The Myth of “Someday": What Years in Oncology Taught Me About Time

For years, I’ve worked as an oncology nurse. I have sat with people in the hardest rooms imaginable—spaces where the question isn't "What are you up to next month?" but rather, "How do I get through this afternoon?"

If you spend enough time in those rooms, your relationship with time changes forever.

You quickly realize that we have no real concept of how much time we actually have. We act like we own it, but we don’t even get a vote. Time doesn't care if you have three kids, a thriving career, or an inbox full of unread emails. Like so many beautiful places on this earth, our lives are fragile, precious, and strictly finite.

But if you watch closely, you start to notice a pattern. Not the obvious one, but a quieter one. It’s the specific shift in conversation that happens when people are suddenly forced to reflect on how they’ve spent their lives.

Almost nobody wishes they had worked more. Almost nobody wishes they had been more cautious.

Instead, people talk about the things they wanted to do but didn’t. The trips they had been planning. The destinations they had been saving for "when the timing was better." The version of themselves they kept intending to become just as soon as life finally "settled down."

Here is the uncomfortable truth I learned at the bedside: Things don’t settle down. We live under the delusion that we will have more time and money when we are older. But hiking through Patagonia or scuba diving the sardine run in South Africa requires a body that works. The version of ourselves we promise to become when the kids are grown, when work slows down, or when the savings account hits a certain number—that person doesn't just magically appear.

Those dreams don't happen on their own. They happen because you look at the finite clock and decide they are going to happen now.

Which is exactly why I built Gather.

For years, I carried a vision in my head: a community built around the outdoors, intentional connection, women, and giving back. But I couldn't find the group I was looking for, and I was deeply tired of doing things alone—or worse, not doing them at all because I was waiting for the "perfect" moment.

So, I decided to build it myself. However messy. However terrifying.

Gather is a space for women to find their people while doing the things they love, inspiring the next generation of women to do the same. We are done waiting for someday.