What phase of life are you in?

Last week, I spent a solo night in a London hotel literally across the street from where I stayed on my honeymoon 17 years ago.

💂🏻‍♀️ I didn’t plan it that way. I’d traveled to the UK with my dad for a family wedding, headed home a little early, and booked a hotel without even realizing how close it was to my past. When I looked up and recognized the street, I just stood there for a minute.

Seventeen years ago, on that same block, I was a different person. I was newly married, completely dependent on my ex-husband for, well, everything: reading the map, ordering the food, deciding where we’d go next. I didn’t wander far from his side. I didn’t know how to.

💪🏻 This time, I was the one navigating the trains, making the calls, deciding what came next for myself and for my kids back home. I run my own business now. I live by myself, which is something I’d genuinely never done before my divorce. I went straight from my parents’ house to my ex-husband’s apartment. This is the first time in my life the walls around me are entirely mine.

If I had to name this phase, I’d call it Independence 🔥

Funny enough, that same week, I was in my hotel room rehearsing content for an upcoming workshop where I share my own Emotional Intelligence report. My Independence score on it? Embarrassingly low. It’s strange and a little funny to hold both truths at once: the data says one thing, my life says another. Sometimes the wake-up call, in my case, a divorce, is exactly what breaks us open enough to grow into who we’re becoming 🪴

Standing on that street, I felt something I don’t always let myself sit with: pride. Pride in how far I’ve come. Pride in the support system I’ve built around me, even as I make my own decisions. And especially pride in watching my daughter carve out her own path, independent in ways I had to learn the hard way.

❤️ I’ve learned I can count on me. That’s not nothing.

So, I’ll ask you the same question I asked myself on that street corner:

What phase of life are you in right now? And if you had to give it a name, what would you call it?

I’d love to hear it. Send me a message to coaching@annagradie.com and let me know.

-Anna

P.S. This “Independence” chapter of my life – the divorce, the wake-up call, all of it – is also the subject of my tell-all chapter in When Women Talk, out October 6. If you want updates on the book (and details on the launch event), you can sign up here: When Women Talk: Notes From the Future — Book Launch.