Today, I came across a post on Instagram that read:

“Your journey has molded you for the greater good, and it was exactly what it needed to be. Don’t think you’ve lost time. There is no short-cutting in life. It took each and every situation you encountered to bring you to the now: and now, is right on time.”

This isn’t something new to me. Those who know me, know that it is a belief that has long resonated with my values. We are exactly where we need to be, but most importantly who we need to be. At every stage in our lives we have to be unapologetically who we are because that’s the person we need to be to deal with that particular situation.

…that was until I got pregnant…

When I got pregnant, I felt my life was over. I dreaded becoming the woman who lost herself. Someone who was defined by only one part of her life. I had always been a multi-dimensional person, and I was scared. I had an irrational fear that I would be reduced to one role. That the world would include me in the “she’s got mom brain” comments.

I desperately fought the stigma, but I have slowly accepted that it’s a beautiful thing. One can have “mom brain” sometimes and still be an intellectual. I can love my son and love myself. I can nurse and still show cleavage. In short, I am the owner of who I am. And I am a person who believes she can do what she puts her mind to. So I decided to stop being linear. I don’t have to fit a list. Rather, I am a web diagram. America is in the center and every leg of the web is one of the many things that make me: daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother, teacher, writer, model, entrepreneur, traveler, lover of all things beautiful… the list is endless.

That post was a great reminder to be proud of who I am and how far I have come. A woman shaped by time, family, culture, education, exposure, circumstance, people, and, why not, even the weather. It has taken me almost 31 years to be the woman who is before you. Someone who has allowed herself to explore the road not usually taken.

And that’s what I’m here to tell you all. It’s never too late to do what you want to do.