When the Flames Go Up
When the Flames Go Up
Episode 6: "There is no 'being' a grownup. There is only growing up."
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Episode 6: "There is no 'being' a grownup. There is only growing up."

Asha Dornfest talks about the transformative, "devastating" time since her father's abrupt death in 2020, and how a pair of long-term road trips with her mom has helped clear the path forward.

is one of those special OG blogger friends who went on to provide real-life support in both of our real-life lives. You can tell from her writing that she has one of those minds you can trust your troubles to.

That community-building mind created Parent Hacks and co-created the Edit Your Life podcast with

, and her third act is , a Substack newsletter about missing her adult children, fulfilling bucket-list plans with her husband, and making the most of the time she and her mom have left together.

Asha says she really “hadn’t been operating properly” since her father died right before the pandemic hit, in part because of the kid fears that had manifested so abruptly. When she talks about writing her dad’s obituary, selling her childhood home, and moving her mom from the Bay Area to a retirement community in Portland, she still marvels at how this self-described “fake grownup” was able to pull it all off.

Asha planned the mother/daughter road-trips to ease her mom’s transition through monumental life changes and jumpstart their new normal as new neighbors. But the trips’ other vital benefits were far less expected.

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When the Flames Go Up
When the Flames Go Up
After we divorced, we started a blog about co-parenting to learn how to work together until our kids were grown. And now that they are, and the world is so busy disrupting and disavowing what we thought we were working for, we're looking to our community to help us all keep up.