No one really prepares you for how much your life can change. Not in the dramatic, movie-scene way, but in the small, everyday moments where you suddenly realise: things are not the same anymore.
Sometimes the change comes with joy. A baby you prayed for. A marriage you longed for. A home you dreamed about, and yet, alongside the joy, there’s something else that shows up quietly: discontent, grief, confusion, fear, and it leaves you wondering, Why don’t we talk about this part?
I remember the moment it hit me. Life didn’t fall apart. Nothing went wrong, but something shifted. My priorities rearranged themselves without asking permission. The rhythm of my days changed. My body felt unfamiliar. My time no longer belonged entirely to me, and slowly, almost imperceptibly, I realised I was becoming someone new.
Motherhood does that. So does caregiving. So does responsibility. So does growth. While the world celebrates the milestone, very few people sit with you in the quietness of what you have lost, the spontaneity, the ease, the old version of yourself who could say yes without calculating the cost.
There’s a kind of loneliness that comes with new seasons. Not because you’re unloved, but because your life now speaks a different language. A woman I admire once said that sometimes good things happening in quick succession can push one into depression if the changes are not well managed.
Friends may still care. They still check in, but your worlds begin to drift. Their conversations revolve around things you can no longer centre. Your availability shrinks. Your energy changes, and sometimes, you don’t even know how to explain it without sounding ungrateful. So you stay silent.
You smile through it. You say, “I’m fine.” You tell yourself, “This is what I wanted,” and both things can be true.
You can love your child deeply and still miss yourself. You can be grateful and still feel overwhelmed. You can be fulfilled and still feel disconnected.
Changing seasons don’t just ask us to adapt; they ask us to let go, and letting go is rarely tidy.
There’s fear in new seasons. Real fear. The fear of getting it wrong. The fear of losing yourself completely. The fear of falling behind in the life you imagined. The fear of becoming invisible. The fear that you’ll never quite catch your breath again, and then there’s the quiet guilt, Why am I struggling when this is supposed to be beautiful?
I need you to know that most times, beauty and struggle often arrive together. Becoming a mother, a caregiver, a nurturer, a woman holding more responsibility than she ever has, it stretches you in ways you never trained for. Your identity expands, but it fractures a little before reforming.
There’s grief in that fracture. Grief for the woman who moved freely. Grief for friendships that no longer fit. Grief for the ease of your old life. Grief for the parts of you that feel paused, delayed, or forgotten, and yet, there is also becoming. Slow, unseen becoming.
You learn patience. You discover a depth of love that humbles you. Your priorities sharpen. Your heart softens. Your intuition grows louder. Your strength becomes quieter but firmer, but no one tells you that becoming requires mourning.
To step fully into a new season, you have to honour what you’re leaving behind. Don’t rush it. Don’t minimise it. Don’t shame yourself for it.
Some days, you will long for conversations that don’t revolve around schedules and needs. Some days, you’ll feel disconnected from friends who no longer understand your world. Some days you’ll look in the mirror and feel like a stranger to yourself, and on those days, you are not failing. You are transitioning.
There’s a reason nature changes slowly. Seasons don’t rush. Autumn doesn’t apologise for shedding leaves. Winter doesn’t explain itself. Spring doesn’t ask permission to bloom. Why do we expect ourselves to be different?
If you’re in a season where life has shifted, where you’ve had to reorder your priorities, your time, your body, your sense of self, please know this: you are allowed to grieve and grow at the same time.
You are allowed to outgrow spaces and people without resentment. You are allowed to redefine yourself without having all the answers. You are allowed to rest in the unfamiliar without forcing clarity.
This season may have changed your pace, but it hasn’t erased your purpose. It may have quietened parts of you, but it hasn’t silenced your voice. It may have asked more of you than you expected, but it has also given you something new, a depth, a wisdom, a strength that only comes through lived experience.
So be gentle with yourself. Give yourself grace. You are not lost. You are not behind. You are not failing. You are becoming, slowly, painfully, but beautifully.
Trust me, one day, you’ll look back at this season and realise it wasn’t the end of you.
It was the beginning of a wiser, fuller version of who you were always meant to be.