Becoming Phindi

As children, we’re conditioned to believe that “arriving” means reaching a certain milestone—achieving the career we want, marrying the right person, and creating a picture-perfect family. For so much of my life, that was the goal. Finish school, become accomplished, get married, have children. And then, I would have arrived.

But what happens when life looks nothing like the version you once envisioned? When instead of that carefully crafted ideal, you find yourself chasing entrepreneurial dreams, raising an amazing daughter alone, and trying to reconcile what you thought life would be with what it actually is?

This is a difficult place to land, if I’m being honest. I don’t regret the decisions that brought me here—not my divorce, not the shifts in my career, not the rebuilding of my life. But I do sometimes grieve the expectations I once held so tightly. Society sold me a dream: a mom, a dad, the kids, the white picket fence, the dream home, the fulfilling career. And while I have accomplished so much, there are moments when I feel like I’m lacking—like I lost something I never really had.

I’m not writing this for self-pity. I’m writing this because I know I’m not alone. I know there are millions of women who have sat with these same emotions, wrestling with the tension between what was supposed to be and what actually is.

Since my divorce, I have been walking a path that is spiritually led. It wasn’t a straight road, but rather a series of faith-driven leaps that led me here. After enduring a separation during COVID and then a divorce, I realized something—I could survive any difficult decision. That realization gave me the courage to reevaluate my career, to ask myself whether it aligned with the happiness and fulfillment I craved.

I was burned out. Medicine drained me. So, I took a risk. I walked away from the traditional path and built something of my own—an in-home medical practice. That leap led me to postpartum women, and in them, I saw myself. My own struggles. My own pain.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that decision wasn’t just a business move—it was a calling. Postpartum women reminded me of my own battles with depression after birth. They showed me that my purpose was bigger than me. My background as a physician, my experience as a mother who had been through the depths of postpartum struggles, my capacity for empathy—all of it aligned to serve these women in their most vulnerable moments.

This is my ministry.

This is my passion.

And for the first time in a long time, I feel aligned. My work fits into my life as a mom. It gives me the flexibility to be present for my daughter. It gives me the independence to decide how and where I work. The old version of myself would have said that true arrival meant having a husband, a family, the classic vision of stability. But my definition has changed.

Now, arrival means walking in my purpose. Doing what God built me to do.

When I was a child, I dreamed of being a public speaker. I competed in speaking competitions, using my voice in ways I never quite understood at the time. But now, I see it clearly—God placed that gift inside me for a reason. Not just to speak, but to minister, to uplift, to change lives.

Do I still desire a partner? A loving husband? A father figure for my daughter? Of course. And if that’s in God’s plan, I will welcome it. But if it never happens, I am learning to accept that, too—because I was made for more.

For those of you who have been divorced for a while, maybe you’ve already shifted your goalpost. Or maybe you haven’t. Maybe you’re still grieving the life you thought you’d have. That’s okay. This is hard. Healing is hard. Acceptance is hard.

I’m here with you.

Sitting with these same emotions. Processing the same grief.

But through it all, I hold onto the truth that I serve a God who sees a future for me far bigger than the one I ever imagined. And so, I walk in faith.

The days can be heavy.

But I owe it to myself—and to my daughter—to keep going.