What does “having it all” mean to you? Is it attainable?
By Bernadette A. Sahm
First and foremost, “having it all” starts with peaceful living. Living in peace is everything. Then having that special someone to share peace and love in life is truly the greatest gift.
My husband is everything to me. We are about to celebrate 29 years of marriage and 34 years of living life together. We know how blessed we are to have each other.
Together we have weathered many storms and many life lessons. There was a long period of time when I didn’t have peace. It pointed back to numerous family issues. Then one day after years and years of grief and tears it vanished. What I was left with was a man and his unwavering love and that love grew stronger. Love was always there, peace wasn’t.
Is it attainable? Of course it is, you just have to want it! And work for it!
Today we have both lots of love grounded in peace. Truly these two things that define “having it all.”
It has been 16 years since I wrote my book titled Halfway Home The First 50 Years, I was just 50 years old at that time. Today I am definitely on the other side of 50 at 66 years old now. In many ways living my best and most peaceful and happy life.
But what have I learned during these past 16 years?
What is meant for you will find you
All anger and anxiety are a waste of time and energy
If you aren’t living a happy life, you aren’t doing it right
Many say that life is short but it can also be viewed that life is long
Love what you do, or don’t do it
God is good all the time
Prayer is peace
Even the difficulties and life challenges when turned around offer valued life lessons
Kids will come and kids will go, always put your spouse/partner first
Not every day is going to go your way and that is okay
The longest relationship you will ever have is with yourself, invest in you, take care of you
Wisdom definitely is a gift for the aging
Some people come into your life for reason, some for a season, and the truest friendships are the most lasting
Kindness costs nothing and yet has immense value
Choices, chances, and change are definite, choose wisely
You are good, you are unique and you are worthy
As I write this and reflect on the past, what I find is incredible gratitude for all my many life experiences!
I have been blessed … and I wish for you the same!
Blessings,
Bernadette on Facebook at www,Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer and Instagram @bernadetteamoyer @bernadettesahm
Freedom to me is choice, when I can make my own choices.
The times I feel most free are on a good lengthy roadtrip. I love that in our country the United States of America we have the freedom to choose where we live and how we live. We choose where we want to go.
Freedom is also so much of what we expect and take for granted like clean drinking water and fresh air.
Freedom is our ability to travel and explore and our freedom to dress as we like too. We can live where we wish.
Freedom of movement is the most meaningful to me. But also so many choices from what we eat, where we go, how we dress and ways we communicate.
We have so many freedoms like career choices and educational choices. All in all it truly does boil down to choice. Freedom is our ability to make our own choices.
From the time I was a little girl I wanted to be a mother. When my youngest sister was a tiny baby, my mother would wake me up to calm her down. It was during the night when Iris cried that I was called upon to comfort her. Her tiny fingers would wrap around my index finger as I would rock her back to sleep.
When I was twelve years old, I started babysitting for a Baptist family and their little girl named Ariane just stole my heart. She was the cutesiest little thing, and I vowed that if I ever had a girl, I would name her Ariane and I did.
At the age of 13 I became a C. I. T. a Counselor in Training at both a day camp and resident camp. At Camp Hi Hill and Camp Horseshoe in Pennsylvania I worked my way up from C.I. T. to Counselor to Unit Leader through many childhood summers. At one time I was the youngest Unit Leader. I loved kids and they loved me!
In our family I was the second oldest daughter of five girls. As one of the oldest we were often tasked with looking after the two youngest and we would refer to them as “the kids” are the kids home? Are the kids outside playing?
At the age of nineteen, I married (I know so young!) and three days after my twenty first birthday gave birth to my daughter. I loved being her mom. When her dad died, she was a toddler of two years old, I became both mom and dad. Nothing was too good for her which included expensive private schooling. She was everything to me and being “mom” was the one role I most valued in life.
When I turned forty years old and not long after my oldest child left home, I went on to work at The Children’s Guild in Baltimore. I served in the development department raising much needed fund for kids from poverty and with educational and emotionally difficulties. It was there that I became aware just how much I had given my children as their mother and how many opportunities they were given as our kids.
My last career job supporting children was as the Development Director in a Catholic youth retreat house. Serving children through many decades has always been paramount in my life. I’ve been blessed to support many young people as they transitioned from student to career jobs.
After almost ten years, as a single mom, I would meet my forever husband Brian and take on the mother role for his pre-mature newborn infant twins. Being a mother was everything to me. I came into the twin’s life when they were just eighty-seven days old after their birth mom died.
Being a mother is both the most rewarding and joy that I have ever known in my lifetime and sadly has also afforded me the most grief. Little children are easy to love and care for, when they grow up it can be so much more challenging.
Today and after thirty-eight consecutive years of having children in my home I am happy to say they are on their own. And now I am happily a “dog mom” to our precious bichons Bailey and Buddy.
On this Mother’s Day 2026, I celebrate all the moms out there, no one said it would be easy, but it sure is both memorable and rewarding to know that we did it!
What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?
I love all the holidays! It’s so fun to celebrate all of them.
If I had to choose it might be 1) Thanksgiving 2) Easter and 3) Christmas.
For me Thanksgiving represents gratitude and being thankful but it’s also sweater weather and harvest season. It’s a beautiful time of year with the seasonal color changes in nature, I love a good traditional Thanksgiving dinner of roasted turkey and all the trimmings. It’s a great holiday to celebrate with friends and family.
Easter comes in a very close second as it represents resurrection and new beginnings. The time of year with new fresh green grass and budding trees and flowers. I love seeing all the new fresh growth in nature. I love bunnies and Easter candy and all the commercial offerings too. We begin again during the Easter holiday and I love it!
And then of course who doesn’t love Christmas! Christmas is always special with twinkling lights and yummy foods. I still enjoy shopping for Christmas gifts and decorating our home. It’s a time of celebration that always feels so special regardless of how many Christmas holidays we celebrate.
All holidays are fun to celebrate and an opportunity to create new and lasting memories.
Being productive has always been important to me! When I was working it was about setting goals and achieving them.
In retirement it is about staying active whether it’s making food, working out at the gym and writing. Maintaining good health and practicing what that entails for me always makes me feel productive.
When making food like baking a cake or a pie, I feel productive and as though I’ve created art that you eat.
My writings and body of written works always give me the satisfaction of being productive.
Yesterday while walking along the beach I felt productive in achieving my daily 10,000 steps.
My grandmother was big on the ‘idle time is the devils workshop” and that way of thinking made me seek out productivity on a daily basis.
Productivity takes many forms for me and it also creates the inner joy and peace that I seek each and everyday. I try and live by the tagline of #just do it
There is something so rewarding about cleaning and having a clean house. Yesterday while our precious pooches were being groomed, we decided to do some deep cleaning. It’s been a cold messy winter with freezing temperatures, snow, ice, rain and more that all contributed to the need for a deep clean.
We stripped the beds and did four full loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms and then it was time for the task of shampooing the carpets. Most of our home is covered in hard wood flooring with some rugs. The carpet cleaning required moving the furniture and running the ceiling fans and Duraflame heaters to help with the drying.
It is so gratifying to clean and see the amount of dirt and sand that had accumulated in our home. Living so close to the beach makes sandy floors a fact of life. Seeing that black water that was the result of deep cleaning was so rewarding and yet a bit shocking. Look at what we have been living with, I thought!
One of my favorite things is having a clean and tidy well-made bed, not only do I appreciate seeing it during the day, but, getting into a bed with fresh clean sheets at the end of the day is one of the best feelings. It makes all the efforts so worth doing. Clean crisp cotton sheets are just one of life’ simple pleasures.
After spending several hours cleaning, my husband and I decided to visit a shop that houses several local artists original artwork where we stumbled upon a perfect piece to bring home. It now hangs proudly in our living area. We also visited a specialty store and purchased some pink sea salt, high quality maple syrup, some homemade peanut brittle and coffee from one of our favorite places in New Orleans, Cafe Du Monde. These purchases represented our rewards for all the work we did earlier in the day cleaning our home.
A clean house makes me feel good and in taking care of our environment I feel both proud of what we accomplished together with my husband and healthier for living in a cleaner, organized and tidy home. Win-win!
When is the last time you took a risk? How did it work out?
Two years ago we sold our home of 34 years and moved into our beach house in Rehoboth Beach. We quit our jobs, retired, sold our primary residence and moved out of state!
It was a huge decision and entailed clearing out a four bedroom and three bathroom home complete with an in ground pool and fireplace place. It was located in Baltimore County Maryland and easy access to the airport and train station. It was also close to our regular rides into Pennsylvania.
We gave away most furniture as our beach home was already completely outfitted. More than six families benefitted from our generosity.
The move was into a tighter community and smaller living space. We love it! After two years full time living at the beach, we feel healthier and happier. We are living with so much less stress. Our location is just a few miles from two of our favorite beaches.
My husband was the driver of this move more than me. He was wanting a calmer and easier lifestyle. This was certainly achieved. We love it so much. We spend all our time together with our two precious pooches and couldn’t be happier.
Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?
A great question! Many years ago a little child confided in me that a man who married into our family had abused them.
My mouth dropped open and I didn’t want to believe them. I would repeat back their story and change a fact and they always corrected me. They were telling the truth!
After some time I told the woman who married this man. Instead of believing me she dismissed me from her life. And I made it easy for her by walking away.
When I finally reported it to the police they said, “there is no material evidence.” I should have fought harder.
We had people in our family that were doctors, nurses and teachers and they blindly chose not to believe the child and remain close to the child abuser.
A Priest told me, “In order for them to believe you, they would have to change their life, and they aren’t going to do that .” He was 100% right!
Child sexual abusers are typically not strangers but rather people we know and allow close to our children.
My walking away was the void they used to make me out as the crazy one and the unworthy one. Why on earth would I have lied about this when it caused so much damage in my family, mainly to me?
All these years later I would have fought harder for this criminal act to be uncovered and prosecuted. Today it takes so much less to initiate these actions.
Bernadette A. Sahm 