I want to tell you a story I don’t tell publicly.
Not because it’s dramatic, but because it’s honest.
And honesty is tender.
Honesty has teeth.
Honesty costs something.
There was a night, a little over a year ago, when I felt the pieces of this perfectly curated facade I called my life start to crumble around the edges.
I sat in the van and said out loud,
“I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
On the sliding door step, where most of my existential benediction takes place, half-dressed in the clothes from the day, and half in the pajamas I hoped would keep me warmer. Staring at the night sky with the faint smell of decaying leaves moving through the trees, it was like the night air, biting my cheeks, was asking to finally reach the crevasses of my lungs that hadn’t been touched by oxygen in months.
It wasn’t a dramatic moment.
No slammed doors, no screaming into the sky, no movie-scene breakdown.
Just the quiet kind, the kind that creeps in when the day has been too long and your hope feels like it’s on its last thread.
My boyfriend at the time barely stayed long enough to finish chewing his food after our first Thanksgiving dinner with his family, before he got on the road to go hunting with the boys. He said he would leave in the morning, and yet I refused to cry as I watched the taillights disappear into the night.
The kind of moment where you sit with your back against the cabinet, cold seeping through your pants on the floor, legs pulled to your chest, and you feel stupid for crying because technically nothing is wrong — and yet everything feels wrong.
That night, I kept replaying every moment I’d ever quit on myself:
the opportunities I walked away from because I felt unworthy
the relationships I stayed in because I felt small
the dreams I shelved because I thought I wasn’t ready
the version of myself who kept waiting for permission that never came
Like the time I sent that email to cancel the event I had poured my heart into when the venue backed out, and instead of digging in harder, I was convinced it was because no one involved really believed in me.
And I thought,
“What if I’m doing it again? What if out of all the lives I could live, I’m choosing the one where I stay in the suffering?”
My eyes burn just thinking about this as I sit here, because part of me still believes that thought might be true.
And yet, I didn’t tell anyone.
Not a friend.
Not my mom.
Not Instagram.
Not even the journal that has seen all the other versions of me.
I just sat there, staring at the condensation on the windows, thinking,
“Maybe I’m not meant for the thing I keep reaching for.”
This life where I get to stand on stages and host rooms of people, all collectively believing that hope and connection aren’t just nouns, they are verbs, and they want to be a part of it. Together.
A life where my little girl never shrinks because she watches her mama tell the truth to strangers who become friends and create a safer world for both of them.
And then mid-ache—
this part is embarrassing—
**The rest of this story is for paid subscribers — the ones who want to sit a little closer to the truth with me.
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