This Is Life: Letting Go, Starting Over, and Staying Golden

Part 1

How grief, growth, and rebuilding collided in one season

Stay Golden

This Is Life

There’s something about the end of a year that quietly asks you:

Are you ready to let go of who you were?

The end of 2025 and beginning of 2026 didn’t whisper that question.

It demanded an answer.

I became a full-time Montana resident.

I sold my venue.

I sold my home.

I held an estate sale and let go of 25 years of carefully curated, collected, meaningful pieces.

And that wasn’t even the hard part.

Telling my clients I was selling the venue was hard.

Not because I wasn’t sure.

But because that place wasn’t just a venue. It was 18 years of weddings. Thousands of guests. Hundreds of families. Countless Saturday nights. It was proof of grit and vision and faith.

Letting go of the chairs and dishes is easy.

Letting go of identity? That takes courage.

Then I got sick.

Just a cold — but of course it hit right in the middle of everything.

Because that’s how life works. It doesn’t pause for your transition.

At the same time, my bio mother’s health was rapidly declining.

And if you’ve walked that road, you know the quiet ache of knowing what’s coming… and still not being ready for it.

In the middle of all of that, I flew to Houston to speak at an incredible conference for venue owners — Hustle & Gather — surrounded by ambitious, driven, passionate wedding venue owners and wedding pros, in this industry I love so much.

I stood on stage and talked about not leaving money on the table, and made some AMAZING connections.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, life was taking things off the table that I couldn’t negotiate.

I turned 54.

My mother passed away.

There’s no smooth transition sentence for that. It just sits there.

Grief has a way of stripping everything down to what matters.

And somehow, life keeps moving.

When it rains it pours.

We’re trying to decide if we buy a place in Rome, Georgia — a landing spot for when we come back. Something that makes financial sense. Something that generates income. Something that also feels like home.

Have you ever tried to find a property that checks all the boxes: investment + lifestyle + location + numbers that make sense?

It’s a puzzle. And I don’t do emotional purchases. I do smart ones. So we wait. We analyze. We run the numbers. We walk away when it’s not right.

At the same time:

I’m juggling bakery ownership and employees.

Coaching wedding industry clients.

Purchasing another investment property in Big Sky and getting it set up as a rental property.

Learning a new market.

Setting up systems.

Pricing strategy.

Turnover schedules.

And also…

Being a wife.

Settling into new homes.

Walking the dogs.

Unpacking boxes.

Rehashing a broken relationship with my deceased bio Mom.

Remembering who I am outside of what I built.

This is life.

It’s not one clean chapter ending and another beginning.

It’s grief and growth sitting at the same table.

It’s estate sales and new keys.

It’s conference stages and hospital rooms.

It’s spreadsheets and sympathy cards.

It’s 54 and still building.

Here’s what I know:

You can be heartbroken and strategic.

You can be grieving and ambitious.

You can sell the thing that defined you and still know you’re not done.

You can start over without starting from scratch.

And sometimes, staying golden doesn’t mean everything is shiny.

It means you choose to move forward anyway.

This season has stretched me.

It has humbled me.

It has exhausted me.

But it has not broken me.

If you’re in a season where everything feels like it’s shifting at once — I see you.

If you’re building while grieving — I see you.

If you’re letting go of 25 years and wondering who you are without it — I promise you, you are still her.

Maybe even more so.

This is life.

Messy. Heavy. Beautiful. Expensive. Worth it.

And I’m still here.

Stay golden,

Dixie ✨

If you’re in a season of transition — in business, life, grief, growth, or reinvention — you’re not alone here.

I’ll be sharing the real behind-the-scenes of building, letting go, starting again, and staying golden through it all.

Subscribe to walk this season with me. And if you’re a wedding pro or creative entrepreneur needing guidance while life is lifing — my coaching door is always open.