There’s a stretch of time that lives between stories. Not the beginning, not the end—just the hush that follows a decision, the ache that comes before the shift. A moment suspended in breath. A space where nothing blooms, but everything stirs. That’s where we begin.

I didn’t know I was unraveling when it began.

I thought I was just tired.

Tired in a way that felt earned, maybe even noble. Tired from doing the good work. The necessary work.

The kind of work that demanded my disappearing into it. 

But the disappearance lasted longer than I expected. It outgrew the job. It outgrew the calendar. It followed me home, into my journals, into the part of me that used to sing.

Eventually, I couldn’t find my way back to the creative life I once knew—not because it was gone, but because I no longer knew how to name what mattered. What to keep. What to mourn. What to rebuild.

That’s where this began—not with a resolution, but with a quiet truth I could no longer ignore:

I had abandoned my voice. And I wanted it back.