A lot of women think reinvention comes after. After the decision. After they know which way they’re going. Like you settle the big question first, and then you get to figure out who you are.
I’d put that in the other order.
A woman who had never written a check
Years ago I helped a friend of a friend, a widow. Her husband had been dead four months and she had four months of unopened mail sitting there. I’m fairly organized, so I sat down at her dining room table and sorted it. All the electric bills went in one stack. All the phone bills in another. Magazines in one. Junk mail in another.
Four piles. Nothing paid.
I said, it doesn’t look like any of this has been taken care of. She said, oh, it’s all been handled. He paid the bills.
So I opened the first one. Right there it showed the last payment, paid by check. I asked her where the checkbook was. She said it was in his office, and she hadn’t been through his office at all.
I found it in the center drawer, where most men keep it. I brought it out and said, okay, we need to write some checks.
She looked at me and told me she had never written a check in her life.
She was eighty years old. Born in 1910. For sixty years somebody else had handled the money, and she had lived inside that arrangement so long she genuinely did not know she could do it herself.
Who were you the second you were born?
That widow was not incapable. She had been assigned a role and she stayed inside it, and after enough years the role and the woman looked like the same thing.
That happens in marriages that are still going, too. You become the one who manages the calendar. The one who smooths things over. The one who does not bring up the hard thing because it is easier not to. None of those started as who you are. They started as what the situation needed.
Here is the question I want women to sit with: who were you meant to be the second you were born? Not who your mother thought you should be. Not your mother-in-law, your brother, your sister, your husband, his brother, your sister-in-law. Your dad. Your dad!
That woman existed before all of it. She is still in there. She has been quiet a while, that is all.
It’s a puzzle
When I rebuilt my life after my marriage ended, everybody assumed it was hard. Whatever I thought was going to be hard turned out to be more of a challenge. An experiment. A puzzle I was putting together.
You put one foot forward. If it doesn’t work, you step back. If you step forward once and have to go five steps backward, you just get a different view of what you’re looking at. You go, oh. Now I know what to do.
That’s not failure. That’s information.
Finding yourself again works the same way. You try something. You see how it lands. You adjust.
You can start today
Here is the part women argue with me about: you can go looking for her right now. Today. Without knowing whether you are staying or going.
She is not waiting on your decision. She never was.
I’d go further than that. Reconnecting with her is often how the decision gets answered. Most women stuck on the fence are trying to make the biggest call of their lives while having almost no contact with the woman who has to live with it. No wonder it feels impossible.
Once you know what she actually wants, what she can actually live with, the question gets clearer on its own. Sometimes the answer is stay. Sometimes it’s go. I have no stake in which.
Where to start digging
One question: what did you love before you started organizing your life around everybody else’s needs?
Not what you should love. Not what would be productive. What lit you up before it got covered over.
Write it down. That’s it. That’s the first shovel.
A place to start
If you’re ready to start uncovering who you were always meant to be, while you’re working through the decision that’s keeping you stuck, I put together a free guide. Ten questions designed to help you hear your own voice through all the noise. No score, no agenda, no right answers.
→ Download it free at https://10questions.sheroempowered.com/crossroads
When you’re ready to go deeper
Uncovering who you are opens the door. For women who want structured support actually working through the decision itself, that’s the work I do through my “Do I Stay or Do I Go” program. Three months, weekly sessions, zero agenda about which way you choose. And if you’d like to start with a conversation first, a 30-minute call is just $49, no pressure, no pitch, just clarity.
When you’re ready, I’m here:
→ https://tidycal.com/franyakisley/stuck-on-the-fence
Written by Fränya K. Isley, founder of SHeroEmpowered.com
