Still Building

Growing Up Fast: Grief, Responsibility, and Becoming The speaker reflects on how becoming a mother at 17 “saved” her by giving her direction and responsibility, reshaping her priorities and creating distance from peers. She traces this accelerated maturity back to losing her brother Luke in a car accident at 13, learning to carry grief quietly while watching her parents and siblings grieve. She describes a warm, loving father whose mental illness brought uncertainty, and a mother who steadily held the family together through grief and hardship, modeling quiet strength. A supportive nurse midwife during her pregnancy made her feel seen and capable, inspiring her calling to become a labor and delivery nurse. She names the hidden costs and gifts of growing up fast, discusses how grief endures and integrates over time, and offers reflective questions and encouragement to others with similar experiences.00:00 My Daughter Saved Me01:12 Losing Luke at 1303:20 Loving My Father04:45 My Mom the Rock06:11 Becoming a Mom at 1707:09 Called to Nursing08:28 Outgrowing Friendships10:07 You Are Not Alone11:27 What Growing Up Fast Gave Me12:39 Living With Grief13:47 Permission to Grieve15:18 How It Shaped My Life16:24 Questions and Closing

This is where it started.At 45, I found myself sitting with a question I didn't expect — not what do I need to accomplish next, but who am I becoming now?In this first episode, I share my story honestly. Growing up fast. Becoming a mother before I fully knew who I was. Building a career in nursing and healthcare leadership. Choosing commitment through decades of marriage. And arriving at midlife to find that the building isn't done — it's just asking something different of me now.We talk about what it means to grow up before you're ready. What survival mode does to your identity. What perimenopause actually feels like — in your brain, your patience, your sense of self. What shifts when your children become adults. And what happens when the question changes from how do I build stability to who do I want to be now that stability is here.This episode is for the woman who has built something she's proud of — and still feels like there's another layer waiting.You don't have to be a mother or a wife to feel this.You just have to be a woman who is still becoming.Still Building is a podcast about growing inside the life you've already built. Honest, reflective, unhurried. New episodes weekly.

At 45, I've been sitting with something I didn't expect.I'm not finished becoming.Still Building is a podcast for women in the middle of it — accomplished, capable, responsible — and quietly realizing there's another layer waiting. We'll talk about the things that don't get talked about enough. Perimenopause. Identity after achievement. Marriage at midlife. Parenting young adults. Caring for aging parents. Grief. Chosen family. And the strange, beautiful recalibration that happens when you realize you are not done becoming.This isn't a podcast about reinvention. It's not about blowing up your life and starting over.It's about growing inside the life you've already built.Whether you've built a family, a career, a community, or simply a version of yourself you're proud of — you're in the right place.New episodes coming soon.You're not alone. You're not behind. You're not finished.You're still building.