I keep waiting for the big moments to feel big.
Last Monday I became my own boss. Twenty years of doing communications work for other people, and now the person I answer to is a client. That’s a real thing. That’s the thing I’ve been building toward.
It was a really busy and productive week between my client work and my own work that sent it flying by.
On Friday I had coffee with a woman who’d come to my book signing at the library. She’d read The Luck We Carry and reached out because parts of it landed close to her own life. We sat and talked. She told me about her wife. I gladly listened. When I hugged her goodbye—knowing I’d see her again—I turned toward my car, and as I walked away, something happened that caught me off guard.
So the milestone Monday was real. But the thing that told me I’m moving in the right direction happened over coffee, with a stranger who’d stopped being one.
That’s the week. The work, the joy boy, a package arriving from my grief coaching course, and a Friday afternoon that quietly rearranged how I understand what I’m building.
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Onward.
Ron Stempkowski is the author of The Luck We Carry: Love, Loss, and the Stories That Shape Us, a memoir-in-essays about learning to move with grief instead of moving on. If this story resonated, you can grab a signed copy—complete with a handwritten note—at ronstempkowski.com, or get your copy wherever books are sold. And if you'd like more stories like this one, join the journey and get them straight in your inbox.