I guess the 10-year trend is making the rounds, and it really has me thinking.
If you had told 2016 me about all the challenges that lay ahead, I would have been terrified. But if you had told me about all the rewards waiting on the other side, I never would have believed you.
The person I was in 2016 and the person I am in 2026 are two completely different people.
In 2016, I had just welcomed my second child. I was in the thick of raising two kids only 15 months apart while navigating a marriage that, at the time, I didn’t fully understand was as unhealthy as it was. Over the next two years, I would go through a divorce, move back home, and be diagnosed with an extremely rare and painful nerve disorder for which there is no cure.
Yet somehow, in the middle of all the hardship, I met the most amazing man. After my diagnosis, I even tried to give him an out. To this day, I’m sure he’d laugh if I reminded him of that conversation.
I left my career at Starbucks and started a new one in education—in the middle of COVID, no less. Maybe that makes me a little crazy, but I loved it.
Today, it’s been seven years since I started teaching and almost eight years since I met the man who is now my husband. Life is wonderful. Not perfect, and certainly not without challenges, but wonderful.
I’ve learned to manage my nerve disorder without medication. Seven years ago, there were days when walking felt impossible. This year, I walked all over Manhattan with my family. I went from a relationship that tore me down to one that builds me up every day. I went from being a mother of two to a mother of four.
And, unfortunately, I also said goodbye to my best friend—my dog—last year. He was there through all of it.
As I look back, I’m amazed by how much can change in ten years. The struggles, the growth, the heartbreak, the joy—none of it was what I expected. But standing here today, I’m grateful for every step that brought me here.
Ten years can change everything.
❤️👏