On the Final Turn and the Choice to Rise Again

Three days before our grand opening, I received news that felt like a sudden drop in my stomach.

Our unit passed every inspection. Every outlet, every light fixture, every carefully placed detail inside Thrivewell Hub was cleared. The shelves are stocked. The space feels complete, not just structurally, but energetically. It feels like it has been waiting to exhale.

But the building itself did not pass due a repair needed. And because of that, we cannot open as planned. Today, just two days before we were meant to welcome you in I made the decision to postpone after realizing the timeline was no longer possible.

I want to be honest about what that moment felt like. It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t stoic. It was heavy.

For over a year, this vision has lived inside me. It hasn’t just been a business concept. It hasn’t just been numbers or inventory or a renovation plan. It has been an extension of my healing. An extension of the hardest season of my life. A culmination of lessons I did not ask for but chose to grow through.

Thrivewell was not born from comfort. It was born from rebuilding.

From the quiet, uncomfortable work of picking myself up when I didn’t feel like I could. From learning to regulate my nervous system instead of react. From choosing alignment over urgency. From deciding that if I was going to build something, it would be built on truth, not performance.

So when I say this delay hurt, I mean it reached deeper than logistics. It hit the part of me that worked so hard to get here.

This week, I believed we had made it. I felt the exhale. I felt the moment where your shoulders drop and you think, “Okay. It’s happening.”

It was like sitting at the top of an amusement park ride, harness secured, heart pounding, and then that peaceful second of stillness before the descent. That suspended breath where everything feels aligned and inevitable.

But that stillness wasn’t release. It was the pause before the drop. And instead of motion, there was one more tightening. One final turn of the link.

Not the chains falling away, but tightening again, just when I thought they had loosened. That is the most painful kind of tension. The kind that arrives after hope.

After you have already told your community the date. After you have already imagined the ribbon being cut. After you have already walked the room and pictured people filling it.

When the news settled in, I didn’t immediately rise above it. I sat in it. I felt the wave of disappointment. The weight of financial pressure. The sting of calling vendors. The vulnerability of explaining to people who were excited for Sunday.

I questioned everything for a moment. Did I miss something? Did I move too quickly? Should I have anticipated more? It is astonishing how quickly the mind can spiral when you are tired and emotionally invested.

And it was hard, truly hard, to pick myself back up. Not physically. Emotionally. To steady my breath. To stand inside a space that is ready and tell myself that waiting does not mean failing. To remember that alignment is not measured by ease.

Everything up to this point has unfolded in a way that felt supported. The storefront appearing when it did. The timing of my resignation. The right people stepping in at the right moments. The way community formed before doors even opened.

So I had to ask myself: If all of that has been aligned…why would this be the exception Maybe this pause isn’t obstruction. Maybe it’s refinement. Maybe it’s protection. Maybe it’s simply the final stretch before expansion.

As we know, we are in the last days of the Year of the Snake, a year that required shedding, endurance, transformation through pressure. And just ahead, Neptune and Saturn move to 0 degrees Aries, the very beginning of the zodiac, a threshold of initiation and forward fire.

It feels symbolic to be standing in this pause right before that shift. As if the universe is asking one final question: Are you steady enough to lead this the way you say you will?

Because Thrivewell cannot be built on urgency. It cannot be built on overriding safety. It cannot be built on cutting corners just to hit a date.

If this place stands for regulation, integrity, grounded growth, then I must embody that now. Even when it costs me comfort. Even when it costs me pride. Even when it costs me sleep.

A repair is needed in the building. We will open when it is completed and when everything passes properly. Not rushed. Not forced. Not compromised. Ready.

The darkest hour comes before the dawn. I have lived that truth before. I know what it feels like to sit in that final stretch of night, when everything feels suspended and you cannot yet see the light breaking. This feels like that hour.

But I also know what comes next. Movement.

And when the doors open, because they will, they will open with a depth and steadiness that could only come from enduring this final tightening without breaking.

It was hard to pick myself back up.

But I did.

And I will again.

With honesty,

Kelley