Twelve years ago today, I boarded a plane with my dad and flew across the country —
from Oklahoma to New Hampshire —
to bring my daughter home.
We had no address.
Just a tip.
A prayer.
And a warning from the FBI:
“There’s a real chance you may never see her again.”
It had been eight days since I’d heard her voice.
Eight. Days.
She was only four.
And I didn’t think I’d ever see her alive again.
That moment split my life in half.
There was the girl I was before —
and the version of me that came after.
September didn’t just hold the rescue.
It held the reckoning.
It became the month everything cracked open.
The month I stopped giving people the benefit of the doubt.
The month I learned truths darker than I ever wanted to believe.
I won’t go into details. That belongs to her.
What I will say is this:
I was told the “best case scenario” was a bruise.
And I’ve lived every day since knowing
how close we came to damage you don’t always come back from.
September was when I had to become her voice.
To make sure she was believed — even when she couldn’t say the words herself.
To stand in rooms and face systems that would rather look away.
To carry a story no child should ever have to explain.
And for eleven years, September swallowed me whole.
My body braced for it before the calendar even caught up.
But not this year.
This September didn’t try to bury me.
No breakdown. No anxiety attacks. No drowning.
And I did it stone-cold sober.
If you know my story,
that’s not just a milestone —
that’s a miracle.
For over a decade, I fought like hell to build a life my girls could walk forward in —
even if that meant laying myself flat so they had a bridge to cross.
Mic’d up at Pure Barre, telling clients “you’re stronger than you think.” Sat bedside as a CNA, holding hands with dying strangers while I was bleeding out.
I had nothing left when I got home.
But I kept going.
And somewhere along the way — I began to heal.
Then came the wild.
I walked away from the world I built in survival,
and I had no idea what would come next.
But I looked around —
at the wild, at the places that called me home
before I even knew I needed them.
And I remembered who I was.
So I said yes to a lifelong dream I thought was impossible.
I recently enrolled to finish school —
and I’m pursuing a degree in Wildlife Biology.
I’ve dabbled in a lot of “careers” — real estate, nursing —mostly because of the money.
The illusion of stability. But it brought burnout. And regret.
Now I’m chasing sunshine. Running toward passion. For once, I’m building something that’s mine.
If you’ve felt the shift —
in my writing, in the way I show up —
that’s why.
I’m not living in the fall anymore. I’m standing in the after.
The wild spaces—They’re what freedom looks like.
The hikes, the bears, the beats —We bled for that peace.
Don’t get it twisted:
We didn’t wake up to a good life. We built it.
Brick by brick.We earned every bit of this joy.
And I wake up every morning in awe —
I can’t believe this is our life.
Halloween marks one year sober.
Some of you knew me in the party years.
(Yes — the backflips 😅)
Sobriety opened a new room in my story —
one I hadn’t walked into yet.
It’s the hardest and best decision I’ve ever made.
I grieved the time I lost with my girls.
Used to wear regret like a second skin.
Wishing I’d woken up sooner.
Wishing I hadn’t missed so much.
But I’m done hating that version of me.
She gets my deepest love.
For laying in the river face-down so my daughters could cross.
She burned herself to the ground to keep them warm.
I love her.
Because she fought.
She survived.
She got us here.
But she doesn’t have to carry it anymore.
Everyone loves to read about the fall but perhaps the rise deserves more space now.
Maybe this isn’t a memoir anymore —maybe it’s a resurrection.
Remember that scene in Forrest Gump..
Where he’s been running for years across the country, and one day, in the middle of the desert,
he just stops and says:
“I think I’ll go home now.”
That’s where I’m at.
I needed to run. I needed to tell it.
And now I’m ready to walk in a new direction.
This one finally feels like mine.
This one we rise, my babies.
Buckle up.
The Wilds Project. 
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