Finding My Way Back to Her
In 2025, I published my first book, got married, attended multiple reader festivals, turned 30, flew overseas to be a guest author at a writing retreat, adopted a kitten, met my literary hero, hit a bestseller list, hiked waterfalls, grew flowers for the first time—
On paper, it was the perfect year.
And yet, I hardly remember any of it.
Part of me already wants to delete that sentence—the shameful, squirming part that’s so aware of my privilege to have all these things. The same part that kept me silent while my mind raged against me throughout winter and spring, convincing me that I couldn’t display weakness, take breaks longer than a breath, or acknowledge how hard it all was because hadn’t I wanted it so bad? Hadn’t I spent half a decade chasing these dreams down, and two decades before that writing without quite knowing why?
So I bit my lip, hunched my shoulders, and let myself break while furiously trying to hide the cracks.
I was wretched. Small. Uncertain and lonely—the opposite of who I’d fought so hard to become—and in between bright spots and all the mire, I kept asking the question: why.
Why, when I was in the culmination of all my ambitions and manifestations, did I feel so fucking miserable? Why was I feeling like a failure every single day, even though on paper, everything was fine? Better than fine?
If you scroll back through my Instagram, you’ll see it—or rather, you won’t, because I archived the absolute shit out of my feed once I could breathe again, unable to stand the emptiness and uncertainty looking out from my own eyes—but somewhere between dreaming and doing, I lost my magic.
My wild woman.
One of the most enlightening books I’ve come across, Women Who Run with the Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, speaks in-depth about the idea of the “Wild Woman.” The spark in our hearts, the guardian of our soul, the tether to ourselves and the collective that holds truth, in all its beauty and ugliness.
I’m sure I’m butchering the explanation, but my understanding was this: you reach out to her, nurture your connection, or you don’t and that part of you begins to fade away. It will never abandon you entirely—but it requires connection and reconnection, and the choice to reach deep and find her again, and again. Without her presence, there is no magic, and in denying myself, I was denying her.
But always—always—in my life, there’s been a moment of clarity. A lightning strike after a long, foggy wasteland (my depression) or a hand reaching out to drag me onto solid ground from the whirling storm (anxiety). Whether it’s been friends or family, therapy, meditation and now medication, there is always a moment when she comes back and all the air rushes back into my lungs, reminding me I’m alive.
And isn’t that in and of itself a type of magic?
Something shifted in October of 2025.
Maybe it was the weather—I always feel my deepest connection in transitional months. Maybe it was the people. Or maybe the simple fact that the book was out, I was married, and those massive, looming ideas were off my shoulders at last.
But somewhere between Huntsville, Portland, and Cumbria, I called her back to me, gathering pieces like the bones of a story I was desperate to tell. I journaled relentlessly on that writing retreat, sitting outside for long hours as my ass grew numb and I gave in to the pain, the disillusionment, displacement, fury, confusion, sweetness, and joy. I let myself be angry again—so angry at the state of the world, at my government and the lack of humanity present. I let myself be happy to have found a human I loved so deeply, who’d named me his beneath a cloudy sky.
I felt everything.
And that, I think, is the point.
Since October, I’ve been sifting through my history and wishes, and all the past versions of myself. I’ve wondered why I write now, since it’s no longer to be seen—there was plenty of that last year. I’ve dreamt up different paths the future might take me, allowed myself to be vocal and rebellious once more. I’m challenging my mind to expand and my values to hold their weight, researching instead of skimming, writing letters to the ones I love, cutting up pictures and pasting them in my journal or on my wall. I’m seeking inspiration, and creating small magic where I can, and in doing so looking back at the times I was the most myself to figure out how to build a bridge between who I am now and who I was.
A wild, messy, glorious Feral Romantic.
“To be strong does not mean to sprout muscles and flex. It means meeting one’s own numinosity without fleeing, actively living with the wild nature in one’s own way. It means to be able to learn, to be able to stand what we know. It means to stand and live.”