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Career Journey

Contributor

Nobody Told Me Starting Over Would Feel This Lonely and This Good

Starting over is the thing everyone cheers for from the outside and almost nobody warns you about from the inside, the loneliness, the invisible exhaustion, and the small wins that nobody claps for but somehow keep you going.

SO

By

Stella Ojiuba

Published

July 21, 2026

Issue

05

Read

8 min

Submitted by Stella Ojiuba

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There is a specific kind of silence that comes with starting over. Not the peaceful kind, not the kind you choose on a Sunday morning with a cup of tea and nowhere to be but the other kind. The kind that sits beside you at your desk at 10pm while everyone else in your life seems to be moving forward in directions they already understand and you are here, relearning things from scratch, wondering if you made a terrible mistake.

Nobody warned me about that silence. Everyone told me about the opportunity, the growth, the exciting pivot, the brave decision.



People said "good for you" and "that is so inspiring" and "I could never do that" and I smiled and said thank you, and meant it, and also felt completely alone in a way I did not know how to explain. This is the article I needed to read when I was in the middle of it. I am writing it now for everyone who is in the middle of theirs.

What Starting Over Actually Feels Like

Let me paint you a picture.

You have made the decision. You have told people. You have enrolled in the course, bought the e-book, signed up for the certification, updated the LinkedIn headline with the title you are working toward rather than the one you already have. You are doing the thing.

And Then You Sit Down To Actually Do It And You Realise How Much You Do Not Know. Not In An Abstract, Motivational Poster Kind Of Way But In a Very Specific, Concrete, Humbling Kind Of Way. You Realise That The People Around You, Your New Peers, The People In The Discord Server,

📌 Nobody Told Me Starting Over Would Feel This Lonely and This Good (Stella)
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