to who I am. “Shifting” doesn’t have to be a loud change, rather it’s quieter. The ability to blend into a new reality. To be open to what comes next, to try new things.

My “shift” is to embrace the ambiguity of not knowing but being optimistic instead of static. To lean into the adventure and not know the outcome. To stay focused on values that matter rather than traditions that might have held me hostage to what was. I will say it again, this is not easy but I will be the way of the dinosaur if I don’t get with the times and make these shifts.

We don’t know what’s ahead. It can change in a second. I realize that the secret sauce is to live in the moment. My need to control in the first half of life was to lay the foundation. That was accomplished. That chapter is complete. For 2026, I want to learn to learn how to cross the chasm; the stretch that exists between “what was and what’s next”.

I wish you the very best for 2026. That whatever has been holding you back, you can lay it down and be less burdened and less weighted down by any “should’s” that you are carrying. And if you are in free fall between what was and what might be, you are not alone no matter what stage of life. Find a hand to hold and buckle up. You can do this. What if the best years are not behind us but really are in front of us!

With care and love for all that 2026 brings,

Shelley