Starting Over, Again and Again
I remember the night it really sank in.
The kids were asleep in the back seat as I drove home from visiting family. Music played low on the speakers, the kind of song that makes you think more than you mean to. As I turned onto our road, the music cut out. Silence filled the car. And I had this strange, almost instinctive expectation that my husband’s car would be in the driveway. That somehow this whole thing had been a misunderstanding. That I'd turn the corner and there he’d be.
But the driveway was empty.
I parked. Carried two sleeping children into the house. Tucked them in like I had hundreds of nights before. But this time, I stood still in the hallway and let it hit me: it's just the three of us now.
For someone else, 30 might feel young. For me, it felt late. I had my daughter at 22. While most of my peers were still in college, I was figuring out mortgage paperwork and potty training. I did what I thought was the right order: marriage, house, kids. I carried this quiet belief, especially as a woman who grew up in the church, that this sequence was not just wise but virtuous. That to be a good woman was to be a good wife. That motherhood was the highest calling. That if I did those things well, everything else would fall into place.
I didn’t see many women around me building businesses or leading bold, creative lives. And the few who did were framed as renegades, women who had somehow stepped outside the lines. That wasn’t the mold I had been handed. So I didn’t question it. Until life cracked it wide open.
Divorce has a way of undoing more than just a relationship. It undoes your ideas of yourself. But that unraveling, painful as it is, also makes space for something new.
Over the past eight years, I’ve become a different woman. I became a single mom. I started a business. I built it while my kids watched Fancy Nancy and Ninjago. I’d read business books at night while still running my fingers through their hair. I bought an iPad so I could work on branding projects while they played outside. I made time where there wasn’t any.
It was beautiful in many ways. It was also exhausting.
There were nights when bedtime ran long, client emails piled up, and I felt like I had nothing left. I wanted to be everything for my kids, my business, and my future. But I had limits, and I resented them. I envied the freedom my ex had, how he could clock out and have evenings to himself while I was on duty 24/7. The truth is, a lot of my business was built on weekends when the kids were with him.
I leaned on my sister. Honestly, maybe too much. But I also started to love being alone. After years in an enmeshed relationship, I finally had room to think. To parent the way I wanted. To figure out what I believed, not just what I was taught to believe. I stopped molding myself to other people’s opinions. I stopped confusing being agreeable with being good.
Burnout came anyway. I chased too many things at once, hoping to hit that six-figure milestone. I stayed up too late. I jumped from one idea to the next, instead of refining what I had already built. I mistook hustle for progress and wore myself thin in the process.
Then, along the way, I remarried. We blended our families. Four kids, all middle and high schoolers now, none of them driving yet. I thought it would get easier with time. But I’ve learned things rarely get easier, but they can get better. It’s just changed. Our life is a rhythm of drop-offs and pick-ups, calendar coordination, group texts, and divided to-do lists. And sometimes I forget that I’m allowed to ask for help.
But I’m learning. Again.
I no longer believe it’s my job to fix how other people feel. I’m not responsible for everyone's happiness. I’m not the keeper of the whole household. We’re a team. And my husband—this wonderful man—never expects me to carry it all just because I’m a woman. That belief was planted long ago and took years to uproot. I remember telling my ex once, when I was still finding my voice, that I was a stay-at-home mom, not a stay-at-home housekeeper. He told me if I were a housekeeper, I’d be fired. I still feel the sting of that. But I also feel how far I’ve come.
Today, I’m stretched. It’s summer. I want to give my kids memories and laughter and lazy days, but I also want long hours to work on the two businesses I love. I write ideas in the notes app at soccer practice. I wake up early to work while the house is quiet. I’m careful not to let work consume every moment, even though I genuinely love it.
Because I’ve learned this: I don’t want the things that matter most to be at the mercy of the things that matter least. (Thanks, Goethe)
If the house is a mess but we’ve connected as a family, I’m okay with that. If the inbox is full but my son wants to shoot hoops or my daughter wants to show me her latest art collage, I make time for that. I’ve only got a few more years before they’re gone. One of them just turned sixteen. And suddenly, their childhood changing into adulthood feels very real.
But my work matters too. And I’ve stopped apologizing for that. My family knows I have protected time for them and protected time for the things I’m building. That balance is never perfect, but it’s honest.
I used to think we arrived at some point in life. That we landed in our forever home or dream career and things settled. But I don’t think that’s how it works anymore. Life is layered. Seasons fold into each other. We outgrow old versions of ourselves. We begin again.
Over and over.
And that’s not failure. Maybe it’s just living with your eyes open.
I’m not late. Neither are you.
We’re right on time.
Hi, I'm Beth, the creative behind Bravely Inspired. This space is a quiet rebellion against burnout, business as usual, and the myth of going it alone.
Here I share stories, tools, and gentle reminders for women building lives and businesses that feel like home.
You’re not too late. You’re not too much. You’re right on time.
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