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Reclaiming Myself: A Weekend of Meaningful Moments

This weekend was a weekend of exploration.

It began on Friday with something simple but intentional: a bus ride to the gym. Zumba with friends. Music, movement, laughter, and the quiet satisfaction of showing up. Nothing extravagant, just choosing to participate in my own life.

Saturday brought a change in plans. The scheduled hike was canceled, but instead of staying home, I still rode the bus and MAX to the park. I wandered a few trails on my own, unbothered by the shift. There was something grounding about moving forward anyway, about not needing a group or a perfect plan to enjoy being outdoors.

Sunday carried the momentum.

I reconnected with an old walking partner, and together we took a walk through Emy neighborhood, shared steps, familiar streets, conversation that felt easy and unforced. Later that morning, I made my way to Pittock Mansion, standing high above the city and taking in Portland from up top. From there, everything looked expansive and calm, as if the city itself was reminding me to breathe.

That afternoon, I met another friend for brunch. Over food and conversation, we decided, just like that, to plan a spring break road trip together. And then came the unexpected gift: she offered to drive. Support doesn’t always announce itself loudly. Sometimes it shows up casually, generously, and right on time.

I ended the day with one more moment of discovery: a visit to another Thomas Danbo installation. This one was right in my own neighborhood, hidden in plain sight. I had no idea it was there until today, and somehow that felt symbolic too, reminders that wonder can exist close to home, even when we think we already know our surroundings.

What stayed with me most wasn’t any single activity, but the way my time unfolded. I moved through the weekend with intention. I noticed how useful my time felt, not rushed, not wasted, not overextended. Just lived.

Lately, I’m paying attention to how I spend my days, who I share them with, and how I choose myself within them. This weekend felt like alignment, small decisions stacking into something steady and affirming.

Exploration doesn’t always require distance. Sometimes it looks like boarding the bus anyway, taking the walk, saying yes to brunch, or discovering beauty where you already are.

And for now, that feels like enough.

This feels like the beginning of a new phase for me.

Not one defined by urgency or proving, but by presence. By choosing how I move through my days instead of reacting to what’s been handed to me. I’m learning that my life doesn’t need to be loud to be meaningful—it needs to be intentional.

This next phase looks like paying attention. To my body. To my time. To the people who walk alongside me without pulling or pushing. It looks like exploration without pressure, connection without obligation, and momentum that feels sustainable instead of exhausting.

I’m no longer measuring my days by how much I give away, but by how rooted I feel in myself at the end of them. And if this weekend is any indication, I’m heading somewhere steady, curious, and wholly my own.

That feels like a beginning worth honoring.

This season feels less about reinvention and more about reclamation. After years of centering motherhood, survival, and responsibility, I find myself standing in a quieter space, one where I get to ask what I need, what I enjoy, and how I want my days to feel. Daughter. Mother. Me. has always been about holding all of those identities at once, but this chapter asks something new: that I finally make room for myself without apology. This weekend didn’t just fill my time, it reflected a shift. One where my life is no longer on pause, waiting for permission, but unfolding in real time, exactly where I am.

If this resonates, I invite you to pause and check in with yourself. What season are you in right now? What does exploration look like at this stage of your life? Share it—with a friend, in a journal, or in the comments here. We’re allowed to evolve out loud, and none of us has to do it alone.

A Million to Who?

If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?

My children. Allowing them to settle all their school debts. Allowing them to purchase a compound; with horses, chickens, dogs, cats, turtles; a nice large kitchen for them to prepare meals and we can spend the remainder of our natural lives together. Is that too much to ask.

My Grandson Is Me Reincarnated

Reflections of me in my grandson.

Sometimes, when I look at Cameron, I see flashes of myself. Not just in his smile or the way his eyes take in the world, but in the rhythm of his life – how times seem to have looped back, giving me another chance to see my younger self, only this time with more love surrounding the story.

I was born in 1971.

Cameron came along in 2011.

At 14, I was in high school, it was 1985, a mix of nerves, dreams, and figuring out who I was. Now, in 2025, he’s 14 and in high school too – going to football games, showing up for homecoming, finding his circle of friends, and slowly carving his place in the world.

His teachers guide him. His mama holds him down with love and wisdom. And I’m right here too, cheering, listening, reminding him of his light on the days when the world feels a little too heavy.

It breaks my heart sometimes knowing his father has been absent for nearly a decade. No child should have to wonder why someone doesn’t show up. But even in that space, Cameron shines. He has what I didn’t have: a village that sees him, believes in him, and shows up for him.

So, yes, Cameron is me reincarnated.

A reflection of who I was and who I wish I could have been. I am so grateful he’s got a Mama and a Muff (me) to remind him he’s never walking this life alone.

Life has a way of circling back, handing us pieces of ourselves in new form – softer, wiser, more hopeful. Watching Cameron grow reminds me that healing often shows up through those who come after us. They carry our laughter, our lessons, and even the parts we never got to express.

I see in him a chance for better days, brighter memories, and deeper love. That’s what legacy is, not the pain we endured, but the strength we pass forward.

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Back In High School

Dear Younger Me,

I never thought I’d be back here. Halls I once avoided. Classes I skipped. The years I drifted through, today they look different. Not a student anymore. Now, I’m the office lady, the one who keeps things moving, who smiles at the students walking in, who sees them in ways I once wished to be seen.

I remember how you felt back then. Lost. Disconnected. Like school was happening around you, not for you. You sat near the bottom of the class, convinced this place had nothing to offer. You were simply trying to make it through.

And yet, life brought me back.

Now, when I walk the halls, I carry you with me. I see the students who feel invisible, who wonder if they matter, who believe they’re already behind. And I want to whisper to them what I wish someone had whispered to you:

“you belong. You are more than your grades, more than your mistakes, more than what people see on the surface.”

To those who knew me then, you might remember the girl who seemed absent, who seemed detached, who didn’t stand out for much. That was part of my story, yes, but it wasn’t the whole story. And it isn’t the ending.

Being here now feels like a second chance; not to redo high school, but to stand in it with new eyes and a full heart. To know that the girl who once felt unseen has returned, not as a student, but as someone who can notice, nurture, and support others.

It feels like a quiet redemption. A circle closing. A chance to honor where I’ve been and who I’ve become.

So yes, I’m back in high school. And this time, I know I belong here.

Becoming the Next Chapter

This August brought me a new job, and in the coming weeks I’ll be rooted in a new address. Change is moving quickly, instead of resisting it, I’m choosing to welcome it.

As winter approaches, I see it as an invitation, not just to stay inside, reflect, and [continue to] save, but also step into nature’s calm and find renewal in the quiet. The season reminds me that growth isn’t always loud or fast. Sometimes it’s in the stillness that we find our strength.

This winter, I’m embracing both: the inner work of reflection and the outer joy of nature. New beginnings don’t just happen in the spring, they bloom in every season, if we’re open to them.

What changes might this coming season be inviting you to embrace?

From Survival to Truth

I no longer shrink myself to fit his version of the story.

He told me he hopes I don’t get in trouble for “lying” to the domestic violence program. In his mind, because he didn’t hit me, there was no abuse. That’s what he clings to. That’s what he throws back at me, as if the absence of bruises erases the years of damage.

But I know better now. Abuse isn’t just a fist. Abuse is the way he controlled the money, the way he isolated me, the way he made me question my own sanity until I couldn’t tell which way was up. It’s the fear that lived in my chest, the shame that kept me quiet, the constant shrinking of myself just to keep the peace.

People don’t see those wounds. They see me standing, functioning, surviving, and they think maybe it wasn’t that bad. Some even question me to my face, or worse, behind my back. But those unseen scars follow me into every part of my life. They shape the way I make decisions, the way I trust (or don’t trust), the way I still fight to believe I’m enough.

So no, I didn’t lie when I asked for help. I told the truth of my experience, even when it felt small compared to what others survived. I told the truth of years lived in survival mode. And asking for support wasn’t deceit, it was survival. It still is.

I didn’t lie to survive.

I survived to finally tell the truth.

Full Circle Moments

There’s a certain weight that comes with watching your child parent—especially when they reach the same age you were when you were trying to hold it all together.

My oldest daughter (33) is now the age I was when I had two toddlers, a teenager, and a husband with a terminal illness, pulling at me in every direction. I see her now, caring for her children, and I can’t help but remember my own chaos, my own lessons, my own growth.

She has one fussing toddler right now, but the exhaustion, the overwhelm, the trying-to-keep-it-all-together, those parts feel familiar. And while I know she’s doing her best, I also know how hard it is to show up fully when you’re carrying pain and just trying to survive.

With her first baby, she may have missed some things, not out of neglect, but because she was hurting. I saw it then. I see it now. And I don’t say it with judgment, only with understanding. Because I’ve been there.

But now, grown. She’s learned. And this baby, “Fuss,” she’s special. Just like my youngest, Syd. There’s something about the youngest, maybe it’s that they come into our lives when we’re wiser, more rooted, more ready to do better. They’re our quiet reminder that we can change. We can break cycles. We can show up differently.

Brooklyn and Sydney, our two youngest girls, hold a sacred place in our legacy. Even their names are stitched with meaning. They are maps. Markers. They speak to places these girls may one day stand in and make a difference.

My hope is simple: that there is no more struggle. That we’ve done the hard work so they don’t have to carry as much. That our pain has paved a smoother path. That love, not survival, guides their way.

This is the legacy I dream of: daughters who mother from a place of healing, not harm. And granddaughters who know their names mean something.

We’re still writing the story. But I’m proud of the women we are becoming.

Things No One Said: Part 2

Cast Aside

No one said that grief wouldn’t be the hardest part.

No one said the real heartbreak might come from the living.

When I became a widow at 35, I expected sorrow. I expected silence at night. I expected missing him.

What I didn’t expect was to be discarded, not just by death, but by family.

I learned my husband had left nothing for the girls, including me. His mom, the named beneficiary, looked at me, when I asked her what she planned to do, and said,

“If he wanted your name there, he would have put it.”

That sentence still haunts me. Not for what it said, but for what it didn’t care about.

I watched her upgrade her home while my daughters and I tried to recover from a hurricane the year before; still missing doors, still patching up what we could. Still broken.

And still I showed up. I forced my children to visit her. I thought proximity might build something back. I thought pretending might make it real.

Until I couldn’t pretend anymore.

It was another trauma, another mother figure casting me aside. It didn’t matter that I had her grandchildren. It didn’t matter what we had been through.

And just like that, the isolation closed in.

I was estranged not only from her, but from my own mother. From my siblings. From his siblings.

1.5 years after becoming a widow, I wasn’t just grieving a husband, I was grieving the whole web that should’ve caught me.

But no one said that part.

No one said that loss could echo louder when you’re still breathing.

When I Was 33

Hey sister-friend,

I found myself reflecting on a chapter I rarely visit.

August 2004. I was early 30s.

A young wife. A mother of two toddlers, and a pre-teen trying to find their place in the world.

It was a time full of movement, love, and noise. So much noise.

But oddly, I don’t remember many specific details from that season; just the constant feeling of being needed.

Back then, my days were wrapped in them.

Feeding, chasing, teaching, soothing. Driving. Folding. Cooking. Cleaning.

There was no pause button. No self-care days. No “me time.”

I was living in a loop that I didn’t know how to step out of.

My marriage had its own rhythm, one that didn’t always match mine.

Some days, we were in sync. Other days, it felt like we were just trying to stay afloat together while parenting on fumes.

In the world outside my home?

Beyoncé had just gone solo. MySpace was buzzing. Flip phones clicked open.

But inside my world, I was learning to be a grown woman in real time, while raising three little humans.

I look back now and see her.

That 33 year old version of me.

Exhausted. Fierce. Tender.

Invisible and powerful all at once.

She didn’t get flowers. Or affirmations.

But she kept going.

If you’re in your own version of 33, whatever age that may be, this is just a reminder:

💛 You’re allowed to come up for air.

💛 You’re doing better than you think.

💛 Your future self is rooting for you.

Things No One Said

I became a widow in the dark.

Weeks earlier, I had finally moved out of the FEMA trailer.

It wasn’t a fresh start. It was just another chapter in survival.

No one pulled me to the side and said,

“Are you okay?”

“You don’t have to figure this out alone.”

I made a new partner in the dark, in 2013.

Not with intention, but in response to the weight I was carrying.

One moment of unmatched intimacy, and the direction of my life shifted again.

But not once did someone say,

“Let’s talk.”

“I’ll walk with you through this.”

“I’ll help you see clearly when the world feels blurry.”

No one said,

“You’ve been through enough.”

“You don’t owe anyone your performance of being okay.”

I had a friend who got a luxury car.

She called her friends from the dealership, hype in her voice.

I showed up. In the dark.

I was already behind on what I drove to that lot.

And still, I traded it in.

Left with another debt—26% interest.

No one pulled me aside and asked,

“Why are you doing this?”

“What are you trying to fill?”

People looked at the survivor’s benefits I received for my children and assumed I had it good.

But they didn’t see what it was costing me to stay afloat.

What I was carrying.

What I was trying to unlearn.

It’s taken years for me to admit this:

I didn’t know how to not struggle.

Even when things got better, I’d wait for the ground to drop.

Because that’s what I’d been taught—by experience, not words.

I wonder sometimes—if people from my past ever think about the version of me they encountered.

The one trying to hold it all together.

The one doing what she thought she had to.

The one who needed guidance, not judgment.

Presence, not praise.

There’s so much I wish someone had said.

But now I’m learning how to say it to myself.

And maybe, someone reading this will remember the silence they left behind.

And do better next time—with their sister, their friend, their coworker,

Or the version of themselves they’re still trying to forgive.

Summer 2008, flew my girls to Disney World. Today, I still wear that Coach Fanny pack. Alex still keeps her hair in a bun, Eb keeps tshirts on, and Syd still carries a tote.

If this stirred something in you, let it move you into action.

Be the one who checks in.

The one who sits beside someone in the dark, even if you don’t have the answers.

The one who says, “Let’s talk.”

“I see you.”

“You don’t have to do this alone.”

You don’t need to fix anyone.

But you can choose to show up.

That alone can change a life.

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