Morning y’all and welcome back for another Feature Friday! Today I am excited to share a view into the life of the lovely Molly Roberts. Molly and I had mutual friends in middle school, so we knew of each other for a while before we actually met. We became friends in high school, but BEST friends during our junior year. It helped that we were also dating best friends at the time. Needless to say, homegirl and I were inseparable during our Grade 11 year. As life would have it, we both went our own ways after high school, but have randomly stayed in touch via social media. Anyway, enough about me – let’s get into more about Molly!
Early Life, University and Career
Molly was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina. She comes from a lovely family and has two older sisters, Ginny and Catherine. After high school Molly went to the University of Massachusetts Boston to play soccer. While there she got a degree in exercise and health science. Since she had been involved in sports her entire life, she wanted to continue in the sports world for a career. Buuutttt unfortunately she faints at the sight of blood. Lol! So this made her career choices a bit more challenging. She loved her degree at the time, but says she probably should have done something more main stream to make her job search easier in the future.
After college, Molly felt completely lost. She went through the typical feelings of “oh shit, I have to be an adult now…?”, but tie that to her soccer career being over, and she felt like she no longer had her identity of “Molly the Soccer Player”. During this time, her sister Catherine, who is five years older, was living in Aspen, Colorado. She invited Molly to move to Aspen for the summer and just have fun while working to sort things out. So that’s exactly what Molly did! She worked in the service industry doing various jobs like waitressing and working at a gym and spa. She did lots of outdoorsy things and traveled around Colorado for the entire summer.
After a couple of months of livin’ it up, Molly was itching to take the next step. Her and Catherine both had college degrees, and Molly felt like they should be doing more with their lives. So their next journey was to move to Austin, Texas. They went for a quick visit to check out the city and ended up signing a one year lease for an apartment starting in December of 2012. Molly remembers crying out of fear, but also being super excited for this next chapter. She had the thought that if they failed, at least they would fail together. Turns out her and her sister both thrived in Austin, and they are still there today!
Then in January of 2013, Molly was hired to work with the Special Olympics team in Austin. Molly has always loved working with people and kids with intellectual disabilities, and had many friends that fit this mold in high school. They are the people who made her happy and inspired her to take on this job. Plus she wanted to make a difference of some sort. Her love for connecting with people with disabilities and her experience as a sports camp counselor for underprivileged kids while at university landed her this job in Austin. It was a state position where Molly held a director role, and as she puts it it was a little big for her britches. Lol! It was a huge learning curve for her and kicked her ass for the first year. But she traveled a lot and really loved working for a nonprofit organization.
However, this job totally consumed her and she became burnt out after working tirelessly for six years. She knew the next steps she wanted to take in life were to get married and have babies. And she wanted to have more to her life than just a career. Though it was an incredible job and a beautiful chapter for her, Molly knew it was time to move on. So she quit her job and started looking for a different one.
Fortunately for Molly, one of our high school friends, Erin, had posted on Instagram that the company she worked for, Beam, was looking for a store manager in Austin. This happened around the same time that Molly quit her job with the Special Olympics, so she applied and ended up getting the position! Beam is a company that sells CBD without THC and they work a lot with athletes, movement and recovery – all of which are right up Molly’s alley! She loved this job because she liked being in downtown Austin and she loved engaging with people everyday. She said it was very different than her previous desk job and it turns out that she liked the customer service type job more because every day was different.
She had signed a six month contract with Beam, which was unfortunately cut short because of COVID. This really bummed Molly out because she was looking forward to doing more with the company after her contract ended. However, she had another job opportunity lined up with the University of Texas. She had done several interviews with their sports department for a position as a student engagement coordinator. She would be working with current and past athletes arranging different social events around their sports. She was really invested in getting hired for this job in April of 2020, but once again COVID threw a kink in it. Sadly, the university had to put a pause on hiring, and therefore Molly wasn’t able to actually start this job.
So she took a step back and kept looking for jobs, but worked to not stress about it too much. Which by the way, this is one thing I really admire about Molly. She’s had a lot of hurdles to over come yet she works hard to stay positive while aiming to achieve her next goal. But back to her career… her husband (don’t worry, I’ll catch ya up on that in a second!) owns a title company, so Molly has helped with his company here and there. She’s also done some online courses to keep her brain sharp. Then the most exciting news ever happened – Molly found out she was pregnant in the fall of 2020. Her husband encouraged her to just focus on staying healthy while being pregnant and not to worry about figuring things out in terms of a job until after the baby was born.
Family
One of the reasons Molly and Catherine decided to move to Aspen was because Catherine knew several people that lived there. And one of these friends had a fraternity brother named Justin. Molly met Justin in 2014 and they bonded over the World Cup. But Justin being nine years older than Molly made her a little hesitant of him in a romantic sense at first. She said it took them a while to figure out that they actually liked each other, but they eventually started dating.
Then in 2017 Molly’s dad, who was still living in Asheville, was diagnosed with early onset dementia Alzheimer’s. Her mom was trying to navigate all of this on her own, and Molly was contemplating breaking it off with Justin and moving back home to help her parents out. Fast forward to 2018 when Molly and her family took a trip to Boston for Molly to run in the Boston Marathon. The unthinkable happened and her dad got lost. They had to involve the Boston PD and there were search crews and helicopters out looking for him. Fortunately they did find him, and he was safe, but that’s when it really became apparent that Molly’s parents needed help. Justin came up with the idea that Molly’s parents should move to Austin, and that’s exactly what they did. This is when Molly really decided to invest herself fully into Justin; he was the one for her. They eventually got married later that year, and had a breathtakingly beautiful wedding.
Molly’s parents now live about two miles down the road, and Molly is able to pop by and help whenever she’s needed. They are currently navigating the thought of her dad being alone by himself and know that the next step they will take will be assisted care. Molly puts it that “things could be worse” so they are “just taking it in stride”. She loves having her parents close though, and they are living a lovely life in Austin. Plus they had two grandbabies on the way because Molly AND Catherine were both pregnant with baby girls and were only three weeks apart!
Fast forward to June 2021, and Molly has a beautiful baby girl named Hunter who is one and a half months old. She is named after her great grandfather who sadly passed away a few days before Molly and Justin found out they were pregnant. I can tell that Molly is completely smitten with her baby girl and is loving this new chapter in her life.
Now, I wouldn’t be doing Molly justice if I didn’t mention her other family members – Penny Puffkins and Brooklyn. Penny Puffkins is Molly’s cat and homegirl is always pissed! Though her mood is always bad, she fortunately doesn’t scratch. And Brooklyn is a golden retriever and Molly’s world. It is not uncommon to see multiple videos of Brooklyn on Molly’s Instagram stories each day, and let me tell ya, I live for these stories! Molly is excited to see how both of her golden girls do with baby Hunter.
Running
Molly has always been a sports person, and as I mentioned, soccer was her sport of choice. Since being active was such a big part of her life growing up, she just naturally enjoys staying fit and now does so through running. She’s raced in several half marathons and two full marathons. She continued running through her pregnancy, but definitely slowed down towards the end. She plans to run another marathon in the fall because her goal has been to do one once a year. She’s not putting too much pressure on herself though because she just welcomed sweet Hunter into the world.
As for the two marathons Molly has ran, one was in Boston in 2018 and the other was in Austin in 2019. Unfortunately all marathons were canceled in 2020, but they are back up and running now! (Pun intended 😜) When she was training for the race in Boston, she signed up for a running club. It was expensive and a big time commitment, but Molly learned a lot. She then implemented this knowledge into her training for the race in Austin. She said training for a marathon is a lot of mental work. Carb overloading and the scheduling of runs takes a lot of prep and it often takes away from some social time. But it’s a goal that Molly loves working towards. I am in such awe of Molly’s determination with running and her work to achieve her goal. Watching her videos on Instagram has definitely helped keep me motivated with my running goals, so thank ya girl!
Molly noted that running helps keep her mind in a good place; it’s like therapy for her. She recalls a time in high school when a friend called her out on being in a grumpy mood at soccer practice that afternoon. Molly realized it was because she hadn’t ran earlier that day. Lol! Movement is key to keeping her happy, so props to Molly for knowing what works best for her.
Molly’s Outlook on Life
Molly is one of the most positive and encouraging people I have ever met. In fact, when we started our interview, some of her first words were, “You’re doin’ big things girl!” As I noted above, Molly chooses to take things one day at a time. Yes, she works hard for her goals and strives to be her best self, but she doesn’t let the stress of things wear her down. She wants to share that no one has life figured out and everyone has a battle they are facing. So it’s important to take everyday with a grain of salt.
Molly’s mindset is one that I aim to implement more of into my own life. I truly appreciate knowing her and being able to reconnect with her after so many years… and wow, realizing that we graduated high school 13 years ago just made me puke in my mouth a little. Lol!
As always, y’all, thank you so much for reading and please leave a comment below to show Molly some love! She definitely deserves it!
If you or anyone you know would be a good fit for my Feature Friday series, please leave me a message in the comments below or DM me on Instagram. Happy day y’all!