Deborah Norville Reflects on Leaving Inside Edition 3 Months After Her Exit: ‘Why Didn’t I Do This Sooner?’ (Exclusive)

It’s been just over three months since Deborah Norville bid farewell to Inside Edition after 30 years, and she’s got no regrets.

“There’s a big part of me that’s like, why didn’t I do this sooner?” Norville, 67, exclusively tells PEOPLE about her decision to leave the investigative news show that cemented her as a household name over the past three decades.

“I don’t mean anything negative about that, but just, I’m enjoying my life so much,” she adds.

The journalist kicked off a new era as a game show host when The Perfect Line premiered Monday, Sept. 8. The show asks contestants to accomplish the simple task of putting a list of things in the correct order for a chance to win up to $15,000.

This change of pace, Norville says, has allowed her to slow down and enjoy life more, including some “extended travel” with longtime husband Karl Wellner. It’s something she calls “a real treat” for the couple because it has “never been a possibility before, in the almost 38 years we’ve been married.”

Despite a busy schedule filming, Norville has gotten to spend time with her family, which includes her and Wellner’s three kids, Mikaela, Kyle, and Niki, without worrying about cutting quality time short.

“That level of stress, to not have that is really delicious,” she gushes. “And I haven’t looked back.”

“It was an amazing chapter of my life. I have nothing but gratitude and feel so blessed that I got to do the same show for such a long period of time,” she says of Inside Edition. “I miss my colleagues. I text and we talk a lot to a bunch of the people that I’ve worked with. So that part of my world is still very much with me. I haven’t given up the relationships.”

ABC News alum Eva Pilgrim has since taken over as anchor of Inside Edition, and Norville says she connected with her successor via email to wish her “good luck and all that good stuff.”

“I have not spoken to her, not for any other reason than I’ve been down here and, literally, we’re doing 14-hour days because we’re knocking out sometimes seven shows a day,” she explains.

Norville says one of her favorite aspects of The Perfect Line is “interacting with the contestants.”

“I have loved just the 10 minutes we get to spend chit-chatting. We don’t have a lot of time together, but it’s really nice to hear people’s stories,” she says. “So I’m having a ball.”

The Perfect Line is also a homecoming of sorts for Norville, a Georgia native who attended the University of Georgia, as the show films in Atlanta. The filming locale has allowed her three sisters as well as eight high school friends — including two women she has known since kindergarten — to visit the set.

Norville notes that friends and family have seen her embrace this new role as she sets herself apart from other game show hosts by “being the best me I can be” and not trying to emulate anyone who has come before her.

“It’s really fun to be starting a new chapter,” she says, pointing out that she believes this is “the only kind of television show I have not been hired to do” before.

“So if you had a bingo card with all the different kinds of TV shows, this was the one space I didn’t have a marker on,” she adds. “And maybe I’ve saved the best for last.”

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The Perfect Line airs in syndication Monday to Friday, with a second run on Game Show Network.