What happens when the life that once gave you purpose, structure, and identity ends...and you’re left to figure out who you are without it?

In this episode of Live Beautifully, I reconnect with Suzanne Roe, a former Air Force leader and mentor whose influence changed the trajectory of my own life nearly twenty years ago. Suzanne shares a side of herself I never knew: from being a rebellious teenager who joined the military determined to see the world and earn an education, to surviving the Khobar Towers bombing, building a successful military career, and eventually confronting experiences she had spent years simply pushing aside.

We talk about the complicated transition from a highly accomplished military career into motherhood and civilian life, the loss of structure and identity that can come with starting over, and the realization that being high-functioning doesn’t necessarily mean everything beneath the surface has been resolved. Suzanne reflects on learning to separate who she is from what she accomplished, and finding meaning beyond the titles, awards, and rank that once defined success.

Now studying homeopathy, Suzanne is once again following her curiosity toward work centered on helping others; this time through an individualized approach to wellness and healing. Her future isn’t perfectly mapped out, and perhaps that’s part of the lesson: reinvention doesn’t always require knowing exactly where you’re going. Sometimes it means following the next meaningful step and trusting that the pieces will eventually come together.

And in a beautiful full-circle moment, we reflect on something Suzanne taught me long before either of us realized its impact: sometimes someone sees a possibility in you before you’re ready to see it yourself. A seed planted today may take years to become the life you were meant to grow into.

Suzanne leaves us with a reminder worth carrying:

“You can do anything and it may not be exactly how you think it's going to turn out, but you can totally do it. And don't let anybody tell you, you can't.”