The hardest part was waiting

This week marked eight years since I received an email I had been expecting for months.
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By then, it wasn't a surprise.

Our company had been acquired, and one by one, departments were being eliminated. Every week seemed to bring more uncertainty. We'd hear another team had been let go, another round of layoffs had happened, another familiar face was gone.

Each morning, I'd walk into the office wondering if that day would be my last.

The hardest part wasn't losing my job. It was waiting to lose it.

When the email finally arrived, it confirmed what many of us had been anticipating. My position, along with the majority of my department, was being eliminated.

I remember feeling two emotions at the same time. Heartbroken, and oddly... relieved.

The uncertainty was finally over.

It was my first big-girl job. The job where I felt like I was building a career, not just collecting a paycheck. I had spent nearly ten years there, and the people I worked with had become so much more than coworkers. They became my Knoxville family, and eight years later, I still miss every single one of them.
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Selfie with the only Scripps logo left after Discovery acquired the company.

Outside of work, life felt just as uncertain.

I had a kindergartner depending on me. I was the breadwinner. At the same time, I was in the middle of my immigration process, waiting for my permanent residency after building a life in a country I had called home since 2003.

It felt like every major piece of my life was hanging by a thread.

Looking back, I don't think I was afraid of losing my job. I was afraid of everything I couldn't control.

For years, I had quietly dreamed about working for myself. It was one of those ideas that would pop into my mind every now and then before I quickly talked myself out of it. I had a good job. A steady paycheck. Stability.

Starting a business felt like something I'd do someday. Not today.

So after the layoff, I did what felt responsible: I updated my résumé, and I started applying for jobs.

Around that same time, my then-husband received an opportunity in Connecticut, so we decided that would be our next chapter. I focused my job search there, interviewed with several companies, and convinced myself that finding another job was the obvious next step.

One interview, in particular, felt like it was going to change everything.

When I didn't get the job, I was devastated.

Looking back now, I smile because that "no" protected a future I couldn't yet see.

Around that same time, I reached out to someone simply because I wanted to make a new connection. That conversation turned into a friendship, which eventually led to an opportunity at a design agency while I continued building my freelance business on the side.

It felt like the perfect in-between.

Then, a year later, everything changed again. COVID hit, and I was laid off for a second time. This time, though, it didn't feel devastating. It felt like life asking me the same question one more time: If not now, when?

Not long after, I lost my dad. His passing changed how I defined success.

Success stopped being about climbing the next step of the career ladder. It became about building a life that gave me choices. A life where I could be present for the people I love.
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A life where I didn't have to ask permission to take care of my family.

So in January 2021, I stopped treating freelancing as my backup plan and started treating it like the business I believed it could become.

That doesn't mean I never questioned the decision. I did. There were moments when going back to the familiarity of a steady paycheck sounded incredibly appealing.

Then came another unexpected chapter. Later that year, my marriage ended, bringing a 20-year relationship with the father of my son to a close.

It wasn't part of the plan either.

But by then, I had learned something I didn't know I was capable of. I had learned that courage isn't the absence of uncertainty. It's choosing to keep moving anyway. After years of waiting for the next unknown, uncertainty no longer felt like something to fear. It had become something I knew I could navigate.

I had stopped waiting for life to become predictable and started believing I could figure things out, no matter what came next. And with every challenge, my confidence grew that I could make this work.

The years that followed brought more change than I could have imagined.

I moved to San Antonio to be closer to my mom. I built a business that has connected me with incredible clients and lifelong friends. I've had opportunities I couldn't have imagined eight years ago.

But if I'm honest, those aren't the things I'm most grateful for.

I'm grateful for the freedom.

The freedom to drive to Mexico and spend weeks helping my mom recover from surgery. The freedom to travel with Lennon and show him the world. The freedom to build a business around my life instead of trying to build my life around someone else's schedule.

The business was never the dream. The life it made possible was.
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Eight years ago, uncertainty consumed me because my future depended on decisions I couldn't control. It turns out waiting wasn't the hardest part after all. Believing I could build something on the other side was.

Today, uncertainty still exists. The difference is that now, it comes from building something that's mine. And I'd choose this kind of uncertainty every single time.

Eight years ago, I thought that email marked the end of my career. Looking back, it was simply the first page of the chapter I'm still writing today.

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