Seasons of Change, Part III: Choosing to Rebuild

Standing Back Up (2023)

By 2023, I had a choice: stay in survival mode, where I had been living since 2018, or begin rebuilding. I chose to stand back up and rebuild.

This was the year I drew hard boundaries, even when it meant disappointing people or absorbing blame. It was the year I stopped explaining my worth and started quietly owning it again.

It was messy and imperfect, but it was also the year I learned that resilience isn’t about bouncing back. It’s about rising with all the cracks showing, even when you don’t like what you see.

Motherhood in Motion

My motherhood experience didn’t change much with the divorce. I still carried the primary responsibility for my girls - their therapy sessions, school schedules, and daily needs while working a full-time remote job. We were navigating a nerve-racking new season: new home, new schools, new routines. It was far from perfect, but somehow, we made it work. In the middle of the unknown, I found myself and my daughters slowly blooming. We discovered places we loved together, but we also grieved the life we had before and sometimes, the shortcomings of single motherhood. We learned to meet that grief exactly where we were, with quick wit, sarcasm, and laughter. Because transformation rarely looks glamorous. It looks like late nights, hard conversations, frustration, and the unglamorous daily practice of choosing yourself.

Becoming Again

Slowly, I could feel myself becoming. I stumbled my way through dating from surgeons to tech and finance bros to engineers. Their careers didn’t matter. What mattered was learning what worked for me, what didn’t, and what I would no longer tolerate. Somewhere along the way, I realized that significant time alone wasn’t empty; it was necessary. It became the best gift I could give myself - space to breathe, to heal, and to operate again in my own strength.

Rebuilding with Purpose

Professionally, I continued stepping into Account-Based Marketing after leaving my military-connected role — a field that demanded creativity, strategy, and leadership in ways that stretched and sharpened me.

For the first time in a long time, I felt aligned with work that challenged me to think bigger and lead differently. It was another cornerstone in my rebuilding — proof that even in the middle of grief and change, growth is still possible.

Next in the series: Seasons of Change, 2024: The Paradox of Becoming