On New Chapters and Letting Go

 Last week, I did something big. Something emotional and scary and significant.

Last week, I resigned from a career I've spent the last decade of my life cultivating and pursuing. I moved in favor of stepping back, prioritizing my family, and quite frankly, creating some much-needed margin in my life.

This week, I told my team. To say it's been an emotional rollercoaster would be an understatement.

I will officially transition at the end of February - a slow hand off to ensure my teams and projects are in good hands when I leave - but the mental processing has already begun as I think through what this new chapter of my life will look like. 

The last decade was spent in pursuit of some audacious goals I set for myself after graduating college - join an organization, make a name for myself, make Director before 30, make a difference, lead multiple teams, put my name on some major projects. I've been fortunate to be able to accomplish all of it, due in large part to some incredible mentors along the way, and an inherent internal pressure to consistently overperform (where my fellow Type-A perfectionists at?). 

But over the last few years, I've found myself torn between the demands of a full-time career and the demands of medical motherhood, stripped of any margin I once had. I've spent years feeling like I'm giving all I have, and yet - at the same time - not giving anyone or anything as much of me as I need to. I've contemplated stepping back more times than I can count, and I've taken small steps I suppose. But truth be told, until now, I've never found the courage to pivot my perspective and strip myself of the identity I've spent so long building up around me. 

Now that I've made this decision - I'm equally thrilled and terrified. 

I'm excited to be able to seek out opportunities to support my son in his development without concern for deadlines or competing projects. I am looking forward to having some extra margin to do things that simply make me happy (like writing on this little blog here). I'm excited to find out who I am in this career pause and what I can accomplish. At the same time, I'm terrified of leaving the security of the career I've built and the routines I know. I have zero clarity around what this next chapter will look like but am leaning in and stepping out in faith that this is a call I need to be obedient to.

So, here's to new chapters. To renewed purpose. To redefining myself not by what I do, but by who I inherently am and was created to be. Here's to relentless pursuit of life, love, family and joy in all of its forms. And here's to gracefully weathering the bumps that are sure to come as I let go of the things that have defined me for as long as I can remember.

I can't wait.