Storm Lessons

This isn’t where I tell the story.

This is where I tell the truth after I’ve had time to sit with it.

Storm lessons are not pretty.

They don’t come with soft edges or perfectly timed clarity.

They come after the fact, when you realize what something actually cost you.

This is where I break things down clearly.

  • What I ignored

  • What I justified

  • What I should have walked away from sooner.

  • What I’ll never accept again.

There is no performance here. In this space I am as transparent as I can be.

Because once you have lived through enough storms…

you stop asking “Why did this happen?”

and start asking “What is this teaching me?”

and most importantly “What am I doing differently now?”

Once we know better we do better.

and around here once we know better we do it different and turn around and help the person below up too.

↓ What the storm taught me ↓

The Night I Started to Remember Who I Was

I wrote this on January 29, 2024. Looking back now, I realize that what I thought was the end of one storm, and maybe the warning of another, was really just the eye of the one I was already in. Nothing could have prepared me for the bands that were about to roll in.

On that particular Monday evening, the overwhelming events of the day hit her like a ton of bricks.

She stared out the window as her half-clean kitchen, almost-finished laundry, and leftovers waiting to be put away seemed to stare right back at her, all of it still unfinished.

And then suddenly, she looked around and, for the first time in six years, a slight smile appeared across her face as she let out a sigh of relief.

A sigh she had only felt twice before.

But this time was different.

This time, she smiled because even though everything seemed to be falling apart, it was, in fact, falling together.

This sigh was not followed by fear, uncertainty, or the familiar knowing that the inevitable tidal wave headed her way would leave her feeling like she was drowning all over again.

Instead, it was followed by something she had not felt in a very long time: happiness.

Happiness in knowing that, for what felt like the first time in her life, she was free.

So to the women who feel scorned, burned down, and left like a pile of ashes with nothing left, not even coal, please keep fighting.

Keep waking up.
Keep putting your feet on the floor.

Because every time you do, the devil knows he lost.

You are the only one powerful enough to break the chains in your own mind.

And my dear, you were born to fly.