Letter to My Former Self: A Journey Through Grief, Growth, and Grace

What seems like forever ago...

We often move through life so quickly that we forget to look back. Not just to remember, but to understand. When we look back, this is where we see the growth. The growth that leaves marks in the forms of scars and triumphs. But together, they shape the story we carry forward.

In a quiet moment, I challenged myself to write a letter to my former self, the ‘me’ who was still figuring things out, still doubting, still dreaming wildly. This letter isn’t a list of regrets or achievements. It’s a conversation that spans years of personal growth, professional transformation, and unexpected challenges. It speaks to grief and resilience, ambition and identity, and the hard-earned wisdom that comes from simply continuing to show up.

This letter is an attempt to acknowledge the journey: the wins, the stumbles, and everything in between. While not every detail is laid bare, this is my way of honoring the road that brought me here. If you’ve ever looked back on your life and thought, “I wish I could tell that version of me something now,” then this letter is for you too.

And just maybe will be inspiring you to reflect on yours.

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Dear Staci,

You need to know, you’ve come a long way. You’ve built a life you’re proud of, filled with people who love you and inspire you every day. But it hasn’t always been easy, or even happy. Along the way, you’ve learned some hard lessons. You’ve felt the highs of joy, the depths of grief, and the quiet, complicated places in between. That’s life, not just the journey, but the meaning we find in the memories.

As a young person, you struggled with self-confidence. You were your own harshest critic. Only later did you learn how much that worried your parents, even though they didn’t know how to help. That inner critic pushed you to work hard. Hard enough to earn degrees, build a meaningful career, and create a name for yourself. But it also came at a cost. The same voice that drove your ambition sometimes chipped away at your peace, your relationships, and your trust in your own instincts.

You didn’t know it then, but life would ask you to show up in ways you never imagined, especially when it came to caring for others. You became the one people leaned on. The steady one. The one who would sit quietly in hospital rooms, make the hard phone calls, carry what others couldn’t.

Losing your brother broke something open in you. Watching someone you loved fade while you stayed strong on the outside changed how you see everything: family, time, even love. Grief didn’t just arrive and pass; it made a home in you. But it also made room for something else: deeper compassion. A fuller understanding of what it means to hold space for others in pain.

You started to listen more carefully. To meet people where they are, not where you wish they were. Your empathy stopped being something you kept tucked away. It became how you led, how you parented, how you connected.

And in that space of pain and transformation, you began to reflect on the mentors who had poured into you over the years. From an early age, their words had settled in the corners of your mind, waiting for the moments you would need them most. They helped guide your decisions when everything felt unclear. They reminded you of your strength when you had forgotten it yourself. You credit many of your turning points to their quiet belief in you.

Mentorship is powerful. It doesn’t always look like formal programs or structured sessions. Sometimes, it’s a conversation, a question, a moment of being seen. If you ever have the chance to be that for someone else, take it. Give them that gift. You may never know the impact of your presence, but it matters more than you think.

This wasn’t a role you asked for, but you stepped into it anyway. And through all of it, the loss, the exhaustion, the care, you never stopped showing up. Even when your heart was breaking. Even when no one saw it.

While you were carrying the weight of loss, you were also trying to build something: a career, a sense of purpose beyond the pain. But it was never just about the work. You were raising children. Holding them through their own grief. Trying to be both the steady hand and the safe place. Some days, you felt like you were doing everything at once. Other days, it felt like you were failing at all of it.

And in the middle of all that, you made a decision that still surprises even you. On top of everything else you went back to school to get an MBA. The late nights, the deadlines, the discussion posts after bedtime stories. You questioned yourself constantly. You wondered if it was worth it, if you were being selfish, if you were stretching too far. But you did it anyway.

There were moments when guilt sat on your chest when missing a game, a dinner, or a quiet question felt like too much to bear. And there were nights when the exhaustion went beyond physical. It was the emotional toll of holding it all together, of keeping promises to your family while chasing the kind of future you hoped would give them something more.

But you didn’t quit. You kept showing up: to class, to meetings, to the kitchen table. You led teams, submitted assignments at midnight, packed lunches, and sometimes cried in the car between them. And through it all, your children were watching. Not for perfection, but for presence. And you gave them that. Even when it cost you.

You didn’t always get the balance right. But what you gave them: resilience, love, the example of a mother who kept going, is something they’ll carry long after the details fade.

At some point, things began to shift. Not because life got easier, but because you got clearer.

You started to realize that success wasn’t just about titles or credentials, it was about alignment. About becoming someone, whose work reflected her values, whose voice could carry both authority and compassion. You stopped apologizing for your empathy. You let it guide you. And somehow, that made you stronger, not softer.

You built your voice in rooms that once felt intimidating. You asked for what you needed. You became a leader, not just in title, but in presence. The kind of person who others looked to because they felt seen by you.

And along the way, you learned some of your most important leadership lessons not just from those who inspired you, but from those who didn’t. You watched people in positions of power make decisions that clashed with your values. Leaders who led with fear instead of trust, ego instead of empathy. Those experiences taught you what kind of leader you never wanted to be. And they strengthened your commitment to lead with integrity, to choose transparency over politics, people over performance metrics, and compassion over control.

And slowly, you stopped questioning whether you belonged. You understood that you had earned your space, not just by working hard, but by surviving hard things and still choosing to lead with heart.

You were finally in a good place. The career. The family. The joy. Everything felt like it was finally coming together. You had earned every bit of it. You felt grounded, whole, even happy.

And then, in one surreal moment, everything changed. A single step, one small, sharp sea urchin, and suddenly your body was at war. What started as pain became infection. What became infection became life-threatening. You almost didn’t make it.

A health crisis that stole your strength, your momentum, your illusion of control.

You fought. In hospitals, in therapy rooms, in the quiet corners of your mind where fear tried to settle in. And when you finally returned to work, seeking “normal,” you realized that normal no longer fit.

Everything had shifted.

Your body moved differently. So did your mind. You saw time differently. You led differently. You lived with more presence and more gratitude. But also with a sharper sense of what mattered. Priorities that once felt urgent now felt hollow. Conversations that once drained you no longer got your time. You began choosing differently, not because of what you lost, but because of what you refused to lose again.

That sea urchin, absurd as it sounds, became a turning point. A tiny creature with spikes that tore through your body and, in a strange way, cleared your vision.

You discovered resilience again, but not the same kind. Not the push-through-no-matter-what kind. This time, it was quieter. Wiser. Rooted not in survival, but in intention.

And in the midst of it all, you learned to laugh. Not because everything was funny, but because sometimes it was the only way through. Humor became your pressure valve, your way to cope when things felt too heavy. It helped you keep your balance, your perspective, your sanity. And it connected you to others. It let people breathe around you, even in hard moments. You brought joy not because you had none of your own pain, but because you understood what it meant to need light in the dark.

Today, you live differently, not just because of what you’ve survived, but because of what you’ve chosen. You’ve built a life around your values, not just your goals. You hold space for what matters, and for who matters. You lead with empathy, you love without conditions, and maybe most importantly… you listen.

You listen to others more deeply. But you also listen to yourself. A voice you spent too many years tuning out. You wish you’d heard it earlier, trusted it more. Maybe you wouldn’t have followed it right away, but at least you would have known what it sounded like. That voice was always there. It just needed you to believe it was worth hearing.

Life isn’t perfect. It never will be. But it’s yours. And it fits. Not because it’s flawless, but because it’s finally aligned with who you really are.

You are still growing, still becoming. But now, you’re doing it from a place of wholeness. From a place of truth.

With love,

Staci - Your Current Self