This month marks a milestone I've been looking forward to: the one-year anniversary of launching Living Goldenwell, the first-of-its-kind connection network and learning space built for professional women caring for elderly parents while managing their own careers, families, and lives.

One year ago, I made a leap that took everything I had. I left a long, established corporate career to build something that didn't yet exist: a comprehensive resource, community, and guidance system for daughters navigating the eldercare phase — a season of life that is overwhelming, underserved, and almost entirely invisible in our cultural conversation.

This is Part 1 of my Year One reflections. This part is about the personal journey — the internal one that rarely gets talked about openly enough by founders and entrepreneurs. Part 2 will focus on the business itself.

Why I Started Living Goldenwell

The statistics around family caregivers are staggering. Over 63 million U.S. adults are providing unpaid care to a loved one. Women make up 61% of all family caregivers and 70% of primary sandwich generation caregivers. The majority are also working full-time, raising children, and managing households — often with no roadmap, no support system, and no one asking how they're doing.

I know this not just from research, but from lived experience. I've walked this road myself. And I see it every day in the women I work with through Caregiving From The Middle, our community platform for women caring for elderly parents.

What compelled me to build Living Goldenwell was the unmistakable gap between what women in this season of life need and what actually exists to support them. What's out there falls very short. It misses the woman I'm speaking to in some fundamental way — her complexity, her capacity, her need for both practical guidance and emotional support in equal measure.

That's exactly why I set out to build something different. Something better. Something that meets women where they are.

What Building Something New Actually Requires

A clear mission does not come with a clear path. It rarely does, and entrepreneurship has been a relentless reminder of that truth.

Over this past year, I've had to continually evolve — not just as a founder, but as a person. I've had to undo conditioning from decades in the corporate world: the false sense of security that comes from a defined role, a clear hierarchy, a predictable outcome. Entrepreneurship strips all of that away.

In its place, I've had to build a new relationship with uncertainty, with courage, and with my own power.

I've cycled through confidence and self-doubt. Through momentum and stagnation. Through moments of genuine despair when things weren't going as I'd envisioned — and through the hard-earned resolve that comes from pushing through anyway. Through it all, I've had to hold firm to one unwavering belief: what I'm building is possible, even if it hasn't been done before.

Living Goldenwell and Caregiving From The Middle are early-stage, category-defining offerings. There is no real comparable for daughters dealing with aging parents. That's both the challenge and the extraordinary opportunity.

The Personal Reinvention Nobody Warns You About

Making the leap from a long corporate career into entrepreneurship requires more than a compelling idea and an identified market gap, though you need both of those too.

What it truly requires is grit: the combination of passion and perseverance that keeps you moving when nothing external is pushing you forward. My passion for serving women navigating their eldercare phase was what compelled me to start. My perseverance, my steady unglamorous stick-to-it-ness is what has carried me to Year Two.

But beyond grit, what this year has demanded is a genuine reinvention of identity. I've had to release old stories about who I am, what security looks like, and what it means to lead. I've had to make room for new forms of power, the kind that don't come from a title or a salary, but from purpose and from the lives you're actually changing.

That identity evolution is ongoing. It isn't linear. And it is, without question, the most challenging and most meaningful work I've ever done.

Reframing Aging: From Fear to Fulfillment

One of my deepest convictions — one that sits at the very heart of Living Goldenwell — is that we must fundamentally change the way our culture talks about and thinks about aging.

Right now, aging is largely framed as decline. As loss. As something to be dreaded, delayed, and managed. And when we approach our parents' later years through that lens of fear and sadness, we miss something profoundly important.

I want to offer a different frame: that aging, including the caregiving experience that often accompanies it, can be unexpectedly rich. Informative. Even fulfilling. A normalized part of life's journey that is worthy of our curiosity, our attention, and our hope, not just our anxiety or frustrations over it.

This reframe isn't naive. Eldercare is hard. The emotional, logistical, financial, and physical demands are real and significant. But how we approach it — the meaning we make from it, the support we surround ourselves with, the mindset we bring — changes everything about what the experience becomes.

This shift matters urgently, because demographic realities are only intensifying the caregiving crisis. By 2030, the number of aging adults needing care will outnumber available family caregivers. The women caught in the middle, those sandwiched between aging parents and still-dependent children, all while managing demanding careers, deserve a support system that matches the scale of what they're carrying.

What Year One Has Given Me

Year One has taught me that building something truly new, something the world hasn't seen before, requires you to become someone you haven't been before. And that is perhaps the greatest gift this journey has given me. Not just the business I'm building, but the person I'm becoming in the process.

The work of Living Goldenwell is deeply personal precisely because it has to be. You cannot authentically guide accomplished women through one of life's most complex seasons without having walked through your own fire first. I have. And that experience is the foundation of everything we're building here.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Living Goldenwell?

Living Goldenwell is a mission-driven platform and ecosystem built specifically for professional and entrepreneurial women who are caring for elderly parents. Founded by Kathleen Korpela, it offers expert guidance, community connection, and practical resources to help women navigate eldercare without losing themselves in the process.

What is Caregiving From The Middle?

Caregiving From The Middle is Living Goldenwell's virtual connection network and learning space — a place where women caring for elderly parents can find connection, shared wisdom, and the support of others who truly understand what they're going through.

What is the sandwich generation?

The sandwich generation refers to adults who are simultaneously caring for elderly parents while still raising or supporting their own children. This dual caregiving role creates significant emotional, financial, and logistical pressure, particularly for working professional women.

Why is eldercare support for women so important?

Women carry a disproportionate share of the caregiving burden: 61% of all family caregivers and 70% of primary sandwich generation caregivers are women. Most report high levels of emotional stress, career disruption, and a lack of adequate resources and support — making targeted, expert eldercare guidance critically important.

Thank you for being part of this community and for your support over this past year. Stay tuned for Part 2 — my reflections on the business side of Year One.

At Living Goldenwell we're building the leading community and network for accomplished women navigating eldercare and caring for elderly parents.

Want to learn more? Visit Living Goldenwell - or if you're ready to stop navigating eldercare alone, join our community at Caregiving From The Middle.