From the Inbox: These are select letters I’ve sent to my email list — shared here as a slow-growing archive of thoughts, seasons, and transitions. If you would like to receive all future letters, join here.

Hello hiiii friend,,

Ooooo boy, has life been life-ing lately?!?!

I feel like I am overflowing with things to share with you – I've been waiting to write this email to give some space between the last thoughts I sent out and to see how it all lands. Now that we're on the other side of the eclipse, I feel more confident in my clarity – kinda (lol, more on my mishaps in clarity in another email)

What I want to talk to you about today is the absolute eye opening realizations I've had lately and they all revolve around how my past has really impeded my future in ways I wasn't acutely aware of.

For instance, this fun little thing where I am so adamant that I want to spend my whole life running all over this world and never settling down – I'm now realizing stems directly from my childhood trauma and never feeling safe at home. And in my adult years, where being a single adult paying the full expense of living alone (ie, no one to split rent and utilities and groceries with) has felt like a cruel and unusual punishment. So if I run away, I won't have to pay rent and I can just bounce all around. It's genius! Right?!?! But really? I've realized what my little girl actually wants is just to feel safe at home. A place I can be fully myself, settled with routine (something I'm learning I really really really need). I really do love and cherish my own personal space that's all mine, it's just that I need to have that without the fear that I can't afford rent next month or wondering how I'm going to pay for groceries.

The other thing is realizing I've spent my last ten years saying I didn't want kids. Adamantly. I LOVE kids. I really do. I've worked with them in all kinds of capacities (my favorite was being a sewing instructor! But also an arts and crafts instructor!) and I love being auntie to my little people. I think somewhere along the way I told myself this ‘I don’t want kids' narrative so that I wouldn't be disappointed when it didn't happen. Can't be disappointed if you never want it, right? It became my story, it became how I filtered out who I wanted to talk to on dating apps, I allowed myself to create this version of me as the fun aunt that you never know where she is. And she's just living her best single life jetsetting around the world. But lately, this idea of family and kids keeps coming up and I realize this is another story I've told to keep myself feeling safe. Which came first? My lie that I didn't want kids, or the one that said I never wanted to settle down?

But now I see it big picture. It hit me like an epiphany one day. What's really happening. I need to feel safe and secure. Yet I created this alternate version of who I could be to compensate for the ways I felt I could never or would never end up with the actual thing that would fill my soul right up. So if I create another persona and lean fully into that, then I'm living the dream, instead of aching for what I don't have.

My own traumatic childhood has definitely helped shape my fear of having kids. And so has heartbreak and life just not going the way I thought it would. Now I see how this alternate story is also stealing potential joy and deep soul fulfilment from me.

I spent some time with my oldest nephew this past weekend. I am so obsessed with this kid as if he was my own. I like to think of him as a mini me (and then I side eye myself as I give him all the compliments I know I should give myself too, lol) I think he's incredibly smart, funny, charismatic, he has incredible ambition and dreams, and I've had the wildest most adult conversations with him. Wild in that he's so emotionally mature for a young guy and not at all afraid to be vulnerable. Where did he come from and how did he learn to be like this?! Can he teach me?! He's just about to turn 20 and he continues to surprise me every day.

He was asking me my opinions about chasing a dream he has, but he's afraid to step out and do it because of things that could go wrong while he's away. And I was able to instill in him my opinions on that and how I think he should just do it anyways. It was incredible that he sat and listened and took in everything I had to say and I realized driving home later that day how incredible that made me feel. That I could share a different perspective, from the norm but also from what he is surrounded by in his home life. My little imprint on this guy I love so much. My life has always looked different and I've found a way to make it work on my own. And now I get to share that with him, how it might be a struggle, but how following your heart is always worth it and how we would figure it out together if something DID happen. And that made me really realize, this is a safe space. This is how it should be. If I get to raise my own kid(s) one day, I get to show up like this for them. In the ways that I always wish someone showed up for me. I saw an IG post recently that shared:

"'if you ever have a daughter,
it will be payback.'
and it absolutely is.
she is all the love I've ever tried to give
and all the love I should've received.
she is all the magic I lost along the way."

And it made me cry. How incredibly beautiful. How incredibly right. This feels right. And I don't know if I'll ever birth my own children or if I'll just continue to be very lucky to be the aunt and friend-appointed aunt to so many incredible little humans, but either way, acknowledging that I've been running from this dream for a while is so incredibly profound. And definitely changes things.

It's really made me so confident in my desire to settle down. To pursue a job that allows me to easily pay my bills, invest, save, treat my people really well, treat myself really well, and to build a life that nurtures my nervous system in this way. Even here, in the in-between of dreams. Without needing someone else to fulfill this need for safety and a nurturing home space, I can and will do this for myself. I'm so ready to step into this new version of my life.

I know I can create the type of space that feels healing, because I've done it before. And not only can I do it again, I can do it in a way that really really really gives me the space to dream about the future I actually desire. In a way that feels like it could actually happen but even if it doesn't would still feel so fulfilled.

I have so much more to share with you on this thought, so I'll pop back in your inbox tomorrow with the rest. Because I have a feeling next week I might have some really juicy things to share with you!

Just more delusion, because I really don't even have a clue what that means right now lol.

PS - I don't think any of my dreams or desires have ever been ‘wrong.’ I simply recognize now that my past experiences – good and bad – have carved out these rivulets in my life that made me certain of which direction I wanted to go. This is me recognizing how those things impacted me deeply, and how I'm willing to say I'm open to the current flowing in a different direction in the future. Should it not happen, I will absolutely continue to dream and live my life, find soft ways to travel that feels nurturing, and find ways to fill my time with the family and friends – and quickly growing little ones, I love so dearly. This isn't a goal on my list, it's a gentle holding of a possibility that I can now acknowledge might just feel like happiness in it's own way, and that I'm not actually scared of it happening if that's how things unfold.

PPS - Do you have any past experiences that have shaped your life that maybe need a dream-update? I'd love to hear. Sending you all my love, friend!

This email was sent to subscribers on April 23, 2025.

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Epiphanies & Dreams: PT 1