A Story Of Survival And Softening

My goal is to help others feel seen without being exposed, & understood without the explanation.

I hope to quiet the shame that tells you you’re behind, broken, or alone.

If my life says anything, I hope it whispers this:

'you can survive, and you can soften too.'

“And when the dust settled, she wasn’t who she used to be.
She was more.
Not because life hadn’t tried to break her... 
but because she finally learned to let God build her back.”

Let’s just get real. Raw. No filters, no makeup, no cute captions. Just truth.
Not the kind that wins you applause or makes people want to repost it on their stories.
But the kind that costs you everything except your soul.

See, knowing where I come from means knowing pain by its first name.
Mistakes? I made ’em. Repeated ‘em. Learned from a few. Ignored some. Paid for most.
But ain’t that life?
The relationships that cracked me wide open also taught me how to heal.
The kind of lessons you can’t Google. The kind that make you sit in a dark room and ask God if you’re even worth loving.

Now, at this big age... with laugh lines carved by survival and stretch marks written in love and loss... I finally feel something like settled.
Not perfect. Never that.
I cuss.
I joke way too inappropriately sometimes.
I overthink, I pray hard, I cry randomly.
I’m human in the way most folks are scared to admit out loud.
But that’s the beauty in it.
The becoming.
The unraveling of every mask I thought I had to wear just to be seen.

And look, I still got insecurities that whisper when the world gets too quiet.
I still wonder if I’m too much or not enough all in the same breath.
But the love I carry deep in this warrior’s chest?
That love reminds me that labels ain’t truth, and clothes don’t make a queen.
God does.

The ones who really know me? They see me.
The unfiltered me. The weepy, witty, wounded, wise woman I am.
And they love me not in spite of my flaws, but because of the honesty they bring.
This ain’t a tale about falling down and beating myself up until I learn how to stand.
This is a story about redemption.
The soul-deep kind. The “look what God did” kind.
The kind that turns pain into purpose and scars into scripture.

This is me becoming the version of myself I never thought I could be.
But my spirit knew.
My spirit always knew.
And now?
She shines. She dances in the light of her own healing.
She knows God’s voice. She nurtures herself.
She loves from a holy, higher place.

And I vow; right here, right now, to keep learning.
To keep growing.
To keep putting God first.

I’m in love with Nicole.
She didn’t quit.
She gave me everything, even when the world gave her nothing back.

And if the God who made the oceans and the mountains,
the butterflies and the hummingbirds,
the rainstorms and the rainbows... 
if that God made me too?
Then I must be something sacred.
Something worth protecting.
Something real.

And so it is.
The becoming. The breaking. The blessing. The whole damn story