The Season That Changed Me

Why I stopped directing and leaned fully into writing.

---

I recently saw a post on Instagram about “seasons”—the idea that motherhood, work, identity, and ambition all shift in cycles rather than along a straight line. The woman who shared it was talking about her choice to pause her career to raise her children. She made it clear she wasn’t judging those who can’t afford that pause or simply don’t want it. But the idea lodged itself somewhere in me.

As women, we transform many times over. We have our kid years, our menstruating years, our erratic perimenopause years, and eventually our menopause years. Some of us have single years, married years, divorced years, parenting years—and sometimes those seasons overlap in ways we never expect.

I never paused my career after childbirth—being a single mom by choice makes that nearly impossible—but the way I work, what I want, and what I’m willing to sacrifice for my ambitions have all shifted dramatically.

There was a time when I wanted, desperately, to direct a feature film. I wrote three films hoping one would be my debut. One fell apart because the budget ballooned. Another never got traction. The third landed me a manager and even attached a female director for a moment. And then my son was born.

At one point she asked why I didn’t want to direct the film myself, and I tried to explain that the desire simply wasn’t there anymore. I scanned my body, searching for any flicker of excitement—and felt nothing. The idea of leaving him to make a movie didn’t energize me; it left me cold. There was no resentment, no sense of abandoning a dream—just clarity. I didn’t want to direct anymore. I wanted to write.

So I leaned in. I had always written, but now it is the center of my creative life. Since then, I’ve written four films and two novels, all in various stages of revision, development, or quiet gestation. This is my season now.

As I sit by the window on a dark fall afternoon, feeling the year tilt slowly toward winter, I keep returning to that Instagram post. Sometimes the wind blows us into a new season without asking permission. Sometimes we walk willingly into it. Sometimes we don’t realize the shift until we look back.

What I’m learning is that to be a mom, an artist, and a professional, I have to evolve—sometimes all within the same day. The relief comes from realizing I don’t have to be everything all at once. I can let myself follow whatever needs me most in the moment, trusting that my identity isn’t fractured—it’s seasonal.

And in that acceptance, I’ve found an unexpected inner clarity. I can be present here, rooted in what matters now, while staying open to whatever the next season brings.