I Thought I Had to Have It All Figured Out by Now (Spoiler: I Didn’t)

When I was younger, I had it all planned out.

I’d grow up, get married, be a stay-at-home mom to 3 or 4 beautiful children, and live a happy, peaceful life with my husband. I pictured holiday dinners with my grown kids, playing with grandbabies in the yard, and growing old surrounded by love and laughter. That was the dream. The expectation. The path I was sure would be mine.

And for a while, it looked like I was on my way there. I got married. I had four amazing children. I was a stay-at-home mom throughout my marriage and tried my best to make a good life for me and my family. We moved every three years due to military relocations, and I was the one who held it all together managing the house, raising the kids, starting over in new cities, building community from scratch each time.

While I was focused on keeping our family grounded through every move, my ex-husband worked, went back to school, and steadily advanced his career. We were starting from scratch together just trying to make it by with what we could through our marriage. By the time we divorced, he was earning six figures. I was starting over from scratch—with no money, no formal education, no career to fall back on, and no real support system to lean into.

As we all know, life doesn’t always follow the script we have written in our head.

After 18 years of marriage, I got divorced. And then came the unraveling of everything I thought was supposed to be my foundation. I didn’t just lose a relationship. I lost stability, family, finances and I lost my sense of direction. My ex-husband didn’t just walk away, he alienated my children and even helped to turn my parents against me, which wasn't hard with a narcissist mother. I found myself in my 40s with no roadmap, no backup plan, and no safety net.

Let me tell you, there’s nothing that prepares you for having to start your entire life over when you thought you’d already be living the “happily ever after” part. It’s terrifying. It’s humbling. It’s lonely. It's scary. And it’s not something we talk about enough.

But here’s the thing: even though it didn’t go the way I hoped, I’m still here. Still standing. Still fighting to build a life I can be proud of.

I’ve had to pivot and adapt in ways I never imagined. I’ve had to make hard decisions. I’ve cried in the dark, doubted myself more times than I can count, and kept going anyway—not because I had it all figured out, but because I had no other choice but to survive.

And if you’re in a season of life where it feels like everything is falling apart or just not going the way you thought it would, I want to tell you something that took me a long time to learn:

You are not a failure. You are just in progress.

We live in a world that puts so much pressure on women to have a picture-perfect life by a certain age. We’re told to chase the dream career, marriage, kids, balance, beauty, peace and when life doesn’t line up, we feel ashamed. Like we did something wrong.

But life doesn’t come with instructions. There’s no cheat code or guaranteed formula for happiness. Sometimes, you do everything “right” and things still fall apart. Sometimes you have to rebuild more than once. Sometimes survival itself is a win.

And you know what? That’s okay.

If you’re in your 20s thinking you should already be successful, give yourself grace. If you’re in your 30s questioning if you married the right person, listen to your gut. If you’re in your 40s or 50s or beyond, starting over completely, don’t be ashamed. You’re not behind. You’re just rewriting the story.

We don’t talk enough about how resilient women really are. How we can get knocked down by life, over and over again, and still find the strength to show up, to rebuild, to love again—even if it’s just learning to love ourselves a little more each day.

So, if your life doesn’t look the way you thought it would by now, Rember this:

You're not alone. You're not broken. You're not too late.

You’re a woman doing her best in a world that keeps throwing curveballs and that is something to be proud of. It’s not about having it all figured out. It’s about showing up for yourself, even when no one else does. It’s about learning that peace can live in progress, and that perfection was never the goal anyway.

As women we adapt. We survive. And slowly one brave choice at a time—we start to thrive and move forward.