Paving a New Path: Meet Sabrina

Motherhood has an interesting way of changing you, in ways you couldn’t even imagine.

As a young girl, I had big dreams. Hustling and making a name for myself fueled me. My goals felt so clear: shatter glass ceilings and let nothing stand in my way. That was my driving force.

Flash forward to adulthood, and I did a lot of those things. I was a Marketing Director at a tech company in New York City when I became a mother. That’s when reality set in: the goals I had worked so hard for were starting to change. It’s a difficult realization when you begin to see that some of the systems you longed to be a part of were not set up for you to truly succeed, especially in this new role as a mother.

For a while, I tried to make it all work out. There were days I left before my baby woke up and got home after he went to sleep. The business trips that once thrilled me filled me with overwhelming guilt.

When COVID hit, our family moved from Brooklyn to White Plains. It was an adjustment being so far from family and friends during lockdown. My firefighter husband had to work around the clock, and I suddenly had more time than I ever expected with my then two-year-old, while juggling full-time remote work.

After the birth of my second child, I found myself at an all-time low — stressed, overwhelmed, and unhappy. Then, something unexpected happened: I got laid off from my corporate job. To add insult to injury, I had to leave a kindergarten tour to rush home for a meeting my manager had put on my calendar.

It was in that moment that I knew I had to make a change. I couldn’t have someone else dictating how I showed up for my children.

Feeling completely lost, I did the only logical thing I could think of: face my fears of going out on my own and give it a try. I never would have had the guts to walk away from my corporate job, but at this point, I truly had nothing to lose.

That’s when I dove headfirst into my freelance career, quite literally overnight. I tapped into my network, which I spent decades building. I took every and any gig I could — building strategies during nap times, mood boards, and social content in the middle of the night.

I finally found the confidence to believe that I could build the life I wanted, even though it wouldn’t be easy. I wanted to do creative work that had meaning and felt purposeful. I wanted to volunteer to do Valentine’s Day crafts at my kids’ school. I wanted to create a life where both of those things could exist.

Less than a year later, I started rise + bloom, a creative marketing agency, with my business partner (an old coworker I only met once in real life — hey, when you know, you know, right?!)

Building this agency from the ground up has been the most rewarding experience of my life. Having the flexibility and the freedom to do things on my terms, to be available for my children, and to love what I do has been a dream come true (corny, but true!).

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t learn something new — for the better or worse! It is all part of this journey I am paving for myself.

I don’t have all the answers, but I know this: when women share their stories, we create space for each other to grow. The wins. The mistakes. The pivots. It all matters.

If my journey reaches even one woman (especially a mother) who feels stuck trying to fit into expectations that no longer align with who she is, then it’s worth sharing.

Because motherhood changes you. It shifts your perspective, your priorities, and sometimes even your sense of self, and that’s ok! In the middle of that, you’re allowed to rebuild. To create a life that feels aligned with who you are now or who you’re becoming, as you piece it together along the way.

It’s never too late to pave a new path. To build something of your own. To create a life that feels like yours, one super small step at a time.