If I had to give 2026 a name, I would call it the year I chose me.

Not because I suddenly became selfish. Not because I stopped loving people deeply. And definitely not because everything magically fell into place.

I chose me because, for a long time, I had become very good at choosing everyone else.

I knew how to be the mother who kept going. The woman who figured it out. The partner who poured in. The friend who showed up. The person who carried things nobody else could see. I knew how to survive disappointment, stretch money, handle responsibilities, raise my children, chase dreams, love people through their broken places, and somehow still find enough of myself to give away.

What I didn't always know was when to stop.

I didn't know when pouring into someone else had turned into emptying myself.

This year taught me.

And it did not teach me gently.

I Started the Year Already Tired

The truth is, my healing didn't begin from some peaceful place where I had plenty of time to work on myself.

I was already exhausted.

I had been away from the career I had spent years building because I was struggling mentally and emotionally. My job required me to constantly think, process, remember, communicate, multitask, make decisions, document accurately, and keep moving. Eventually, the woman who had spent years helping other people navigate their lives couldn't simply push through her own anymore.

Then came loss.

At the end of 2025, I began miscarrying.

It wasn't one horrible day that I could survive and then begin recovering from. It stretched across weeks, carrying pain, bleeding, fear, exhaustion and grief with it until I eventually needed a D&C in January.

My body had experienced something traumatic.

My heart had too.

And life did not stop because I was hurting.

I was still a mother.

There were still children who needed me. Bills that needed to be paid somehow. Decisions that needed to be made. A home that needed to keep functioning. A future that wasn't going to build itself.

So I did what I had always known how to do.

I kept going.

But somewhere along the way, I started understanding that surviving and healing are not the same thing.

I Had to Stop Calling Survival Strength

I've always been strong.

But this year made me question what I had been calling strength.

Was it strength to carry everything without asking for help?

Was it strength to tolerate things because I knew I could survive them?

Was it strength to keep pouring into people who weren't pouring back into me?

Was it strength to keep giving chances because I could see someone's potential?

Or had I simply become so accustomed to surviving difficult things that struggle started feeling normal?

That realization changed me.

I started therapy.

I started paying closer attention to understanding what was happening inside of me instead of only concentrating on everything happening around me.

I began learning that taking care of myself wasn't something I had to earn after everybody else was okay.

I was allowed to need care too.

Then I Had to Learn a Harder Lesson About Love

Love has always come naturally to me.

I don't really know how to care halfway.

When I love someone, I want to encourage them. Support them. Help them see themselves the way I see them. I give my time, affection, attention, loyalty and emotional energy freely.

For a long time, I thought loving someone deeply was enough.

This year taught me that it isn't.

I walked away from a relationship where I had poured myself into another person's life and realized I couldn't continue being the person doing all the emotional lifting.

Walking away wasn't simply about losing someone.

It forced me to confront myself.

Why had I accepted certain things?

Why had I believed promises after patterns were already telling me something different?

Why was I so willing to understand everybody else's wounds while expecting myself to simply absorb the consequences of them?

I began setting standards I hadn't had or consistently held before.

Consistency.

Accountability.

Reciprocity.

Clear intentions.

Respect for my boundaries.

Actions that actually matched words.

I stopped believing potential deserved unlimited access to me.

And one of the biggest lessons of my year became very simple:

Patterns over promises.

I Didn't Want to Become Hard

There was a period when being alone felt necessary.

I didn't want another relationship.

I wanted myself.

I wanted my children.

I wanted peace.

I wanted financial independence.

I wanted to rebuild the parts of my life that had been shaken.

Most importantly, I wanted to know who I was when I wasn't organizing my life around loving somebody else.

But healing did something unexpected.

It didn't make me incapable of loving again.

It made me more aware of how I love.

I realized that I attach deeply. I feel deeply. When I care, my instinct is still to move toward someone with my whole heart.

So my next lesson wasn't learning how not to love.

It was learning how to love without losing myself.

I began practicing something that felt completely unnatural to me:

Slowing down.

Letting trust develop.

Watching for consistency.

Allowing access to be earned instead of immediately handing someone every vulnerable part of me because the connection felt good.

And that was terrifying.

Because eventually, someone came along who mattered.

I tried to be careful. I tried to do things differently. Sometimes I pulled back—not because my feelings disappeared, but because they were becoming stronger than I expected.

I was scared of repeating myself.

Scared of moving too quickly.

Scared of waking up one day and realizing I had once again handed somebody enough of my heart to break it.

But there was another lesson waiting for me there too.

I can do everything differently and still get hurt.

Boundaries don't guarantee someone will stay.

Moving slowly doesn't guarantee someone will choose me.

Being understanding doesn't guarantee someone will understand me.

Loving someone well doesn't guarantee they will know how to love me well.

Healing isn't learning the perfect formula that prevents heartbreak.

It's learning that I will not abandon myself when heartbreak happens.

I Stopped Chasing People Who Could Walk Away From Me

This may be one of the hardest lessons I've learned.

I believe some people are worth fighting for.

I believe relationships sometimes require uncomfortable conversations, patience, forgiveness and effort.

But there is a difference between fighting for someone and fighting alone.

This year, I finally began understanding that difference.

I don't want to convince someone to see my value.

I don't want to beg someone to communicate with me.

I don't want to chase someone every time things become uncomfortable.

And I don't want to spend my life proving that I'm worth choosing.

I am willing to fight for love.

But I deserve someone who fights just as hard for me.

If someone repeatedly chooses walking away, eventually I have to let them walk.

They may teach me how to live without them.

They may teach me what I don't want.

They may even teach me more clearly what I do want.

But they will not teach me to beg.

Because somewhere in all of this healing, I finally understood something:

I am worthy of being wanted without having to audition for the position.

Meanwhile, Life Kept Moving

One of the strangest things about healing is that your heart can be breaking while beautiful things are happening at the exact same time.

My children kept growing.

One became a senior. The beginning of so many lasts before she steps out into the world and begins figuring out who she wants to become beyond high school. 

One graduated. Beginning a whole new season of independence—exploring college life, love, new experiences, and discovering more of who she is along the way. 

Another started middle school, entering a whole new chapter of growing up. 

And my baby started preschool—be still my heart. Somehow, the little boy I still think of as my baby walked into his own classroom with his tiny backpack and began a whole new chapter of his own. 

Motherhood kept reminding me that time wasn't waiting for me to get everything figured out.

And through all of it, I kept creating.

Photography remained part of me.

Supercool Shotz wasn't simply about taking beautiful pictures. The message behind my work began reflecting something I was learning personally:

Inhale confidence. Exhale doubt.

Through boudoir photography especially, I wanted women to see themselves differently—to feel beautiful, powerful, sexy, soft, fearless and unapologetically themselves.

Maybe that's because I was learning to see myself that way too.

Behind the scenes, I also started building something completely different—something I’m not quite ready to share with the world yet.

It pushed me into unfamiliar territory, made me learn things I never expected to learn, and reminded me that sometimes the most exciting new chapters are the ones you build quietly before anyone else even knows they exist.

Even while parts of my own life felt uncertain, I kept creating possibilities.

That matters to me.

Because when I look back at this year, I don't want to only remember what hurt.

I want to remember what I built while I was hurting.

Healing Didn't Look Pretty

Some days I was powerful.

Some days I was exhausted.

Some days I knew exactly what I deserved.

Other days I missed people who couldn't give it to me.

Sometimes I set a boundary and felt incredibly proud of myself.

Sometimes I set one and immediately wanted to take it back because enforcing it hurt.

I questioned myself.

I overthought.

I cried.

I got angry.

I missed people.

I wanted answers.

I wanted closure.

I wanted people to fight for me.

There were moments when the healed version of me and the old version of me seemed to be arguing inside the same body.

One wanted to chase.

The other whispered, Stay still.

One wanted to believe the promise.

The other said, Watch the pattern.

One wanted to prove how much I loved someone.

The other reminded me, You already have.

And little by little, I started listening to the second voice.

I Am Still Soft

Maybe that's what I'm most proud of.

After everything, I am still soft.

I'm still romantic.

I'm still emotional.

I'm still affectionate.

I'm still hopeful.

I'm still the woman who believes people can grow.

I still want a beautiful love.

I still want partnership.

I still want to laugh until my stomach hurts, feel safe in someone's arms, build something meaningful, and love somebody without constantly preparing for the ending.

Healing didn't take that woman away.

It just taught her boundaries.

I can be compassionate without making somebody else's healing my responsibility.

I can understand why someone behaves the way they do without accepting behavior that hurts me.

I can forgive someone and still decide they no longer have access to me.

I can miss someone and not contact them.

I can love someone and still choose myself.

I can believe someone is special and still acknowledge that special does not automatically mean healthy, ready or meant for me.

And I can have feelings without allowing those feelings to make every decision.

That is growth.

The Woman I'm Becoming

I used to believe strength meant enduring.

Now I think strength sometimes looks like leaving.

Sometimes it looks like resting.

Sometimes it looks like asking for help.

Sometimes it looks like saying no without writing a five-paragraph explanation afterward.

Sometimes it means allowing somebody to misunderstand you because explaining yourself for the tenth time won't make them ready to hear you.

And sometimes strength is sitting completely still while every old part of you is screaming to chase someone.

I'm learning to let people show me who they are.

I'm learning that access to me is earned.

I'm learning that consistency feels different from intensity.

I'm learning that peace may initially feel unfamiliar when you've spent years responding to chaos.

I'm learning that boundaries don't make me mean.

I'm learning that being independent doesn't mean I should have to carry everything alone.

I'm learning that softness and strength were never opposites.

Most of all, I'm learning that choosing myself doesn't mean nobody else gets chosen.

It simply means I am no longer the person who gets sacrificed.

This Story Isn't Finished

It would be easy to write an ending where I say I'm completely healed now.

I'm not.

There are things I'm still working through.

There are days when old fears show up.

There are people I still miss.

There are questions I may never get answers to.

There are pieces of my career, finances, businesses, relationships and future that I'm still figuring out.

But that's the difference between the woman who entered this year and the woman writing these words now.

I don't need everything figured out to trust myself anymore.

I have survived loss.

I have survived disappointment.

I have survived relationships ending when I desperately wanted them to work.

I have mothered while hurting.

I have created while scared.

I have dreamed while uncertain.

I have started over more than once.

And every version of me brought me here.

I don't hate the woman who gave too much.

She was loving people the best way she knew how.

I don't hate the woman who stayed too long.

She believed in people.

I don't hate the woman who ignored patterns.

She wanted to believe words.

I don't hate the woman who sometimes still wants to reach back for something she knows she needs to release.

She's human.

I'm not trying to destroy those versions of myself.

I'm growing them.

I'm teaching that woman that she doesn't have to become less loving.

She simply has to include herself in the people she loves.

So no, 2026 hasn't been the year everything finally went right.

It has been something much more important.

It has been the year I stopped waiting for another person to become who I needed them to be and started becoming who I needed me to be.

The year I stopped confusing being needed with being loved.

The year I started paying attention to patterns instead of promises.

The year I learned that I can love deeply without chasing.

That I can grieve without giving up.

That I can be scared and still move forward.

That I can rebuild while pieces of me are still healing.

And that no matter who comes into my life, who stays, who leaves, who loves me correctly, or who realizes my value too late—

I still have me.

And this time, I'm not leaving her.