How Many Day Ones Do We Get?

The other night I was looking for a new photo to post on my LinkedIn account, and before I knew it I had fallen down a familiar rabbit hole—scrolling through old photos and videos of my kids.

My eyes filled with tears as I watched videos of my now-teenagers and tween toddling around the house with baby food smeared across their faces, riding their bikes for the first time, dancing wildly in our living room, or sleeping peacefully during long afternoon naps.

This isn’t the first time I’ve done this. In fact, it’s one of my favorite rituals at the end of the night—revisiting those warm memories of their childhood.

Looking back makes me feel grateful for the life we’ve built together. But it also brings a deep sense of nostalgia. I sometimes long for those days when they were tiny and the world felt a little slower.

As I kept scrolling, I came across a video I recorded in 2017 when I first started vlogging. In the video I was explaining why I needed to start recording my thoughts. With three young kids, I barely had time to sit down and write in my journal the way I used to before they were born.

Then I kept scrolling.

Video after video appeared—moments of me standing at the beginning of something new. Teaching my first Zumba class. Trying acting. Launching new ventures. Starting graduate school… twice.

In every video I looked bright-eyed and hopeful. Excited about the journey ahead.

Each video captured the same moment.

Day one.

And then, unexpectedly, I felt a wave of sadness.

I started thinking about all the things I had begun but never carried all the way through. If you asked me now, I could probably give you a reasonable explanation for each one—why I stepped away, why I pivoted, why I chose a different direction.

But there are no videos of those moments.

No recordings of the quiet days when the excitement faded or the path changed.

I found myself wondering why.

Maybe it’s because the light doesn’t disappear all at once. It fades slowly, almost imperceptibly, until one day you realize you’ve moved on.

But as I sat there with that mix of sadness and curiosity, another thought came to me.

Here I am again.

Day one.

Standing at the beginning of another adventure.

And that made me wonder: how many Day Ones do we get in a lifetime?

That’s when something shifted in the way I was thinking about all those old videos.

I couldn’t do the work I do today if I had never taught that first Zumba class. I couldn’t talk about rejection if I hadn’t gone to acting school. I couldn’t speak about pivoting in life if I hadn’t walked away from graduate school.

What once looked like a collection of unfinished paths suddenly began to look like something else entirely.

Pieces of a puzzle.

At the time, each piece seemed separate and incomplete. But now I can see that they were always part of something larger—shaping who I am becoming and how I will serve in the world.

And the truth is, we’re not finished with the puzzle until our very last days.

We keep adding pieces. Rearranging them. Discovering new images hidden within the bigger picture.

Looking back at all those videos—those moments where I dared to try something new, to imagine more for my life—I realized something important:

I have never given up on myself.

Every new attempt has helped me grow. Even the things I once labeled as failures gave me another piece of understanding about who I am and what matters to me.

I wish more people could see their lives this way.

Everything we try, everything we create, every risk we take becomes part of the larger picture of our lives. And even when we’re no longer here, that picture doesn’t disappear. It becomes woven into the stories of the people we touched and the world we helped shape.

I think many women — especially mothers — experience more “Day Ones” than we talk about. Careers pause, identities shift, priorities evolve. We reinvent ourselves quietly while raising families, building businesses, and figuring out who we are becoming. Maybe those restarts aren’t signs that we failed. Maybe they’re signs that we’re growing.

So my message to you is simple:

Keep going.

Keep growing. 

Keep creating. 

Keep making mistakes. 

Keep telling your story.

Because your story matters.

And in more ways than you might realize, your story becomes part of mine too.

I believe in you.

Con Amor,

Elena