Perfectly Unfiltered Journey

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A few years ago, if you’d told me I’d be starting a blog about healing, relationships, sobriety, and empowering other women to stop feeling broken for good… I would’ve laughed in your face.

But here we are.

I’m not here to sell you some perfectly polished story. This is my real life—the healing and growth that sometimes feels like two steps forward and one step back. The love that dragged every insecurity I thought I’d buried back into the light… and proved me wrong about being incapable of falling in love again. The days I feel on top of the world, completely unbreakable—and the days I quietly ask myself, “Will I be broken forever?” or “What in the actual f***?”

When I got sober, I truly thought that was it—I’d done the work, built the life, found my self-worth, and had nowhere to go but up. For the first time in my life, I felt complete on my own. I didn’t need a man (or even want one, honestly) to be whole.

So I transferred my job to Louisville and jumped headfirst into what I thought was my “next chapter”—finding my true self (without a man) for the first time in 47 years.

And then… I met my current boyfriend.

As my feelings grew, every fear I thought I had outrun came knocking. One night I called a friend, pouring it all out. She understood because she felt the same way. I asked her when it finally goes away.

She said, “It doesn’t. It just happens less.”

That was the last thing I wanted to hear.

Because the hardest part isn’t even the old trauma—it’s how sneaky it is. How it makes me assume the worst, wait for the other shoe to drop, brace for heartbreak before it even happens. How it whispers, “It’s too good to be true.” I refuse to let my past get the final say in my future. It’s not just the insecurities; it’s the lack of complete control. I know I can be successful on my own, but can I stay focused while in a relationship? Will all the codependency issues rear their ugly head? I refuse to believe I’ll be broken forever—and I don’t think any of us actually want to believe that about ourselves.

The truth is, I’m a work in progress. Every single day, I learn something new. I read a quote the other day by Will Rogers that hit home for me.

“Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.”

Healing is made up of a thousand little road bumps and detours. It’s not a straight line, and no two women’s journeys look the same. This blog is here to prove there is no perfect timeline—just real-life trial and error.

So if you’re in the messy middle—learning not to assume the worst, healing in real time, loving hard while still putting the pieces together, and sometimes laughing at the absurdity of it all—this space is for you.

Here you’ll find recovery stories, the raw side of falling in love while still healing, travel journals with way too many photos, the amazing friends I’ve met along the way, the hard truths nobody warns you about, the quiet wins that keep you going, and all the everyday moments, the messy, funny, painful and hopeful, that makes this whole journey pretty amazing.

I don’t have it all figured out.

But every day, I’m growing—and I’m done pretending otherwise.

If you’re here, you’re in the right place.
Welcome home. 🖤