When I was a little girl growing up in Puerto Rico, I dreamed of telling stories and had so many that lived inside of me, and others that still do. I’d scribble in notebooks, pretending to be Lois Lane, never imagining that my life’s plot twist wouldn’t just happen on the page, it would happen in real life.

For years, journalism was my identity. I worked at places like The Miami Herald and covered everything from breaking news to entertainment, chasing the next byline with the kind of adrenaline only a newsroom can give you. But behind the scenes, life was complicated. Newspaper layoffs came and went like seasons. The industry I loved changed rapidly, and like many of us, I scrambled to stay afloat. I took remote full-time gigs, like my job as Senior Web Editor at J-14 Magazine, working long hours for a New York-based media company while barely leaving my home.

It paid the bills, but as a journalist, sadly, I never got a single raise. I loved journalism, but the job really took a lot of strength, long hours and the stress was immeasurable. But I thought it was all I could do and was, even though I had other passions that lived inside of me.

But one day, my husband Sebastian came home to find me in tears, hunched over my laptop, exhausted. He looked at me and gently asked, “Why don’t you just try teaching full-time? I see you being a high school teacher. You light up when you talk about it and when you teach college classes.”

I had taught since 2008, I’d taken adjunct roles at colleges, squeezing in lectures between editorial deadlines. I never saw it as a career. But that moment, something shifted. I applied for a high school teaching job on a whim, not thinking it would go anywhere. That was in 2015. I haven’t looked back since.

What started as a reluctant leap turned into the most fulfilling chapter of my life.

In 2022, I was named Teacher of the Year at Boca Raton Community High School. I cried the minute I got home and told Sebastian. Not because I needed the recognition, but because I never thought I’d be recognized for something I once resisted. Teaching didn’t just become my job but became my purpose.

And yet, I never gave up storytelling. I still freelance. I write for magazines. I cover pop culture and travel. I mentor young journalists. I even earned a full scholarship to study at Oxford, a door that opened not just because of my writing, but because I said yes to something new.

Now I stand in classrooms full of teenagers and college students at UF and FAU, sharing stories, not just from books or articles, but from my own life. I tell them how writing got me through heartbreak. How reading helped me dream bigger. How being laid off more than once taught me to keep going. That being a teacher doesn’t mean you stop being anything else. You can be a writer. An editor. A creative. A fighter. All at once.

In my classroom, lessons on syntax and narrative arc often lead to bigger conversations, many about growth, resilience, risk. And I’ve learned that the best lessons don’t always come from textbooks. They come from real life. From failed interviews. From rejection letters. From trips abroad. From crying on your living room floor and still waking up the next day to try again.

I share all of that with my students. Not because I want them to see me as perfect, but because I want them to see that it’s okay to evolve. That you’re allowed to pivot. That your first dream might lead you to your true calling.

It’s easy to think careers are linear. They’re not. Some of the best teachers I know were once in film, tech, publishing, fashion. And many still are. What we do outside the classroom breathes life into what we bring into it. I am a better teacher because I’m still a journalist. I’m still telling stories, and more importantly, I’m helping others find theirs.

So, if you're in a season of change, wondering if it’s too late to begin again, let me tell you: it’s not. Life is full of surprising detours that lead you exactly where you're meant to be.

For me, that place is standing in front of a classroom, arms open, voice strong, reminding every student that their story matters, and it’s just getting started.