My therapist said I should start journaling. Something about letting it out instead of keeping it all locked up in my head. So, here I am, spilling my tea—bare, raw, and unapologetic.

I’ve been on my own for almost five years now. Five years of late nights in my own space, growing into myself, making moves, and figuring out how to stand on my own two feet. It wasn’t perfect, but it was mine. And now? Now, life decided to flip the script in the wildest way possible.

A medical crisis—something I wouldn’t wish on anyone—hit me like a wrecking ball. And just like that, I’m out of options. No space of my own, no independence, nothing. Just me, my bags, and a spine injury that’s got me limping back home to sleep on a couch. A couch. With this back? Life’s got jokes.

It’s humbling, for sure, but also a little humiliating. I keep telling myself this isn’t forever, that it’s just a pit stop, but damn if it doesn’t feel like a step backward. Like I’m losing the woman I was becoming.

But maybe this is where I find her again. The softer me, the resilient me, the one who rises even when she feels stripped down to nothing. So here I am, pen in hand (or fingers on keys), writing through the chaos, one sultry, messy, beautiful word at a time.