Momentum, Interrupted

I used to think reinvention meant closing one chapter before opening the next.

A clean break. A clear starting point. A sense that life moves forward in sequence — one identity finishing before another begins.

I no longer think that’s how it works.

By the time I made aliyah, I had already gone through one major reinvention after my divorce. At the time, it felt like rebuilding from the ground up. A new version of life, a new set of decisions, a new sense of direction.

I thought I understood what starting over meant.

Then I moved to Israel.

Not long after arriving, I took a position as Director of Marketing and Recruitment for long-term English-speaking programs at Tlalim. It was meaningful work and gave me structure as I adjusted to a new country.

But over time, I began to feel pulled in a different direction. I had been thinking about building my own business for years, and I reached a point where I knew I couldn’t fully pursue it while staying in a full-time role.

Leaving wasn’t easy. There is always risk in stepping away from stability, especially in a place like Israel where everything already feels slightly unpredictable. I gave myself a financial buffer and a plan. I told myself I would create something slowly, deliberately.

What I didn’t fully account for was how often life would interrupt whatever timeline I imagined.

Not long after that transition, I had to fly back to the United States when my mother was suddenly hospitalized during the holidays. What was meant to be a short trip stretched into a far more complex period than I had expected. I found myself moving between roles — daughter, caregiver, professional, immigrant — without any real separation between them.

When my mother passed away, I returned to Israel carrying grief that didn’t fit neatly alongside the life I was still trying to build here.

And then, almost immediately after that, the war added another layer of disruption. Clients who had planned trips postponed or canceled. Momentum I thought I was building paused again.

There is a version of this story that would frame it as interruption after interruption.

But that’s not quite what it feels like from the inside.

It feels more like overlapping versions of yourself all trying to exist at the same time.

The version of me that left a full-time job to build something new.
The version of me navigating loss and family responsibility.
The version of me trying to establish a business in a country under pressure.
The version of me showing up now to showings, clients, and conferences.

They don’t replace each other. They coexist.

Recently, something shifted again — not dramatically, but enough that I noticed it.

Work has picked up. I’m spending more time with clients, visiting properties, building relationships in the real estate space, and attending a women’s conference this month that feels aligned with where I am heading.

For the first time in a while, there is forward movement that feels tangible rather than theoretical.

And yet what stands out to me most is not the momentum itself, but my relationship to it.

I used to believe progress should feel linear. That you build, then stabilize, then expand.

Now I’m not sure life in Israel — or life in general — follows that pattern.

Especially not when you are building something new.

There is a temptation to interpret every pause as failure, every delay as derailment, every interruption as evidence that something isn’t working.

But I’m starting to see something else.

That what often feels like interruption is actually accumulation.

Experience layering on experience. Identity layering on identity. Skills and grief and work and resilience all existing at once, shaping how you show up next.

In that sense, momentum is not something that disappears when life interrupts you.

It just becomes harder to recognize in real time.

What I’m learning — slowly, and not always comfortably — is how to build without requiring life to be orderly first.

Not because disorder is ideal. But because it is often the reality.

And because waiting for clarity can become its own kind of delay.

There is a quiet shift that happens when you stop expecting reinvention to be clean.

You begin to recognize progress differently.

Not as a straight line.

But as continuity — even through interruption.

And sometimes, that is enough to keep going.