09/18/2026
I've been writing my way through a series this week, and I didn't expect it to be so cathartic. Three years after losing my Mom telling the story of how I've come to create Wellness Creative is the first thing that's actually felt like grieving her but also embracing the woman I'm becoming.
Not the busy, Not the coping. The telling.
It's all been so great...so thank you to all of you who have been reading along and sending messages.
So here's what I've decided.
Over the next while I'm sharing how a career change at 47 actually happened. Not the hightlight version....the actual messiness, self-doubt and imposter syndrome but also the success along the way.
Today I'm sharing how I handed over my passion project - Driftwood Candle co.
In the coming weeks I'll get into the nitty gritty of actually making a go of it, because I know there's a woman reading this who wants a change and is waiting for permission.
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Giving Up, Quitting or Letting Go?
Yesterday I shared how I knew I had to give up my dreams of building my candle business and commit to our family business.
But let me be clear about something, because the words matter.
There is a difference between giving up, quitting and letting go.
If you're trying to build something in the middle of your hardest season and you need to hit pause, please hear this: You're not giving up. You're not quitting.
What I did with the candles was let go of something that had stopped serving me and that I could no longer do justice. I had customers who needed me to show up, and emotionally I wasn't there. Not even close. Holding onto it wouldn't have made me loyal. It would have made me a business owner half doing the thing - and that's not my personality.
So I didn't shut it down. I transferred everything I had to Wanda and her son Sam.
Sam has Down Syndrome. He'd just graduated high school and he needed a purpose, and Wanda wanted something the two of them could build together.
I spend the entire month of July that summer with them down in my "Candle Cave" sharing every recipe, every supplier, how to pour, how to cure, all four years of figuring it out the hard way, I handed over.
It was a fantastic month.
But here's what I couldn't say out loud at the time. I was handing Sam the exact thing I was looking for myself. Purpose. A reason to get up and make something. I watched him find it, in my studio engaging with customers, with my curated recipes, and I knew I was doing the right thing even though it broke my heart a little.
That's the part I'm proudest of. Not that I let it go. That it landed somewhere good, my customers ended up with a family who genuinely wanted it, and those two were always going to take it further than I could....they already have to be honest.
They run it as Blue Clover Candle Co now. Please go follow them. (Blue Clover Candle Co)
The sale closed in August 2024.
Then I took myself on a solo cruise.
Alone.
For the first time in my life.
Here's what I learned.
When you travel alone as a woman, you trigger people. Seriously trigger them. One woman on the ship told me I was missing out, that I was wasting the trip reading in. my cabin instead of going to the shows at night.
Lady, I NEEDED those fourteen hours of sleep and quiet time.
But here's the part that stayed with me. Far more woman said something else entirely. "You're so brave to go alone. I could never do that."
I won't pretend it wasn't a bit scary. It was. It was also the most empowering thing I'd done in years, and it felt exactly like what I was meant to do next.
Starting a business in midlife is the same feeling. We already know our worth. The hard part isn't figuring that out. It's just doing the thing.
My soul came back refreshed. I found the clarity I'd been chasing for years, and more urgently since my Mom died. I came home committed to building a new chapter for myself, and I genuinely believed it would make life better for my family too.
I was right about that, but it took a while to prove it to myself and them too.
Letting go of a business you built is not failure. Sometimes the thing you love is just the thing that teaches you what you're actually capable of. I needed the candles to find the design work. I didn't need to keep them to keep the lesson.
More on what came next soon. Follow along if you're holding onto something you already know you've outgrown.
