Lava rock, snakeskin, a yellow daisy, and a whole galaxy waiting.

By Michelle Formanczyk

Today is November 7.

I’ve decided to make something of it.

Not a resolution. Not another promise to reinvent myself, become a better version, or finally figure out everything I’m supposed to be doing with my life.

I’ve spent enough time doing that.

Today, I want to celebrate the woman I’ve become.

And give her somewhere to go.

Bloom Where You Are Planted

I’ve always loved that expression.

Bloom where you are planted.

It sounds simple enough.

Find the sunshine. Put down roots. Grow something beautiful.

But what happens when the soil changes?

When the garden you’ve spent years cultivating no longer resembles the place where you started?

When your body changes, your circumstances shift, or the life you carefully constructed begins asking things of you that you never anticipated?

I’ve learned that blooming doesn’t always look like flourishing.

Sometimes it looks like resting.

Sometimes it looks like recognizing that the conditions have changed and the way you’ve always done things isn’t going to work anymore.

Sometimes it looks like discovering that you actually like the person you’ve become, even if you’re not entirely sure what to do with her yet.

That’s where I find myself today.

And it’s a surprisingly wonderful place to be.

Iceland

In February 2026, I traveled to Iceland.

I’ve traveled internationally before, both personally and professionally. My education in political science and my career in complex operational environments taught me to pay attention to changing conditions and prepare for uncertainty.

I knew how to read the tea leaves.

I made the preparations I could, with the information available, and went.

Life was complicated then.

It still is, in different ways.

But Iceland?

Oh, Iceland.

The lava fields. The water. The mountains. Those extraordinary little Icelandic horses wandering through landscapes that look as though God was having an especially good day.

Black volcanic rock covered in impossibly soft green moss.

Waterfalls that seem to appear out of nowhere.

A landscape shaped by enormous geological forces, where destruction and creation are part of the same ongoing process.

There’s something magnificent about standing in a place that has been reshaped so many times and realizing that none of those transformations diminished its beauty.

They created it.

I think about that often.

Especially now.

The God in the Details

I’ve always been fascinated by the natural world.

The science. The systems. The extraordinary relationships between things that appear completely unrelated until you look closely enough.

And the beauty.

Good grief, the beauty.

If God created this planet, I can’t imagine a more joyful expression of gratitude than actually getting out there and appreciating His work.

Stand beside a waterfall.

Watch an animal move freely through a field.

Plant something and marvel at how it knows exactly what to do without anyone explaining the process.

Study the architecture of a flower.

Look up at the night sky and consider how much of the universe we haven’t even begun to understand.

I find God in those moments.

In curiosity. In discovery. In the astonishing complexity of living systems.

And in people who quietly make the world a little better simply because they can.

I don’t need to understand every mystery to appreciate it.

I’d rather keep exploring.

There’s an entire planet out there.

And I haven’t seen nearly enough of it.

The Little Girl on the Service Desk

When I was little, I used to sit on a service desk, swinging my legs while I waited for my parents to finish working.

There was a man who worked for my grandfather. I’d sit there talking with him, completely unaware of how our lives would eventually intersect.

Years later, I’d marry his son.

Steve.

Life has a remarkable way of bringing certain stories full circle.

That little girl had no idea who she was going to become.

But she was curious.

I remember that curiosity.

The desire to understand how things worked, why people did what they did, and what might be possible if you could see a little farther down the road.

I’ve spent a lifetime following those questions.

I’ve built a career. Raised children. Loved people. Made mistakes. Learned things. Changed my mind. Started over.

More than once.

I’ve been a lot of versions of Michelle.

The ambitious one. The determined one. The exhausted one. The one who could help everybody else find their way while occasionally wondering where on earth her own compass had gone.

And now?

This is my favorite version of me.

Not because she’s accomplished everything she wanted.

Not because life has become particularly easy.

And certainly not because she has all the answers.

She’s my favorite because I understand her better.

I know what matters to her.

I know what she’s capable of, and I’m learning to respect what she needs.

She’s loving. She’s kind. She’s funny.

She has a remarkable capacity to care about people.

And she’s becoming increasingly comfortable recognizing her own value without needing to prove it to anyone.

I really like her.

I’d like to see what she does next.

I Want My Business Back

There.

I said it.

I want my business back.

I want my career.

I want to make a living doing work that matters.

I’ve spent decades learning how to help people and organizations navigate complexity, recognize opportunities, and create meaningful change.

And I love that work.

I love the moment when somebody who has been overwhelmed by circumstances suddenly recognizes that they have choices.

When confusion gives way to clarity.

When a person who has spent years trying to meet everyone else’s expectations begins to understand what they actually want.

When someone realizes that the next step doesn’t have to be enormous.

It just has to be theirs.

That’s the work I want to do.

But my own circumstances have changed.

My body has different requirements. My capacity isn’t what it once was. And the life I’m building needs a different kind of structure than the one that supported my earlier career.

I don’t have that figured out yet.

How do I create value sustainably?

What does earning a living look like now?

How can I share what I’ve learned without building another life that requires more of me than I can reasonably give?

These are important questions.

And I don’t intend to rush the answers.

I’ve spent enough of my professional life studying systems to recognize that when operating conditions change, the design needs to change with them.

That’s not failure.

That’s learning.

And perhaps the most exciting part is that I don’t have to go back to being the woman I was.

I get to find out what this woman can build.

The Forever Date

I’ve learned that dates can become attached to memories so powerful that we can’t imagine them ever meaning anything else.

And then, sometimes, life surprises us.

Something new happens.

A different memory takes root.

The history doesn’t disappear.

The meaning expands.

I’ve experienced that before.

And today, November 7, I’m choosing to experience it again.

Launch Day.

If I could make an emblem to commemorate it, I’d start with Icelandic lava rock.

Rough. Porous. Beautiful.

Formed under extraordinary pressure and transformed into something entirely its own.

I’d plant one brilliant yellow Gerbera daisy right in the middle.

And around its stem, I’d tie an elaborate bow made of shed snakeskin.

A reminder that growth sometimes requires leaving something behind.

Behind it, I’d paint a soft galaxy stretching across a cream-colored sky, with a tiny rocket making its way toward the stars.

And somewhere, almost too small to notice, I’d write:

Michelle is here.

Not because she’s arrived at her final destination.

Because she’s finally ready to explore what comes next.

There are still mountains to climb, gardens to grow, people to love, and work worth doing.

There are conversations I haven’t had, stories I haven’t written, and people I haven’t met who might someday become part of the most remarkable chapters of my life.

There are things I haven’t learned yet.

Places I haven’t seen.

Possibilities I haven’t even imagined.

And somewhere in the middle of all that wonder is a little girl who once sat swinging her legs on a service desk, waiting to find out who she would become.

Well, kiddo.

Here we are.

And I think you’re going to love what happens next.

Bloom where you are planted.

I intend to.

Happy Launch Day.

Michelle is here.

— Michelle Formanczyk