Part of the Still & Moving series with Janet M. Taylor and Coni J. Mackey — real conversations about letting go, starting over, and living with intention after 60.
Episode 1 of 5 | Still & Moving
For most of her adult life, Coni Mackey had a big house. Office space. Guest rooms. Room for her son, her grandkids, family who might drop by. She had built her life around having enough space for everyone.
There was just one problem: they mostly never came.
“I was living for someone else,” Coni says in this first conversation with Janet M. Taylor, Life Organizer. “Living for someone else and not for me.”
The turning point came when Coni lost most of her vision in October 2024. Living alone in Las Vegas, unable to drive safely, unable to read signs, she sat on a park bench and asked herself a simple question: where was I the happiest? The answer was clear. She needed to go home. She needed to be near people who could show up.
That clarity set off a move from a 1,000 square foot condo in Las Vegas to a single room in her son’s house in Oregon — and eventually into her own 614 square foot apartment. She went from owning what she thought she needed to realizing she had been holding onto a life she’d outgrown.
What she found on the other side surprised her. Not grief. Peace.
“It was just stuff,” she says. “That’s all. That’s it.”
This episode opens the Still & Moving series with an honest look at what downsizing actually feels like — the fear, the tears, the decisions, and the unexpected relief that comes when you stop carrying what no longer fits who you are.
If you have been holding onto a life that stopped fitting a while ago, this conversation is a good place to start.
Watch the full conversation: Episode 1: From Big House to Cozy Corner
