Tag: feeling
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Three hours until takeoff
Three hours before I was supposed to leave for the airport, I was sitting in an emergency room listening to a doctor explain why I shouldn’t get on the plane. My heart sank as I realized I had to choose between the safest decision and a dream I’d carried for years.
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The Weight of Wonder
Two nights before leaving for the Pacific Northwest, I find myself surrounded by wrinkled itinerary pages, hiking gear, and a dream I’ve carried for nearly half my life. What begins as a story about planning slowly becomes something much deeper: learning that simply standing in the place you’ve longed for can matter more than finishing…
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Chapter Seven: Return to Wonder | Perfectly Imperfect Life
For years, the Pacific Northwest has lived somewhere in my imagination. As July begins, I’m reflecting on why some places stay with us long before we’ve ever arrived and how learning to notice beauty has quietly changed the way I move through the world.
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The Things Beneath the Thing
Lately I’ve been reminded that trauma rarely lives in one moment. It weaves itself through years of experiences, attaching itself to people, words, memories, and feelings we don’t even realize are connected. This week, my brain decided it was finally time to show me a few of those connections, and as uncomfortable as that was,…
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241 Days Later
For so much of the last week, I have been focused on what felt broken. The Body Dysmorphia. The RSD. The exhaustion. The darkness that likes to lurk in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity to convince me that I am weaker than I really am. Monday reminded me that while those things may always…
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Loved Anyway
After several days spent battling Body Dysmorphia, RSD, exhaustion, guilt, and self-doubt, I walked into my first confession expecting to leave feeling lighter. That isn’t exactly what happened. What I found instead was something I wasn’t looking for: reminders that even in the middle of my mess, my mistakes, and my struggles, people kept showing…
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The Whys
Some days sadness feels heavy. Other days it’s not sadness at all. It’s exhaustion. The kind that settles into your bones after you’ve spent days fighting battles nobody else can see. The kind that makes simple decisions feel overwhelming and turns every unanswered question into something larger than it probably is. Friday wasn’t about answers.…
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Where Love Stays
Dave welcomed me into his life with open arms and a smile that made you feel like you belonged. Five years later, I sat beside his bed as his final days unfolded, holding his hand and trying to make sense of the quiet, painful reality of goodbye. This is the story of those final days,…
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The Roads I Didn’t Walk and the Roots I Grew Instead.
There were roads I didn’t walk, cities I didn’t move to, risks I didn’t take, chances I let pass because being wanted felt safer than becoming. This is a reflection on attachment, ambition, ADHD, uncertainty, and the tangled roots that grew anyway.
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When Your Reflection Doesn’t Look Back
What people don’t see is how much effort it takes to keep myself from disappearing when it’s like this. How every small decision feels weighted. How I bargain with my own body just to stay present. I am not dramatic. I am not fragile. I am fighting something quiet and relentless that knows all my…