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There’s something about a new year that makes people want to announce themselves. New goals. New habits. New identities. A ceremonial turning of the page, as if December 31st quietly closes a book and January 1st hands us a blank one. I’ve never fully bought into that version of things. I don’t make resolutions. I don’t believe in waking up on January 1 as a fundamentally different person than I was the day before. Change doesn’t work like that for me… it never has. What does

Everyone who knows me knows this about me: I’ve spent most of my life wanting things in order. Clean. Kept a particular way. That instinct for control has shaped how I move through the world—my routines, my spaces, my relationships. Over time, though, age and experience have softened me. As I’ve written about before, I’ve learned (sometimes the hard way) to loosen my grip on the things I cannot control. One of the most powerful, poignant, and frankly perfect places this has s

I love the holidays. Truly. I love the lights, the rituals, the general permission to slow down and lean into small joys. But if the holidays are supposed to follow a universal script, I’ve apparently been working from a heavily annotated, slightly smudged copy. Because with the joy comes a whole lot of nuance — often revealed through well-meaning, innocent questions. “Did you cook for Thanksgiving?” Yes. And also… no. And also, it depends what you mean by cook . I used to sp

I’ve been many things in my life—friend, student, believer, public servant—but one identity has quietly reshaped all the others – sister . Over the years, my role as a sister has grown into guardian and caregiver as I adapted to wearing the hats of mother, protector, advocate, and more without ever meaning to. It’s a role I didn’t choose in a single moment. It unfolded over time, layered slowly, shaped by love, responsibility, and circumstances that don’t fit neatly into a fa

It would be impossible to write about community, belonging, or the ache of loss without acknowledging the elephant in the room: my own family and the complicated distance between us. That story is braided through everything I write and everything I am, but it isn’t one I’m ready to unearth here. Not yet. Just know that it lives quietly beneath these words, shaping the contours of what comes next. What I can  talk about right now is the other family I grew up in — the family o

For years, I’ve wanted to learn to sew. I imagined the small and steady satisfaction of turning something “broken” into something beautiful or useful. But wanting was all I ever seemed to have time for. Between long hours and the emotional & mental weight that comes with life, family, and working in public service, my days belonged to everyone else. Sewing lived permanently on the “someday” list… a place where good intentions go when work has swallowed up your identity. This

In 2018, I went to an event for activist, DeRay Mckesson’s new book, where he said something that lodged itself in my chest and never left:  “You haven’t been voiceless. You’ve been unheard.” At the time, I was doing a lot of speaking. Loudly. Often. And usually on behalf of other people. I built a career on showing up with strength, clarity, and conviction. I fought systems. I advocated for communities. I defended people who needed someone to step in. From the outside, it pr

For most of my life, the story of the woman at the well lived in the background of my faith, tucked between memory verses and Sunday sermons I half remember. It became profound as a teen, when I watched a young girl perform it as a spoken word poem, chanting - “To be loved is to be known, and to be known is to be loved.” That phrase etched itself into my worldview. A woman, a well, a conversation that changes everything. But as an adult, especially someone navigating deconstr