Listening to the Quiet Voice

I feel like I’m going through a mid-life crisis… at the ripe age of 30.

When I turned 30 five months ago, I told myself this year would be personal. Not in a surface-level, “new year, new me” way — but in the way that meant finally addressing the things I had been avoiding. I wanted to make peace with my healing. Take control of my mental health. I wanted to deepen my relationship with Christ. I wanted to get a real grip on my finances. They weren’t terrible, but living with manic depression while unmedicated comes with a level of impulsiveness that shows up everywhere — including how I spent money.

I knew five months ago that something had to give. I just wasn’t prepared for how much clarity would come with that decision… or how eye-opening it would actually be. If I trace it back, this shift really started the moment I got back on my antidepressants. Because getting medicated didn’t just make me feel better. It made me see everything. For the past year or so, I had spent so much time finding things to be unsatisfied with in my relationship that I thought clarity might bring some huge, life-altering epiphany. But it didn’t. If anything, clarity softened that part of my life. It helped me see it without the anxiety, without the constant analysis, without the urge to find something wrong. It made me realize that not everything in my life is misaligned. And that grounding has given me the emotional space to be honest about what is shifting. Because the restlessness didn’t disappear. It showed up in the areas of my life that needed growth the most — professionally and socially.

On paper, I have the career I prayed for. The stability. The trajectory. But now that my mind is clear, I can’t ignore the feeling that my work is no longer stretching me in the way it once did. And that realization is both validating and terrifying. Validating because you don’t always trust your own thoughts; you know what’s real dissatisfaction and what’s your mental health playing tricks on you. Terrifying because I can’t blame confusion or depression for it anymore. This was clarity. And clarity requires movement. At the same time, my spiritual life is no longer something I can keep on the back burner.

Last year was strange. My depression worsened in ways I don’t think I fully acknowledged at the time. I was fighting silent battles and slowly pulling away from everything — from myself, from my job, from my friendships, even from motherhood. I was physically present, but not fully there. And when you’re in it, you don’t always realize how far you’ve drifted until you start finding your way back. The way 2026 came in forced me to sit still. I was alone more. Moving through my days quietly. And in that stillness, I found myself grieving a life I had already started dreaming about — a version of me that was a mother of two. A future that felt so real to me that losing it felt just as real, even if the world never saw it that way. That grief slowed me down. It made everything feel fragile. Prompted me to seek professional help again.

Before I got back on medication, there was this quiet voice in the back of my mind for the past two years telling me to fully step into my faith; I dibbled in it. Visited. Watched online.
Prayed when I felt like I needed something. But I never fully committed. Maybe I was intimidated. Maybe I wasn’t ready to let go of certain versions of myself. Maybe I was scared of what my life would look like if I actually surrendered. But this year, that voice got louder. And this time, I listened. I joined a church.

And that decision alone feels like the physical manifestation of a prayer I’ve been carrying for two years because internally, I know I’m in a transition.

Not a chaotic one — an intentional one. Like God isn’t asking me to burn my life down… He’s asking me to grow inside of it first. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know what the next move is in my professional or social life. I don’t know exactly what this new version of my life looks like. But I do know that even though this clarity is uncomfortable, it’s also freeing.

I’m scared to shed parts of my old life and outgrow things that once fulfilled me. The roles and routines that once shaped who I am; the things that felt like they defined me and were core parts of my identity. But I’m excited to be intentional and to reconnect with the things that find the version of myself I use to love, but better. To fall back in love with fitness, reading, writing and the discipline and joy of pouring into my own life.

Year 30 feels like a season of patience, testing and isolation. A quiet rebirth to truly rewrite my story and reclaiming my mental state.