The Pivot
Yes, math doesn’t math AND the meaning still does
This weekend has been a nightmare news cycle. I literally want to run away with my family and live in a faraway land, away from the noise and chaos.
But here we are…our country waking to a potential war with Iran, debts that cloud potential, friends’ parents being diagnosed with cancer, layoffs happening everywhere, businesses closing, and the math isn’t adding up for anyone.
The world feels like it’s on fire, and everyone I know is scrambling…pivoting careers, pivoting plans, pivoting expectations of what life was supposed to look like. Some people are pivoting because they want to, because they saw an opportunity, or because they finally got brave enough to chase the dream. Those pivots look good on LinkedIn and Instagram…they come with applause and “you’re so brave” comments. I know, I once got those comments, too.
But these days? Most of us are pivoting because we literally HAVE TO…because the job disappeared, the industry collapsed, rent and living expenses rose too high, the business closed, the body gave out. We’re pivoting because staying where we were wasn’t an option anymore, and survival required reinvention, whether we were ready for it or not.
And here I am, 42 years old, ADHD, hormonally chaotic, hustling harder than I ever have, and I’m exhausted. And I keep thinking:
How many times can you pivot before you’re just spinning?
I’ve pivoted before, and honestly, I’m pretty okay at it, actually…maybe too okay.
From 2020 to 2022, I burned down the life I knew and started over. I left my first marriage, left Charlotte for New York, left my marketing career, and taught myself to cook. I went from zero experience to line cook to sous chef to executive chef in a year. It was the kind of pivot that gets recognized, that gets written about.
I thought: this is it, this is who I’m supposed to be…
And for a while, it really was. The 80-hour work weeks, the adrenaline, the constant proof of competence…I loved it. I was building something, I was GOOD at something, I had found my thing.
Yes, and the math stopped mathing.
I was an Executive Chef of a restaurant in New York City, living my dreams. Yes, and…here’s what no one tells you: dreams don’t always pay for childcare, don’t account for being a single mom with no family nearby to help, and don’t care that you’re really good at what you do when the salary doesn’t quite cover life.
So I had to choose: the restaurant or Amelia.
There was no choice. I had to pivot, again.
It was then that I learned something new about pivots. They aren’t all created equal…there’s a difference between the ones you choose and the ones that choose you.
When you choose to pivot, when you actually have the space and the resources and the safety net to say “I’m going to try something new,” that’s truly empowering. You need discernment to see when something isn’t working, flexibility to imagine something different, awareness to know yourself well enough to know what you need, and openness to let that new thing in. Those are essential, and they make those kinds of pivots possible.
But when you’re forced to pivot…when circumstances are out of your control, when the restaurant closes, when a toxic boss makes it impossible to stay, when the numbers stop working, and you have no choice but to start over…well, those kinds of pivots hit differently. You still need all those other things, the discernment, flexibility, awareness, openness. Still, you need them while you’re drowning, while the bills are due, and you can’t afford to take the time to figure out what you actually want because survival doesn’t wait for clarity.
I chose to move to New York, chose to leave my first marriage, and chose to become a chef. Those pivots were hard, but they were mine, and they were thoughtful.
The rest? They didn’t have the luxury of a thoughtful planning sesh; they were survival moves.
I left the restaurant and took a series of jobs that I thought were smarter moves…a cafe job with culinary consulting on the side or the restaurant that offered extreme flexibility of schedule. Both jobs had lower stakes, better hours, and a lot more flexibility for Millie…or so I thought. Except one had a toxic owner and the other had books that didn’t add up so they had to close. Both times, I had just traded one kind of unsustainable for another. So, I HAD to pivot, yet again. I was back to square one.
This time last year, actually almost exactly one year to the day, I leaned into the discomfort and the uncertainty and created The Freckled Fork, LLC. I had no brilliant business plan or clear path to profitability, but after exhausting all of my connections, nothing else fit what I needed. I needed flexibility and autonomy…I needed something that could accommodate Millie’s schedule, my manic ADHD brain, and all with the glaring reality that I had no safety net.
There’s freedom in being your own boss and owning your own business. Yes, and the ugly truth is this: if I don’t work, I don’t make money…and if I don’t make money, I can’t pay for our life. And, that’s what keeps me up at night. That and my days feel so routine and monotonous. No matter how much I love what I do, the pressure of HAVING to do it to survive…well, there’s no relief.
I can’t afford to be sick…headaches be damned, colds don’t count, even a light flu is a risk I have to take when it’s a choice between working or a $0-day when bills are due.
And all the while, Yas is knee-deep in job applications and navigating this clusterf*%k of a job market right now. I’m the sole income for our family, throwing proverbial (and literal) spaghetti noodles at the wall…promoting and marketing myself for catering gigs, private chef services, this Substack and web content, side hustles, and more. I’m a multi-hyphenate because I have to be. None of them pays enough on their own, so I can't afford to say no to anything.
You guys, I’m running on fumes.
Yes, I'm overwhelmed and burned out and stressed. AND I love what I'm doing. I love feeding people, I love writing again, I love being creative and finding new ways to help others. I am a walking bundle of contradictions. Yes, and.
When I’m actually cooking for someone, when I’m creating a meal that nourishes them, when I’m connecting people through food and stories…that’s when I remember why I’m doing this at all.
The Freckled Fork isn’t just a hustle to keep the lights on…it’s the thing I’ve been building toward my whole life without knowing it. It’s using everything I learned in my lives before this one and everything I learned in restaurants, but doing it on my terms, for people I actually want to feed, in ways that feel true to who I am.
The stress is real. The exhaustion is real. Yes, and, so is the fulfillment when I pull off a dinner party and watch strangers become friends over a shared table. So is the joy when someone tastes something I made and their whole face changes. So is the pride when I look at what I’ve built from nothing and think: this is mine.
At the end of the day, I’m not doing this just to survive, I’m doing this because feeding people, connecting people, creating space for them to be human together…that’s my actual work. That’s the thing I can’t NOT do, even when it’s hard.
The math might not math…but the meaning does.
All of this is going on while my ADHD brain is screaming for me to start paying attention, and my hormones are doing whatever the f%*k they do in your early 40s that makes everything feel impossible.
I read The Cut’s piece last week about late-in-life ADHD and hormonal chaos, and I wanted to cry because FINALLY someone was naming it…the lack of research, the growing number of women being diagnosed late in life, the brain fog, the emotional dysregulation, the collapse of our executive functioning, the way everything feels like too much all at once.
ADHD makes it so hard to keep all the plates spinning, the hormones make everything feel more urgent and overwhelming, and I can’t afford to break down because even if I do…the bills don’t stop, the rent doesn’t pause, and we still need to eat.
So, I keep going, hoping at the very least that some or even one of these noodles actually stick to the wall.
And you know what? Women have been doing this shit forever.
My mom does it still. All of my grandmas did it. Women hustle, wear multiple hats, spin multiple plates their entire lives…mostly behind the scenes, mostly invisible, always expected. Yes, and we are ALL exhausted.
I watched my mother work a full-time job, manage a household, teach Sunday School classes, and raise 3 kids with my dad…she made it look easy. It wasn’t easy, though; she was just good at hiding the strain (most of the time). She was good at showing up and moving forward, even when she was exhausted. She was good at making it work because, honestly, there were no other options.
I look around at the women in my orbit…the creators, the business owners, the mothers, the multi-hyphenates…and they’re all busting their ass, making it work, building beautiful things. And they’ll be the first to tell you how f%*king hard it is, how overdue they are for a vacation or, at the very least…a nap. We’re all just trying to keep the lights on while refusing to lose ourselves in the process.
Recently, I keep asking myself: why does it have to be so hard? What are we chasing? Who are we chasing for? Who said this was normal?
All this hustle, all this pivoting…doesn’t it all feel unsustainable? I don’t know how much longer we can pretend it’s not.
On top of all of this, I’m also trying to get this whole marriage thing right this time.
In my first, I performed, I people-pleased, I made myself small. I’m not doing that this time. I’m trying to be honest, to ask for what I need, to trust that I am enough. But I’m also terrified, because what if all this pressure breaks me?
Yas is searching, the tech industry is bleeding, and jobs that used to exist just don’t anymore. He’s carrying me emotionally, he’s doing what he can, and he’s carrying his own guilt and baggage from this ongoing search. It’s all getting SO heavy for both of us, and there’s so little room for light.
Here’s what I also know: this marriage is different…Yas really does see me. He doesn’t need me to perform or people-please or make myself small. He loves me as I am (for the most part), not as the version I think I’m supposed to be.
That’s worth fighting for, even when the pressure is crushing, even when the bills are piling up, even when we’re both exhausted and scared. I don’t want the financial stress to break us. I know that what we’re building together is a beautiful partnership…one where we can thrive, where we can pivot, where we can trust it’ll all work out in the end.
Yes, I’m terrified, and I’m also holding on to something beautiful, something real.
Then there’s everything else…the dumpster fire surrounding us. We awoke to our country bombing Iran, provoking a war none of us want. Family members in the hospital, friends’ parents getting cancer diagnoses, more layoffs, restaurants closing, everyone drowning in their own version of “the hustle is too hard.”
Moments like these are when I want to run away with my family and disappear to some faraway country. Somewhere, I can cook for people I love without worrying about revenue streams, where time moves slowly, and life is just simpler. But that’s a fantasy I can’t afford to have.
Yes, I’m here in our current reality, and I have to pivot again and again and again…hoping that eventually something becomes profitable, or at the very least, they manage to make ends meet.
I don’t have a neat ending for this one. I don’t have a lesson learned, a breakthrough, or a silver lining. Yes, and. I’m here, tired and overwhelmed, in the middle of it all, trying to figure out how to feed my family and feed my soul and love my husband and keep the lights on and not lose myself in the process. Yes, and.
How many times can you pivot before you’re literally just spinning?
I don’t know yet.
Yes, and I know this: I’m not spinning aimlessly. I’m building something that matters, even when it’s hard. I’m feeding people, connecting people, creating work that’s actually mine…the math might not make sense right now, but I’m certainly not giving up on what it all means.
So yeah…I don’t know yet…but I’m about to find out how many times you can pivot before you break.
Yes, and…finally build something strong enough to hold myself and those I love.
I’m just reading this for the first time. I’ll say it again, you’re amazing 🩷 You have a book (or more) in you and the title should be, “Yes, and.” 🩷😊🩷