This December it was six years ago I left my marriage of twenty-seven years to my now ex-husband. My life has changed in so many ways since that time. For the last four and a half years I have focused on providing support in the coming out process for women who were like me, often married with children, and trying to figure out if they are LGBTQIA+. I strive to be inclusive when I write “women like me”. I am also referring to trans women and non-binary folks comfortable in female spaces. Later in life is a subjective term and I work with women as young as twenty-five to seventy-five plus.  The name of my company is Coming Out & Beyond.

I started my company because my coming out experience was traumatic, hard, yet joyful at the same time. I have written dozens of blog pieces and have recorded dozens of podcasts about this very subject. Working with the coming out later in life community will always be a large part of what I do and who I serve.  Today I want to focus on the beyond part of this journey. 

Why? Simply because I am proud of what I have accomplished in the last five years. My life is so much richer, peaceful, and transformed who I am and changed what I believe I can do.  For me, coming out later in life was a spiritual awakening of my purpose in this world. 

Coming Out Later Was the Best Decision I Ever Made

In the last six years, I have accomplished personal growth and learned so much about starting and running a company.  Since 2016 I have accomplished the following:

• I navigated an extremely difficult divorce with a spouse who made it his mission to make our separation as hard as possible for me. His goal was to bankrupt me financially and it did not work.
• I met and fell in love with Tonda McKay. It is my first lesbian relationship and we have had to navigate a lot together. She was not my catalyst, but I met her soon after I left my ex. In the later in life community a catalyst is someone who helps you realize you may not be straight.
• I moved to Nashville, Tennessee after living in Connecticut for my entire life. In that process I left my sixteen year old son to live with his Dad. I learned to parent in a new way and from afar. I grieved not being a full time mom. 
• I flipped a house in Kentucky and learned a lot about construction.
• I began mutual support groups for women coming out later in life.  
• Because of poor advice from my divorce lawyer, I was still on the mortgage with my ex-husband. That tied my hands financially so I could not buy a home for myself. I went to SIX banks to make it possible for me to buy a home. I also got off the old mortgage in the process.
• I had my first in-person retreat for the later-in-life community.
• Tonda’s mom died and she inherited her home. We totally renovated it and turned it into an Airbnb property.  My partner and I negotiated my funding for the project and she would put my name on the deed. Always protect yourself.  
• At the request of my clients, I began to coach people individually. 
• I got engaged to Tonda!
• As we navigated the grief over her mom’s death, my son came to live with us for six months.  It was hard emotional work because my son was grieving as well. 
• We hit the pandemic and like all of us our world turned upside down.
• We began to totally renovate the house we live in. Construction project number three in three years. 
• Tonda was exhausted all the time and we soon found out she needed a quintuple bypass. Navigating open heart surgery in a pandemic is super scary!
• I had my first four coaching clients!  I began to build my coaching business and hired a professional (who has since become a friend) website designer to overhaul my website so that people would be able to find support through organic searches.  
• I began to wade into the waters of social media to promote my business. I was one of the first coming-out coaches and I helped bring a previously “shameful” topic out into the open. I never wanted anyone else to experience the aloneness I felt when I came out. 

• As I became more confident in my Queer identity I was able to show up more and more authentically in all areas of my life.
• I was featured in Oprah magazine in Autumn 2021! It was about five women who had changed their life significantly after fifty. My life had come full circle.
• I served as an interim pastor in a church in Nashville for one year.
• I married my amazing partner Tonda.  We celebrated with friends and family for a week!
• At the end of 2021 Tonda was diagnosed with cancer. Luckily it was taken care of with surgery, but it was another difficult procedure she had to recover from.  
• At the end of 2021, my company’s earnings were in the high five figures. When people divorce it takes men five years to financially recover, women typically never recover.  Three years after my divorce was finalized I made more money that year than I ever had in my life. 
• I hired my own coach!  I thought it was going to be a “business only” course, but I soon learned it required deep emotional work as I became certified in holistic life coaching. I learned to talk with my inner child; navigate my conditioned self to stay in my authentic self most of the time; cultivate my wise loving adult; connect more deeply with my spiritual team; and realize my emotional and spiritual blocks around money. For the first time, I had the support of an amazing group of women who cheered me on with every change and advance I made in my business.  Ironically, as someone who preaches community, I never had one just for myself as a businesswoman.
• I realized that I never wanted to pastor a church again, not because of the church but because of me. The church was filled with amazing people and I had the opportunity to become their full-time pastor. In 2016 I would have worked very hard to get a job like that, but now I turned it down. I had changed in the last six years and the paradigm of Christianity no longer fit my belief system. Another irony is now I am connected to Source more than ever as I continually embrace my deeply spiritual side.  
• I turned my support groups and individual coaching business into a group coaching business at the end of 2022 I am well into six figures for my company and will add products that support a non-profit for Queer youth to sell to my website very soon.  
• Tonda and I are passionate travelers and we have a life in which we can travel all the time!
• I love, love, love being an entrepreneur. I took what I knew as a minister, chaplain, bereavement counselor, and later in life Queer person, mom, and divorced woman and turned it into a company!  

Embracing the Beyond & Empowering Our Community To Thrive

My “beyond” is richer and so very exciting. When I stood in my comfort zone of my marriage and compulsory heterosexuality and faced all my fears I could have NEVER imagined what was to come. What if I hadn’t stepped into the fear?  What if I had stayed married to my ex?  I would have never known the love I have experienced with my wife. AND I would have never known that I am a kick-ass businesswoman!  The only way I can describe this is that the light inside of me was muffled by my straight marriage and identity. When we embrace our authentic identity with no shame or guilt our full light turns on for the world and anything is possible. We can manifest our dreams. 

Create Your Beyond & Thrive Moving Forward

Do you want to take the experiences of your life and create something to help others? Do you want to find your life’s purpose? Would you like to see if you are an entrepreneur? Have you come out and embraced your Queerness? Or have you navigated divorce and a complete change in your life?  Or both? I can help you because I have done this personally. I know how to navigate sh** to change, grow and transform life. 

I can help you create your “beyond” and a life you never thought possible! We can connect here.