What My Hindsight Can Teach You // The Modern Savvy Turns 10

This blog basically exists because 10 years ago this past summer I got fired from another job.

At the time it was devastating, like a sucker punch after I was already knocked down.

Crazy what hindsight provides, right?

Just a few months after becoming temporarily paralyzed, not knowing if I’d walk again, be able to hold my six-month old baby girl, pee on my own, or do many of the things I had taken for granted, my boss fired me… to focus on my health.

I often say that decision is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. It’s also one of the most defining moments of my life.

This summer I celebrated my blog and this community turning 10, so many of you here since the early days (remember when it was called The Average Girl’s Guide?). It’s also 10 years since I started my local PR company.

At the moment now a decade ago, it felt catastrophic. I felt like a failure. It was bad enough my body felt like a shell of what I knew only a few months earlier. And now this suggested maybe I wasn’t as smart or mentally capable either.

Sometimes we make decisions, and sometimes they’re made for us.

This could be a season for you or loved ones where really difficult decisions are being made for you. It can be impossible in this moment to see how things will be OK, and possibly, create a situation or life for you better than you could have even envisioned.

Let me be your proof. Let the situation that was beyond my control be the example that good, in fact, great, things are possible, even from the crappiest of situations.

I know now that her decision had little to do with me. In fact most people’s reactions to us have very little to do with us. You know that right?

This space might feel like just another URL if you only come here or to my social media occasionally. Yet, you should know this URL has changed my life.

This site has given me IRL best friends. It has provided me a virtual community of women who have lifted me during some impossible times (my dad’s passing, a failed adoption, now divorce, the list goes on) and have boosted me even higher during some really awesome milestones (a successful adoption, dream partnerships, etc).

This site has been a cathartic home where I could honestly and wholly write my feelings when I couldn’t speak them, and a place where my words have perhaps reminded you that you are not alone on your journey.

Through sharing my journey, I’ve connected with a dozen warrior women who also have transverse myelitis, the same rare disease I have and we now have a private Instagram group to connect, learn, share and commiserate. These women are my sisters.

It’s been 10 years. Over the years, I’ll be honest that I’ve wish this site and my platform was “bigger.” Why don’t I have 100K Instagram followers? Why did my site never grow like some others? Why did I not land that partnership? Why isn’t that brand interested in working with me? Why wasn’t I invited to that? Why, why, why?

Then I stopped. I was asking the wrong questions.

My energy has no place there because it completely misses the point of the insanely incredibly joy this site has afforded me, and that I hope has provided you over the years. Emails and messages I’ve received from so many women ranging from a top I suggested to adoption and trouble conceiving and loss and grief and everything in between make my initial questions seem so foolish.

I wholeheartedly believe that this entire site and the time I’ve dedicated has been worth it tenfold. I feel honored that my words have made at least one of you feel empowered, less alone, more seen, more connected, healthier, inspired, stronger, more joyful and more authentically you.

We are all real women just trying to do our best, and for all my love/hate with social media, can you believe so many of us have connected because of it?

So thank you. Thank you for being there for me, and THANK YOU for trusting me with your journey and letting me be there for you. I do not take that lightly.

If you are in the trenches, in a rough place, wondering what’s next, please know you’re not alone. This is a tough, tough year for so many, myself included.

Seek out the joy, ask yourself the right questions, and be so proud that you have made it this far. It’s proof that you can handle what’s coming next. Trust me.