All the grief that swallows us whole is pooling over the edges and bleeding into everything; changing the shape of what it touches. 

Chasing hunger

We’ve mistaken hunger for love and consumption for connection.

Yet the things that sustain us have always been quieter: respect, companionship, affection, patience and safety.

We trade them for intensity;

obsession instead of presence, 

attention instead of understanding,

possession instead of intimacy, 

performance instead of truth.

It’s all spectacle.

And when the noise fades, and the validation trails off, there’s nothing left to devour or consume. So we find ourselves surrounded by everything we thought we wanted, and starving for the things we actually need.  And wondering why we still feel so empty. 

But have we mistaken hunger for love? Or have we chosen it? 

Hunger is exciting, where love is often quiet, hunger is pursuit, and love is presence, hunger is longing, where love is acceptance. Hunger keeps us moving, when love asks us to stay and let’s be real, staying is much harder than people are willing to admit. Because the idea of, “if I remain hungry, then I can continue chasing and I can continue fantasizing, and I can continue consuming, then I can continue believing that fulfillment exists just beyond the next corner. 

We did not mistake hunger for love. We romanticize hunger because it feels more profound. We overlook love, because it can feel ordinary. 

Love doesn’t offer that; love says, sit down and be here. You are enough. Love is enough. 

Love is the nourishment we are craving, while blindly seeking obsession and excitement. But love - love is grace, love is safety. Love is a place to rest. Love is somewhere nothing is being demanded of you except to just be you. I think this is what we all want. We want the radical idea that our existence, even in the quiet, is enough. 

Social media distorts this reality. It makes our heartbreaks, our obsessions, our conflicts, our grande declarations visible. But devotion is quiet, it doesn’t need an audience. The tragedy is that we have built a culture that documents attention and overlooks presence. We chase visibility while starving to be known. We demand to be heard, yet forget how to listen.

And if love is grace, if love is safety, if love is a place to rest, then why do we keep choosing hunger?

Capable

Everyone admires the strength. 
Few notice the weight that built it.

They praise the shoulders that never bend, while remaining blind to the burden that made them broad. 

Capability is celebrated. The cost is rarely acknowledged.

These veins

These veins,
they bleed stories of survival.

My wounds do not weep;
they harden.

I will not tear open the scars
that prove I have healed.

I will collect them,
for they are my stories to tell.

They keep my heart soft
and let my soul triumph.

Monarch

He is the monarch that cannot change his opinion once he has made up his mind. He expresses his thoughts eloquently, owing to the amount of forethought and preparation he has put into them. He may spend his life putting his head first, but that does not imply he cannot articulate his heart: he is governed by his actions, and still, he is a master of his words. 

Yesterdays

Yesterday, I got to spend over an hour on the phone with each of my adult children — real conversations, full of laughter, honesty, stories, memories, and love. Every single moment felt like a gift I never want to take for granted.

As a mother, there is nothing more beautiful than realizing your children still want to share their lives with you once they’ve grown. That they still call. Still talk. Still let you into their hearts.

With Mother’s Day only days away, I’m sitting here overwhelmed with gratitude. Not for perfection, but for connection. For trust. For love that has grown deeper with time.

I don’t know what I did to deserve a day like yesterday, but I know this: I have never felt more lucky, more loved, or more thankful to be their mom. 

…as if I was prey

I offered grace to those who gnawed at it, confusing my softness with weakness, as if I was prey.

I cut them off, my blade simply severed the damage they already inflicted.