She wasn't coming back.

Everyone kept waiting for her. Her family. Her friends. "You'll be back to yourself soon," they said. They meant it with love.

She knew something they didn't.

She was me. And I wasn't going back.

After cancer, everyone just expects. You survive the thing, you ring the bell, and then... you're supposed to return. Back to normal. Back to yourself. Back to the woman you were before any of it happened.
Everyone loves a good comeback story. I get it.

The problem is, I didn't want the old role back.

It's not that I was ungrateful. I was so grateful I cried about it. (I still do. I'm a crier. It's fine.)
It's that somewhere between the diagnosis and the "you're clear," I changed. Nothing big.
Nothing you could see. Just... different. For good.

And nobody tells you this part: going through it didn't bring me back. It changed me.

The Lie Inside "Bounce Back"

"Bounce back" sounds so easy. Like you just bounce. Back to normal.
If bouncing back worked, I'd have bounced back to 25 by now. I checked. It doesn't work.

Here's what nobody says about bouncing back: it assumes the old version was the right place to go back to. It assumes the woman from before had it all figured out.
She didn't. I know, because I was her.

The old me was tired all the time and called it normal. The old me said yes to everything and called it love. The old me thought a good life was a busy one.
Why would I go back to that?

Some Things Change You. That's Not Failure.

This isn't just a cancer thing.
It's the divorce that ended the marriage but also ended the woman who put up with it. (Not my current marriage, people. We're fine. 😂 )
It's menopause changing a body you thought you knew.
It's the kids leaving and the house going quiet and you realizing you don't know who you are when nobody needs you.
It's the career ending. Or the career that never felt like yours finally saying so.
We treat all of these like something went wrong. Like now we need to find our way back.

Maybe there's no back. Maybe this IS the road now.

I think we spend so much energy trying to get back to someone who doesn't live here anymore. We miss her. We chase her. We compare everything to her.
But you're here. This is you now.

Three Months Left

I looked at the calendar. Three months left in this year.
And I know what's coming. Everyone telling you to finish strong. Push harder. Hit those goals you wrote in January.

So let me ask you. How are those January goals going?

If you're like most of us... not great. Not even close. And now there's this quiet panic. Three months left and I barely started.

Here's what I think. Maybe the problem isn't you. Maybe this year changed you, and the goals didn't get the memo.

You made that list as a different woman. In January, you didn't know what this year would ask of you. So why are you still measuring yourself against goals set by someone who doesn't exist anymore?

And here's the part nobody in the goal-setting world wants to say: maybe you don't need better goals. Maybe you need standards.

Goals tell you what you want. Standards decide how you live.

A goal says "I want to lose 20 pounds." A standard says "I'm a woman who takes care of her body." Same direction. Completely different energy.
You can miss a goal and feel bad about it. A standard is something you return to. Every day. In the small stuff.

So don't spend the next 90 days chasing a list from January. Spend them asking a better question:
Who am I now — and how does she live?
You don't need a big plan for this. (If you have one, good for you. I love office supplies.)
You just need to stop looking backwards.

Forward, Not Back

I thought getting better meant going back. It doesn't.

You don't have to go back to go forward. That's it. That's the whole thing. That's the sentence I'd tattoo on my arm if I weren't such a wimp about needles. (I have tattoos. I'm still a wimp about needles. Both things are true.)

The old Gaby isn't coming back. And for the first time in a long time, I'm okay with that.

Maybe this week, you stop waiting for your old self to come back too.
No big speech. No announcement. Just a quiet decision:
She's not coming back. And that's not sad. That's good news.

What would change if you stopped trying to go back, and started deciding who you are now?

Always with so much love,

GABY

If you've been trying to "get back to yourself" for months (or years) and you're tired of looking backwards, that's exactly what we untangle inside the Vision Roadmap.

We start with who you are now. Not who you were.

I would love to hear from you!