What I Know Now

January 9, 2026

Some departures don’t come with clarity at first — only with the steady knowing that staying would have required leaving myself behind.

There’s a quiet story we don’t often tell about leadership, motherhood, or work — especially when we leave something that once mattered deeply.

Sometimes when a person walks away, the room exhales.

Not because the person lacked value — but because their presence asked the system to reckon with things it wasn’t ready to face.

From the outside, it can get framed simply:

“It was for the best.”

And maybe, in some ways, it was.

But what often goes unnamed is what that story costs the person who left — especially when they stayed as long as they could with integrity, data, care, and foresight.

I used to sit at a table where resilience was required.

Not the soft kind.

The kind that asks you to stretch beyond what’s reasonable and call it commitment.

I tried to build something sustainable there.

I named what the foundation needed.

I asked for time, for resources, for space to do the work well — not just fast.

When I finally stood up from that table, things changed.

Resources appeared.

Help arrived.

Roles shifted.

And that’s when the quiet voice showed up:

If it worked after you left… what does that say about you?

This wasn’t the first table I chose to leave — and it likely won’t be the last. Each time, the reasons were the same: boundaries, values, and the quiet knowing that I am worth more.

Here’s what I know now:

It doesn’t say I was unnecessary.

It says I was holding too much.

It doesn’t say I was the problem.

It says the system relied on my over-functioning instead of fixing what was broken.

And it certainly doesn’t say I was “worthless.”

It says I stayed longer than was healthy — because I cared.

Resilience carried me through that season.

But intention is what carried me out.

Resilience that asks people to endure without change eventually costs more than it saves.

Intention taught me that worth is not proven by how much you endure.

Worth is honored by choosing environments that don’t require you to disappear for them to work.

I can respect leadership.

I can believe in resilience.

And I can still say this with clarity and peace:

I am worth more than being someone others feel relieved to lose.

So now, when I sit at new tables — or choose not to sit at all — I do so with intention.

Not to prove anything.

Not to be indispensable.

But to be whole.