I’ve been thinking a lot about beginnings lately, how they never feel like beginnings when you’re standing inside them. They don’t arrive with clarity or certainty or any kind of plan that makes sense. They show up in the middle of your life, in the in-between moments, the “I’m still figuring this out” moments, the “I know something needs to change but I don’t know where to start” moments.
That’s where I’m writing you from. I think that’s maybe where I’ll always write from.
Not from the before.
Not from the after, because even though there is this romantic idea swirling around the interwebs that healing and living honestly — authentically, are some destination we arrive at, that’s just not the truth. Or fair to perpetuate, if I’m really honest.
I’m here in the middle, the part I used to run from and now choose to inhabit with my whole chest.
Somewhere between asking myself if I’m insane for wanting to stay in Bend through another winter of below-20 mornings and sitting in the exact seat I’m currently in when I wrote, “if I say I want a world where we get to be honest, then I can’t keep shrinking myself into silence when it’s hard,”
I realized this: I don’t want to wait until my life is tidy or impressive to invite people in. I want to build something real, right here in the honest, chaotic, beautiful middle of my becoming.
The Table grew out of that truth.
It’s a place for brave people learning to trust themselves again. For the curious ones who want to understand their own inner voice. For anyone navigating the quiet ache of wanting more — more clarity, more connection, more self-trust, more alignment — but feeling like they’re piecing their life together in real time.
For years now, I’ve been living inside my own reconstruction, trial by fire, trial by intuition, trial by “fuck it, I’m doing it anyway.”
Like the day I made an agreement with myself in Santa Cruz, California that I wouldn’t throw myself into the ocean, and I wouldn’t drink myself to death.
The day I handed back the life I bet my heart and future on in the form of a sweatshirt, closed the door of the van, and drove away from the guy I loved for the last time.
When I closed the book after reading the final pages of “Carry On, Warrior” by Glennon Doyle, clutching the worn paper like a precious artifact, staring out the plane window, feeling so very small, after leaving my family and everything I’d ever known behind.
With swollen eyes, bone-deep exhaustion, and a message on my heart that I knew would haunt me like a ghost for the rest of my life, when I finally opened up Google Docs and wrote the very first, most vulnerably honest lines of Braver, Not Fearless.
These small, disjointed moments somehow became the scaffolding of my life — the proof that self-trust isn’t a switch you flip. It’s a practice. A whisper. A decision you make in the middle of the mess.
Most of the time, bravery doesn’t look like a grand gesture.
It looks like getting out of bed when your mind is heavy.
It looks like telling the truth when it would be easier to pretend.
It looks like trying again. Showing up again. Listening again.
It looks like walking Wyatt at 9 AM even though your brain is screaming that you’re behind.
It looks like writing your book in parking lots and coffee shops and borrowed spaces because you refuse to wait for perfect conditions.
A quiet morning walk with Wyatt, when my mind was spinning, and still, the light refracted through the trees in such a way that made me pause and realize that I was actually living my own kind of Stars Hollow life. (iykyk)
Sitting this year at my 35th birthday celebration with friends who have known me for a little over 10 months and a friend who has known me for over 10 years realizing that this is the life I’ve built in real time. The love that’s shared.
The Table exists because I needed a place to put all of that.
A place where the messy middle wasn’t just allowed — it was honored.
This space is for the people who live with their hearts cracked open.
The people who are brave enough to still want things.
The people who want to build lives they recognize when they look in the mirror.
Here, we talk about:
self-trust
clarity
communication
rebuilding yourself
choosing bravery even when you’re afraid
the identity shifts that shake you awake
the moments where everything changes quietly
the truth underneath the noise
the kind of transformation you feel more than you can explain
And we don’t do it from a mountaintop.
We do it from a table — one big enough for every version of who you’ve been and who you’re becoming.
All the best stories of my life have been told over food at a table.
Stories about heartbreak, hope, identity, loss, joy, reinvention, possibility.
Stories about the ache of wanting to be understood and the relief of finally being seen.
I imagine this Substack like that, a long wooden table, mismatched chairs, warm light, laughter layered over vulnerability. The good kind of quiet. The kind where people breathe deeper. The kind where your story finally feels like it belongs somewhere.
And if you’re here, I want you to know something:
You are not late.
You are not behind.
You are not supposed to have it all figured out.
You’re supposed to begin — right here, in the moment you’re in.
If you’re in a season of rebuilding, hi, welcome my dear.
If you’re learning how to trust yourself again, you’re in the best company, welcome.
If you’re tired of performing and ready to live a life that feels like you, cheers to that, I’m so glad you’re here.
If you’re standing in the middle of your life wondering where the hell to go next, this space has got your back.
Pull up your chair.
We begin exactly where you are.
Felt goosebumps all throughout reading this. Thanks for the rawness.
🙏🙏