Full Circle at Forty-One: Becoming a mom at 18 and Everything Since

I became a mom at 18. That sentence alone holds a thousand stories. Some of them are beautiful. Some are brutal. All of them are mine.

At 18, I was still figuring out who I was—then suddenly, I was someone’s mother. My daughter arrived like a tidal wave and a sunrise all at once. She changed everything. I didn’t have a roadmap, just a fierce love and a will to figure it out. And I did. Not perfectly, not always gracefully, but with everything I had.

Since then, I’ve lived what feels like a thousand lifetimes. I’ve been married. I’ve been divorced. I’ve worked more jobs than I can count—some I loved, some I barely survived. I’ve made friends who became family, and I’ve lost people I thought would be in my life forever. I’ve fallen in love again, more than once. Each time taught me something new about myself, about what I want, what I need, and what I will never settle for again.

I’ve reinvented myself more times than I can remember. I’ve been the girl who had it all together, and the woman who cried in the shower. I’ve been the one who showed up for everyone else, and the one who had to learn how to show up for herself. Through it all, I was raising my daughter—my constant, my mirror, my why.

There was a moment, not too long ago, when I almost didn’t make it. A near-death experience cracked me open in ways I’m still trying to understand. It stripped me down to the bones of who I am. And in that raw, terrifying place, I found something I hadn’t realized I’d lost: the quiet voice of God, calling me home.

And now, at 41, I find myself back where it all began—under my parents’ roof. Not as the same girl who left, but as a woman who has walked through fire and come out softer, but stronger, wiser, and more whole. I’m rebuilding—my relationship with them, with myself, and with God. It’s humbling. It’s healing. It’s holy.

This isn’t the ending. It’s a new beginning. And I’m not ashamed of where I’ve landed. I’m proud. Because every version of me—every job, every heartbreak, every reinvention—was a step on the path that led me here.

If you’re reading this and you feel like you’ve lost your way, let me tell you: sometimes going back isn’t failure. Sometimes it’s grace. Sometimes it’s the only way forward.

If there’s one truth I’ve learned, it’s this: who we are in our twenties is not who we are in our forties. And thank God for that. I used to think I had to have it all figured out by a certain age—that if I just worked hard enough, loved deeply enough, or stayed strong long enough, I’d arrive at some final version of myself. But life doesn’t work like that.

Life shifts. It surprises. It strips and rebuilds. And I’ve learned to be flexible with those changes. To let go when I need to. To hold on when it matters. To trust that bending doesn’t mean breaking—it means surviving. It means growing. It means becoming.

So here I am, 41 years old, still learning, still loving, still becoming. And I wouldn’t trade a single chapter. Because every version of me has been necessary. Every version has brought me closer to the woman I am today.

And she’s just getting started.