Let's try this again.

From The Thick of my Thirties to Wellyna on Purpose.

For a long time, if you asked me who I was, I knew exactly what to say.

I’m a high school English teacher. Department Chair. I had the title, the credentials, the recognition. I’d completed graduate school, applied and was selected to be part of multiple prestigious educational fellowships both as a participant and eventually a coach all within my first 5 years as a teacher. I was a solid career woman — focused, somewhat fearless, and proud of it. Teaching wasn’t just what I did, It was who I was.

And then, slowly, without a single dramatic moment to point to, it stopped fitting.

I became a wife. Moved to a new city. Started a new job. Got pregnant. Had a baby. COVID happened. Had another baby. Quit my job. Started a new job. Moved across the country. And somewhere in the accumulation of all of it, I looked up and didn’t quite recognize the woman looking back.

I kept showing up — organized, put together, performing the role of the “together teacher.” But underneath it, I was secretly preoccupied with a question I couldn’t shake: If I’m doing everything right, why doesn’t it feel like enough?

I wasn’t in crisis. I was just... logged in and checked out. Standing in front of a classroom, sitting in front of a computer, going through the motions, simultaneously over- and under-stimulated while carrying a guilt that I didn’t have enough to meet my husband and kids with the love and care they deserved. I was carrying the weight of a career I once wanted but gradually started to feel deeply misaligned with. Wondering why I felt bad at all the things I was supposed to be good at.

At the height of the season of burnout, I started therapy. During one session I described myself to my therapist as “lighting myself on fire to keep other people warm.” She stopped me and said something I’ve thought about ever since: You said you were doing the lighting. Not being asked by anyone else to. Why?

That landed and stuck.

The truth is for a long time I ignored the quiet inkling that things felt off because I was so busy trying to show up for everyone else, constantly putting myself on the back burner even in spaces I wasn’t being asked to.

But recently, I’ve come to the realization I don’t want to keep living for the margins — the scraps of time left over after I’ve given everything to work and responsibilities. Becoming a mother made me see how finite time actually is, and I want more of it to count. Not waiting for the perfect career moment. Not putting the things that matter on hold until I feel more certain. I want a full life — and I want it in the middle of the uncertainty, not on the other side of it.

I kept reaching for the version of myself that had it all figured out. The one with sure footing, clear focus, a strong sense of purpose. The one who could take all the pieces and build them into a cohesive path forward.

That version hasn’t shown up yet.

What I know is this: over the years I’ve had more ideas and dreams than I can count. Pages of conversations between me & God detailing all of the things I would love to do. And I’ve put every single one of them on the back burner because I kept letting the demands of life win. Lots of false starts and unfinished projects. A good friend once called me “flitty” — always brainstorming a new idea but rarely following through. That stung. Because it wasn’t entirely wrong.

So I’m here. Not because I have it figured out, but because I finally decided that waiting until I did was costing me too much.

I wish someone had told me earlier that reinvention is part of the process. That there’s no magical age where things click into place. That second-guessing doesn’t mean you’re failing — it might mean you’re finally paying attention. That the process is the point.

I’m not writing this from the other side. I’m writing it from the messy middle.

And I think you might be there too.

I’m Wellyna. And I’m still figuring it out.

on purpose.