And in the weeks since, I haven’t really felt like myself.

I’ve been struggling to sleep. Struggling to rest. Struggling, if I’m being completely truthful, to sit still long enough to actually feel what I’m supposed to be feeling.

So I’ve returned to old patterns.

Work.

Who has time to write?

I fill my calendar. I take on responsibilities. I make myself necessary. I find things that need fixing and people who need something from me. I inundate myself with enough work that maybe, if I’m tired enough at the end of the day, I won’t have to think.

I won’t have to feel.

I won’t have to…

Fuck.

Sometimes I can’t even formulate the words.

And that’s the strange thing about being someone who tries so hard to be self-aware. You start to believe that because you’ve identified your own patterns, you’ve somehow conquered them.

I know better.

I’ve done the work. I’ve learned the lessons. I’ve had the realizations. I’ve promised myself I would rest. That I would take better care of myself. That I wouldn’t use work to escape. That I would listen when my body told me it had had enough. That I would schedule the days off.

And then life happens.

Grief happens.

And sometimes you take a couple of steps backward.

Maybe part of growing is having enough humility to admit when that’s happening.

To take accountability without completely destroying yourself in the process. To forgive yourself for the nights when you drank too much. For the nights when you made mistakes. For kissing a stranger because, for a moment, you wanted to feel reckless instead of sad. Beacause somehow that made more sense at the moment.

For not taking care of yourself the way you know you should.

The way you’ve already learned how to.

But isn’t that life?

Isn’t so much of life just figuring out how not to keep making the same stupid mistakes over and over again?

Figuring out what needs to be fixed, figuring out how to fix it, and then trying really fucking hard not to fuck it all up again?

Lately, I’m finding it harder to find my way.

Grief discombobulates everything.

It changes the weight of ordinary things. It makes a phone call feel impossible. It turns a free afternoon into something terrifying. It makes you resent the people asking something of you even when what they’re asking for is simply your presence.

I’ve had difficult conversations with both of my parents recently about how I haven’t been around enough.

They miss me.

I know that’s what they’re saying.

I know that underneath the frustration is love. I know there is tenderness buried somewhere inside the disappointment. They’re telling me they want their daughter. They want my time. They want me around.

But sometimes that’s not what I hear.

What I hear is that I’m failing again.

That I’m not doing enough.

That I’m not there enough.

That somehow, once again, I need to try harder.

Be better. Show up more. Be more.

Be everything for everyone.

And I’m standing there thinking:

Holy fuck. I’m just trying to SURVIVE.

I’m trying to get through a day without being consumed by tears.

I’m trying not to let grief swallow me whole.

I haven’t visited you because I couldn’t.

I haven’t called because I couldn’t.

I haven’t been present because I simply couldn’t be.

I couldn’t even be present for MYSELF.

I couldn’t schedule the day off. I couldn’t take the honest break.

Because somewhere inside of me I knew that if I stopped moving, I would have to sit with it. Andrew is gone.

And there is nothing on my calendar that can change that.

There is no amount of work that can change that.

There is no plane I can get on, no dinner I can cook, no project I can finish, no person I can help, no problem I can solve that changes the fact that someone I loved exists now only in memory.

So I keep moving. And then comes the guilt.

And from the outside, I’m sure all that moving looks a lot like living. If you’ve been following along on social media, it probably looks like I’ve been incredibly busy and having a fucking great time.

And sometimes I have been. Both things can be true.

I’ve laughed. I’ve traveled. I’ve eaten incredible meals. I’ve surrounded myself with people. There have been genuinely beautiful moments.

But joy and grief are strange roommates. Apparently, they can live in the same body at the same fucking time.

Because while I’m trying to survive my own grief, I’m failing to be there for the people who love me.

And that thought has been sitting heavily with me.

Because somewhere in all of it, another question keeps surfacing.

But Who has me?

And then I look around my house.

At my little angels. The ones I feel like I neglect the most.

They’re my companions in the dark. On the sad days. On the days where I can’t get out of bed because I’m so sick. When my feet hurt. When I can’t even walk upstairs because of my pain, body aches, or sadness.

They’re there. They don’t ask me where I’ve been.

They don’t tell me I haven’t called enough or visited enough or spent enough time with them.They don’t need an explanation for why I’m sad.

They just stay. They love me. They heal me. They have patience with me on my hardest days. They don’t ask for anything other than love.

And maybe that’s why I feel so guilty about them too.

Because their time is some of the time I wish I had more of.

More completely ordinary days at home.

More slow mornings in bed.

More afternoons with one of them curled up beside me while I do absolutely fucking nothing.

More time being loved without needing to be useful.

And maybe, in their own quiet way, they do have me. Or maybe they let me have them.

Several weeks ago, I wrote on social media about being single.

I’ve been single for a long time, and I’m happy being single. I don’t say that defensively. I genuinely love my independence. I love my life. I love coming home to my own space. At this point, I don’t even know if I could fathom sharing a bed with someone every night again, much less a home.

I don’t walk through the world believing I’m incomplete because I don’t have a partner.

But independence and loneliness are not opposites.

And lately, there have been moments when I’ve wanted nothing more than to come home to someone’s arms.

Not someone to fix it. Not someone to tell me how strong I am.

Nor someone to remind me that everything happens for a reason.

Just arms.

A listening ear.

Someone who loves me enough to sit there while I fall apart and doesn’t need me to turn my sadness into something easier for them to hold.

Someone who looks at me and asks, Are you okay? And actually waits for the answer.

My God.

Is that really so much to ask of the world? Of the universe?

Because the truth is, the toughest people can break.

The independent ones can need someone too.

The people who take care of everyone else can desperately want to be taken care of too.

The people who appear to have everything handled can be barely holding themselves together.

And somewhere in these last few weeks, I realized something that hurt more than I expected it to:

Nobody came to see if I was breaking.

Nobody called to check on me and see if I was okay.

And maybe that’s partially my fault.

Maybe I’ve gotten too good at performing FINE.

Maybe I’ve spent so many years being capable that I’ve taught everyone around me not to worry about me. Maybe when you become the person who handles things, people start assuming you always will.

Maybe I should have said something.

Maybe instead of waiting for someone to notice, I should have called and said, I need you. But that’s complicated too, isn’t it?

Because sometimes when you’re drowning, you don’t have the language to explain that you’re underwater.

Sometimes you don’t even realize you’re drowning until you wonder why no one has come looking for you.

Just keep swimming, right?

I don’t know what the lesson is here. I’m not even sure there is one yet.

Right now, grief hasn’t taught me anything.

It has confused me.

It has exhausted me.

It has made me angry and lonely and reckless and needy and distant, sometimes all within the same fucking day.

It has made me want people close and then made me incapable of answering the phone when they call.

It has reminded me how deeply I can love and how profoundly the absence of someone can rearrange my life.

Maybe eventually I’ll understand what I’m supposed to do with all of this.

Tonight, I don’t.

Tonight, I’m just admitting that I’m not doing as well as I thought I was.

That I’ve fallen back into some old patterns.

That I’ve made some mistakes.

That I miss my friend so fucking much.

That I miss my family even while I’m avoiding them.

That I love being alone and sometimes desperately don’t want to be.

That I am strong. And that I am tired.

And maybe all of those things are allowed to exist together.

Maybe I don’t have to make this beautiful yet.

Maybe for tonight, it is enough to finally stop moving long enough to write:

I’m grieving. I’m struggling. I don’t really know my way out of it yet.

And for once, I’m going to try to give myself grace and not to punish myself for it.

And I don’t mean that to say that I’m aloof, that I don’t feel, or that I push the feelings aside.

Rather, historically, and because of my Mexican upbringing, we’ve always been exposed to funerals and family passings.

Death is openly discussed. It’s part of life.

And as I’m sure many of you have seen in the Disney movie “Coco”, we really do have this appreciation for our dead. We remember them. We keep them alive. We keep them in our homes, in our stories, in our traditions, and around our tables.

I’ve lost some incredible people in my life, and for the most part, I’ve been able to carry on.Holding them alive in my heart.

Remembering them often with fond memories.

Keeping their essence alive through their recipes, their jokes, and their constant presence in my life. Through the moments that remind me of a conversation, a cackle that brought me to tears, or a memory we created together as a family.

But I am not gonna lie… I’ve been struggling.

Although I knew Andrew was leaving me, and although we had time to prepare, there is so much that I’m still trying to process about him leaving this earth.

Among those things, of course, is facing my own mortality.

He was only one year older than I am.

And it seems so unfair that someone would lose their life so early, from something so sudden.

And in case I haven’t said it yet, I want to say it again.

Motherfuck cancer.

But you see, Andrew was so much more than just a friend.

Andrew was someone I constantly flirted with. Someone I had deeply intimate conversations with. Somebody who selflessly supported me, sometimes one of the only people it felt like was supporting me in certain moments.

Someone who didn’t forget details and made a point to share them and gift using them. He always knew my favorite products, my favorite whiskey, and my favorite restaurants.

Someone who never made me feel silly when I didn’t know the names of luxury brands because... I’m just not that kind of girl.

But he was.

He was refined.

He was perfect.

With his stupid perfect bone structure.

His stupid perfect car.

His stupid fucking perfect life. And he loved so selflessly.

I clearly have moments where I’m angry.

Angry that he didn’t let me come see him more often because he cared so much about how I would remember him.

Angry because I wish I had more time.

Angry because he deserved to have his own children.

Angry because I wish I’d lived closer.

I wish it wasn’t an eight to ten hour round trip just to spend a few hours together because he was always surrounded by so many people who loved him.

So many jealous girls too. LMFAO.

It’s fucking stupid how jealous women got over him. But I get it.

They never understood.

He was mine. Haha.

Last night I couldn’t sleep.

I’d just driven down from Paso Robles, crashed for about two hours, woke up, and then spent hours staring at the ceiling.

Eventually I turned on Project Hail Mary.

And I cried my eyes out when the main character almost loses his best friend, an alien made of rocks that somehow made me feel every emotion imaginable.

I found myself crying again.

Looking through pictures.

Looking through text messages.

Replaying conversations.

Going through everything in my head.

It was 5:30 in the morning before I finally saw daylight and fell asleep.

Today feels hard. Grief is like that.

It’s painful.

Not every day is painful. But most days.

Some days your head hurts.

Some days your Heart hurts.

And some days EVERYTHING hurts.

Keeping your eyes open.

Knowing you’re still here when they’re not.

Knowing life has to continue when they’re not.

Knowing that in a couple of days we’re being forced to let go of someone so cherished and so deeply loved by so many.

And knowing that a mother who should never have to bury a child is about to lay her son to rest.

Fuck, death sucks.

But I’m here. Writing to you.

Because right now that’s probably the only thing I know how to do.

Vent. Cry. Breathe. Survive.

I love you, Andrew. In this life and the next.

Not because of one particular person or one particular experience, but because I’ve spent the last several months cooking in a variety of kitchens alongside people with vastly different levels of experience.

Some have cooked professionally longer than I’ve been in this industry. Some are just beginning. Some possess technical skills that leave me in awe. Others are still finding their footing.

And yet, the thing that fascinates me most isn’t talent. It’s humility.

For most of my life, I assumed that confidence and expertise naturally went hand in hand. The more someone knew, the more secure they would become. The more accomplished they were, the less they would feel the need to prove themselves.

What I’ve discovered is often the opposite.

Some of the most accomplished chefs I’ve ever met are also the most curious.

I’ve had Michelin-starred chefs ask me to teach them how to make tamales. Chefs whose careers I admired long before I ever met them. People whose technical abilities far exceed my own in many areas. And yet they approached learning the same way a student would.

Not because they lacked confidence but because they lacked the need to pretend they knew everything.

Those moments have stayed with me.

Growing up, my father spent 20+ years working in professional kitchens. One lesson he repeated over and over was that the person with the most valuable knowledge in the room wasn’t always the executive chef.

Sometimes it was the line cook, at times it was the prep cook.

Sometimes it was the person who had repeated the same movement ten thousand times until it became second nature.

He taught me that respect should travel in every direction. Not just upward.

I’ve found this to be increasingly true throughout my own career.

I’ve learned from renowned chefs, from home cooks, from friend’s grandmothers. I’ve learned from dishwashers. I’ve learned from farmers. I’ve learned from people whose names will never appear in a magazine and whose food may never be photographed professionally.

Food has a way of humbling you if you let it.Because no matter how much you know, there is always someone who knows something you don’t.

There is always a technique you haven’t mastered.

A tradition you haven’t studied.

A perspective you haven’t considered.

A skill you haven’t earned.

The older I get, the more I realize that mastery isn’t knowing everything. It’s knowing that you never will. Very socratic I know, but REAL.

And maybe that’s why the ego can be so limiting.

Not because it makes us difficult to work with.

Because it closes the door to learning.

The moment we decide we have nothing left to learn from the people around us, our growth begins to slow.

The moment we become more concerned with being the smartest person in the room than the most curious, we stop seeing opportunities that are standing right in front of us.

Confucius wrote: "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."

For years, I thought becoming a better chef meant learning more. Now I think it also means becoming more aware of what I don't know.

Every kitchen reminds me of that. Every cook, every farmer, every grandmother, every master of their craft holds a lesson if I'm willing to listen.

The day we believe we've learned it all may be the very day we stop growing.

I don’t say this from a place of judgment.

I say it because I’ve had to examine my own ego, too.

I’ve had to ask myself whether I’m listening as much as I’m speaking. Whether I’m remaining open. Whether I’m still willing to be a student.

Because the truth is that every one of us carries an ego into the kitchen.

The question isn’t whether it’s there. The question is whether it serves us or limits us.

For me, food has never been the destination. Food is the invitation.

The meal is simply the thing that brings us together. Connection is the whole point.

And every time ego gets in the way of connection, we lose something far more valuable than being right.

We lose our ability to connect not just with eachother or the gastronomy but with the people who are enjoying the food before them.

Truthfully, I’ve been trying to reconcile my feelings around it because we live in an incredibly complicated world these days.

A world that feels fractured and unstable. A place where people are hurting financially, where many of us are simply trying to find joy in small moments, and where it often feels like we’re all just pawns in a global system focused on power, profit, and what can be extracted from our labor.

I know some of you may read this and think, “Wow, she’s gone super left.”

But actually, nothing could be further from the truth.

I grew up very middle of the road, with a belief in liberal social principles and conservative ideas about responsibility, community, and a checked and balanced government being by the people and for the people.

Over the last several years, as money and influence have tightened their grip on American politics in ways that have injured the public’s trust, demoralized voters, and made people lose faith in institutions, I have to admit that I am one of those people.

You see, when I was little, I used to tell everyone that I was going to be the first Latina President of the United States.

Not a chef.

Not a television personality.

Not an author.

The first Latina President of the United States.

My family was always very clear about where we came from, and I was incredibly proud of my Mexican heritage. But I also grew up reciting the Pledge of Allegiance every morning and believing wholeheartedly in the pursuit of happiness and the American Dream.

I believed that no matter who tried to taint those ideals, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would hold true. I believed that checks and balances could never be fractured by political bias. I believed in the promise of this country.

As I got older and realized becoming president was a little more complicated than I had imagined, I shifted priorities.

I studied Administration of Justice. Later, philosophy.

I thought maybe the way to affect laws was either to make them or to enforce them. Maybe I would become a judge. If I fell short there, then maybe I would become a lawyer. After all, many of our recent presidents had been lawyers, so perhaps I wouldn’t be too far off course.

During college, I worked on several political campaigns, and that was really the first time I started seeing some of the uglier sides of politics.

The backdoor deals.

The many concessions.

The difficult negotiations.

The far too many compromises.

And of course, the impact that money and political action committees had on the process.

It was jarring.

A little bit of my faith was lost then.

I realized it wasn’t an arena I wanted to enter.

Life happened after that. I stepped away from school for a period of time, and when I eventually returned, I enrolled at National University and pursued a pre-law path because some part of me still wanted to get back to that goal of becoming a lawyer someday.

A lot of people don’t know that story.

They don’t know that background about me.

They don’t know how much time I spend thinking critically about systems, government, policy, and people.

And while I have become more politically vocal over the last several years, I have to admit that it has also tested my resolve and my love for this country.

Because it is hard to reconcile the fact that people in power continue to use human beings as pawns in a political chess game.

So when LP O’Brien, the winner of Drink Masters on Netflix and someone I’ve become close friends with recently, reached out and asked if I would be interested in co-emceeing an event at the National Archives, I was over the moon.

You see, I studied the National Archives.

I know what’s housed there.

I understand the significance of those documents.

And that little girl who once wanted to be President of the United States immediately poked her head up, smiled, and said, “Heck YES.”

Part of me said yes because of the opportunity itself.

But if I’m being honest, another part of me said yes because it felt like a chance to reconnect with that little girl who dreamed of visiting our nation’s capital.

Even as I write this, I can feel the knot in my throat.

Because this country has let many of us down.

The pursuit of happiness has become, for many people, a constant struggle just to stay afloat.

A world where ordinary people worry about feeding their families, paying their bills, finding moments of joy, and doing their part in their communities while larger forces seem determined to tell us what should matter.

And yet, standing there, looking at the Declaration of Independence, with tears welling up in my eyes, I remembered something.

I remembered that these documents belong to US.

I remembered that the government is supposed to be by the people and for the people.

I remembered that my taxes help support that institution.

And I remembered that it is people like us who actually make up these United States.

Not politicians. Not billionaires. Not talking heads on television.

US.

The teachers. The professors. The line cooks. The bartenders. The bus drivers. The farmworkers. The parents. The immigrants. The children of immigrants.

The people who wake up every day and do their best to contribute to their communities while searching for their own version of happiness.

Standing there, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

A connectedness to a country that has felt increasingly disconnected.

A connectedness to patriotism that has, in many ways, been hijacked and rebranded as something that only belongs to certain people.

And I realized in that moment that the only path forward is to reclaim it.

Because these United States are not owned by extremists.

They are not owned by people who traffic in fear.

They are not owned by those who would have us believe that only certain Americans belong here.

These United States belong to ALL of us.

To the people who teach our children.

To the people who grow our food.

To the people who serve our meals.

To the people who care for our sick.

To the people who keep our cities running.

To the people who simply wake up every day and try their best.

I know this piece may feel heavy.

But I have been dwelling on this experience ever since it happened because I know I wasn’t the only person who has been feeling it.

When I shared videos from the National Archives celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, very few people responded.

And honestly, I understand why. I think people are conflicted.

I think people are trying to figure out what patriotism means to them right now.

I think people are trying to understand why someone like me would choose to show up in that space.

And truthfully, this isn’t about justifying why I went.

It’s about reminding myself, and maybe some of you too, not to lose faith in each other.

I get it, it is hard to love a country that doesn’t love you back.

As embarrassing as the U.S. has been lately. I refuse to hide.

I refuse to act as though these spaces belong only to one group of people.

I refuse to pretend that patriotism belongs only to one race, one culture, one religion, or one political party.

Rather, I want to show the vibrancy, diversity, and humanity that actually make up the fabric of this country.

People like me.

People whose parents or grandparents came from somewhere else.

People who have built lives, businesses, families, and communities here.

People who contribute every. single. day.

People who are every bit as American as anyone else.

So I’ll leave you with this.

I hope you take a moment to think about how you participate.

Whether that’s by voting.

Whether that’s by connecting with your family and friends.

Whether that’s by speaking up.

Whether that’s by refusing to give in to cynicism.

But most importantly, PLEASE don’t hide.

When they invite you to the table, show up.

Show your feathers. Shake them out. Take up space.

Use your voice for what matters.

Because showing up is half the battle.

And being unapologetically yourself is their reminder that we’re still here.

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Yes.

But only if we were willing to go deeper. And only if I could have a say in how we built the show.

I’ve spent a lot of my career in food media. Television, publishing, live events, digital content, and now podcasts. I’ve had the opportunity to tell stories through food in many different ways, and I’ve loved every chapter of it.

But I’ve also spent enough time in those spaces to know what often gets lost.

The people.

Over the years, I’ve watched food media change. Competition shows began to take center stage while traditional cookery and educational programming became harder to find. Social media rewarded outrage, hot takes, and quick opinions. Food became content. Something to consume, critique, and argue about.

Everyone seems to have an opinion these days about what is authentic, what isn’t, whether a dish is traditional enough, whether fusion belongs, or whether someone’s interpretation of a recipe is right or wrong.

And while there is certainly a place for criticism and conversation, I’ve always found myself more interested in something else.

The person behind the plate.

After years of working in television and media, I’ve learned that the most interesting part of any food story is rarely the food itself. It’s understanding why a particular dish matters. Where it came from. Who taught it to them. What memories are attached to it. Those are the stories that stay with us long after the meal is over.

That’s what immediately connected me to Saadia Khan and the team at Immigrantly.

They’ve built a platform around something that feels increasingly rare: genuine conversation. Not performative conversation. Not outrage disguised as dialogue. Real conversations about identity, belonging, culture, family, and the experiences that shape who we become.

That’s the kind of storytelling I believe in.

Maybe that’s because I grew up in a family where food was never just food. It was how stories were passed down, how culture stayed alive, and how we remained connected to where we came from while building a life somewhere new.

As the daughter of Mexican immigrants, I understand that deeply.

Some of my earliest memories aren’t attached to places. They’re attached to smells, dishes, and moments around a table. A recipe isn’t just a recipe. It’s a grandmother teaching without realizing she’s teaching. It’s a parent working long hours and still finding a way to gather the family together. It’s the meal that made you feel safe. The dish that reminded you where you came from. The food you make when you’re homesick. The recipe you pass down because you’re afraid the story might disappear if you don’t.

Food holds memory in a way almost nothing else can. A single bite can take you back decades. A smell can bring back someone you’ve lost. A meal can remind you exactly who you are and where you come from.

That’s what Bitefully is really about.

Yes, we’ll talk about food.

But we’re not interested in rankings, trends, hot takes, or deciding who makes something the “right” way.

We’re interested in the stories that food unlocks.

We’re interested in the meals that carried people through difficult seasons, the recipes that survived migration, the traditions that crossed borders, and the memories that continue to shape us long after the meal is over.

Because when you start talking about food, what you’re often really talking about is family. You’re talking about belonging. You’re talking about resilience. You’re talking about identity. You’re talking about home.

And home is an interesting thing. Sometimes it’s a place. Sometimes it’s a person. Sometimes it’s a recipe.

I’ve spent my entire career watching what happens when people sit down together around a table. The walls come down. People tell stories they weren’t planning to tell. They listen differently. They connect in ways that don’t happen in most other settings.

Food has always been one of the few things that can bring people together regardless of politics, language, geography, religion, or background. It doesn’t erase our differences. It simply reminds us that there is something larger connecting all of us.

Our humanity.

That’s the heart of Bitefully.

Not a podcast about food, but a podcast about people. About memory. About culture. About identity. About the moments and meals that shape our lives in ways we don’t always recognize until years later.

Because when we understand someone’s food story, we often begin to understand the person.

And right now, I think we could all use a little more understanding.

Welcome to Bitefully.

A show about food, yes. But more importantly, a show about the people, memories, and stories behind it.

Pull up a chair. There’s a seat waiting for you at the table.

BITEFULLY is streaming on all Podcast Steaming sites TODAY!

A few weeks ago, I experienced some of the most debilitating and excruciating pain of my life after what I originally thought was just a simple hit to the head during a family trip to Sonora.

What followed were multiple ER visits, thunderclap headaches, neurological scans, CT’s, MRIs, medication after medication, and weeks of being almost completely horizontal just trying to avoid pain.

And while I’m still recovering, I wanted to tell the story because honestly, I think I’m finally starting to feel like myself again.

After my birthday Greece trip, followed by a couple of days in Lyon, France, I came home briefly to jump back into work before heading right back out again for family events in Sonora, about two hours outside of Hermosillo.

We were celebrating multiple family milestones, including my niece Mavis’ Quinceañera and one of my nephews’ baptisms. It was one of those weekends that felt deeply familiar in the best way possible.

Loud. Busy. Full of food. Full of people. Full of laughter and memories and cousins and chaos.

We stayed at my Tía Locha’s house, which is exactly the kind of Mexican family house many of us grew up around. Lots of rooms. Lots of people. Lots of movement. Someone always cooking. Someone always talking.

The only problem is that apparently the house was NOT built for women who are nearly six feet tall like my mom and me. HAHA!

The entire weekend, we kept banging our heads on low ceilings, beams, and door frames. Every single time we’d laugh it off and move on.

Until the last hit.

I was wearing a very large dress with boots and heels and was trying to maneuver my way into the master bedroom’s restroom when I slammed the top of my head extremely hard against the door frame. Hard enough that my neck twisted sharply to the side on impact.

I remember grabbing my head immediately and thinking:
“Okay… that one actually hurt.” I rubbed my head for what felt like an eternity.

But like most people, I brushed it off, laughed at myself, and kept going.

The next day, we headed home.

Within about twelve hours of that hit, everything changed.

That night around 1:30 a.m., I woke up with one of the most excruciating headaches I have ever experienced in my entire life.

And I really need people to understand that this was not a normal headache.

I’ve lived with migraines since I was around sixteen years old. Bright sunlight can still trigger migraines for me. I understand pain. I understand migraine pain. I’ve had surgery. I’ve given birth.

This was something COMPLETELY different.

This pain woke me up from sleep immediately. It felt explosive and unbearable, like something catastrophic was happening inside my head.

I remember immediately sitting upright in bed trying to process what could possibly have triggered pain this intense and then suddenly remembering the hit to my head from Sonora.

I started panic calling everyone I could think of.

My neighbor.
My mom.
Friends.

Anyone who could help me get to an ER.

But it was 1:30 in the morning and nobody was answering.

Finally, my neighbor, Majo, who lives just a couple doors away, picked up the phone. She tried calming me down and suggested maybe I was experiencing severe inflammation from the head injury site and that I should try medication and a cold shower before panicking.

I agreed.

I took 800 milligrams of ibuprofen and got into the shower.

I remember putting the coldest water I could physically tolerate directly onto the top of my head.

And somehow, surprisingly, it actually worked enough to take the edge off the pain. Not fully. Not even close. But enough to pull me back from feeling like I needed to sprint into an emergency room immediately.

I sat upright in bed afterward because laying down made everything feel worse. For nearly an hour and a half, I stayed sitting there trying to quiet my mind and monitor my symptoms.

Eventually, when the pain started easing slightly, I told my neighbor that I thought I could make it through the night and that I would go to the ER first thing in the morning.

The only reason I even allowed myself to go back to sleep was because before that, I had performed multiple stroke tests on myself in the mirror.

I used to work in healthcare, so my immediate fear was stroke or hemorrhage.

I checked my speech.
My gait.
My balance.
I stuck out my tongue.
Touched my fingers to my thumbs.
Watched myself walk in the mirror.

I remember thinking:
“If anything looks wrong, you call 911.”

The next morning, I called my mom and explained why I had called her repeatedly overnight. I told her I needed her to take me to the ER because I could already feel either residual pain or another headache beginning to build.

At the hospital, doctors gave me rescue migraine medications, including Benadryl and other medications commonly used together for severe migraines and neurological pain.

They ordered a CT scan immediately.

Thankfully, the scan came back clear.

No stroke.
No hemorrhage.
No bleeding.

Honestly, hearing that felt like the biggest relief in the world.

The doctor explained that it was likely a severe concussion and told me to continue taking high-dose ibuprofen three times a day while resting and monitoring symptoms.

And for the next two days, I honestly thought things were improving.

Tuesday felt okay.
Wednesday felt okay.
Even most of Thursday felt okay.

Then Thursday afternoon, completely out of nowhere, I experienced the worst pain I have ever felt in my entire life.

I was home alone again in Tijuana, Mexico around 3 p.m. when suddenly, within seconds, I went from feeling almost normal to being in absolute agony.

And when I say agony, I mean it.

If the first headache had been a 10, this was a 15!

Nothing helped.

Not sitting.
Not standing.
Not laying down.
Not walking.
Not showers.
Not silence.
Nothing.

It got so bad that I genuinely thought I might be dying.

And I know that sounds dramatic until you experience pain so severe that your body and brain stop functioning normally.

At one point, I prayed to the Virgin Mary to take care of my daughter.

I asked God that if this was me dying, to please just take me out without this much pain.

That’s how terrifying this felt.

I have had near-death experiences before. I’ve had moments in life where I thought something horrible might happen.

I had never felt fear like this.

I called my mom crying hysterically and barely able to speak through tears and gritted teeth. She panicked because my house in Mexico is difficult to get to and she worried she’d get lost trying to reach me quickly.

I abruptly hung up and instead called my cousin Juan.

Through tears, I asked him:
“Please come get me.”

Without even hesitating, he immediately responded:
“Absolutely. We’re on our way.”

That response alone still makes me emotional thinking about it.

The pain began around 4:48 p.m.

By the time I got to the ER, it was nearly 6 p.m.

By the time medication finally helped enough for me to breathe normally again, it was almost 9 p.m.

That means I sat with that pain for almost four hours.

Pain so severe that I vomited repeatedly in the emergency room in front of everyone.

And every single time I vomited, the pressure in my head intensified.

At the hospital, doctors ran additional CT scans with contrast on both my head and neck to rule out vascular injuries or anything structural that might have been triggered by the concussion.

Again, thankfully, everything came back clear?

The doctors explained that severe concussion symptoms and thunderclap headaches can sometimes mimic catastrophic neurological events even when imaging appears normal.

I was sent home with significantly stronger medications, including extremely high doses of Benadryl and additional medications that essentially kept me sedated most of the day.

For the next several weeks, I slept close to sixteen hours a day.

I spent most of my time horizontal because I was terrified of triggering another headache episode.

And honestly, I didn’t feel like myself at all.

My fire had been dimmed.
My memory felt hazy.
I felt groggy, disconnected, emotional, and unlike myself.

Anyone who knows me knows how unnatural that is for me because I’m usually constantly moving, constantly creating, constantly producing and building and planning and dreaming.

Suddenly my biggest accomplishment every day became simply avoiding pain.

It wasn’t until May 20th that I was finally able to see a neurologist in Tijuana because my earliest available neurology appointment in the United States wasn’t until August 21st, and honestly, that simply was not going to work.

Thankfully, with the help of Dr. Damaris here in Tijuana, I slowly started getting off all of the medications that had me sleeping constantly and feeling unlike myself.

Since then, I’ve had two MRIs, one for my neck and one for my brain.

While I don’t wish to publicly disclose every medical detail, I will say that what doctors found appears to be reversible and not permanent, which I am incredibly grateful for.

I still have work ahead of me in taking care of my health, my brain, my vascular system, and my stress levels moving forward.

But thankfully, little by little, I’ve started feeling like myself again.

This Memorial Day weekend, I spent a quiet staycation weekend at my parents’ house where we rested, grilled a little bit, ate delicious food, watched movies, and simply spent quality time together with the people I love most, my parents and my daughter.

Honestly, I couldn’t have wished for anything better.

Before heading out for that Memorial Day weekend with my parents, one really meaningful thing happened that I also want to share because I think healing is so much bigger than just medication, scans, and doctors.

My friend Rick gave me my birthday gift early, which was a Reiki session, and honestly, it helped me more than I expected.

Over these last several weeks, I’ve realized that the nervous system is not just physical. It’s emotional. Energetic. Spiritual too.

When your body goes through trauma, stress, fear, burnout, grief, anxiety, pain, and nonstop pressure, I really do believe it all lives somewhere inside of you.

That session helped me clear a lot of things that I think had been limiting my ability to move forward in life for a long time.

Bad energy.
Fear.
Stress.
Things I cannot control.
People who have hurt me.
Things that never belonged to me in the first place.

Hell, maybe even some generational curses.

And whether people fully believe in energy work or not, I can honestly say that something shifted in me afterward.

I’ve spent so much of my life constantly moving, constantly producing, constantly carrying things for other people, constantly surviving, that I don’t know if I realized how heavy some of that had become.

This experience has forced me to reconnect with myself in a way I probably needed for a very long time.

And little by little, I feel like I’m stepping into a more aligned version of myself.

One that feels calmer.
Clearer.
More grounded.
More intentional.

I hope to share more about that part of the journey too.

It feels like hour by hour, day by day, I’ve slowly been returning to myself.

I hope to continue on this path.

Lastly, I truly just want to thank everyone who has checked in on me through all of this.

Thank you for the messages.
For the prayers.
For the people who kept following up.
For the people who showed up immediately when I needed help. Primos Los AMO!

Little by little, I’m starting to feel like myself again, and honestly, I can’t wait for what’s ahead because there is soooooo much coming.

I don’t know if this was God’s way of shaking things up literally, or maybe banging me up a little bit so that I would finally take the sleep and rest necessary before launching all of the projects I’ve been building.

But whatever it is, I’m ready for it.

And honestly, I’m actually grateful for the sixteen-hour days of sleep.

I guess sometimes the slowdown and the step back is exactly what you need to impulse forward.

I love you guys. - C

Surprisingly, I’m not sure if it has to do with the fact that I stayed up way too late the last couple of days in France, out until the early hours of the morning with new and old friends, or if I’ve just become better at traveling across time zones, but the jet lag isn’t here.

Instead, I feel invigorated, motivated, and honestly excited for the next couple of weeks and months. These are some of the biggest events and seasons I’ve been building toward for a long time, and I can feel that momentum very clearly.

At the same time, stepping away from everything during my birthday trip to Greece and Lyon gave me something I don’t always allow myself. I wasn’t talking to my daughter, my mother, or my friends back home. I wasn’t managing day-to-day responsibilities. I was just present. And that space helped me look inward in a way that felt both unfamiliar and necessary.

I think sometimes that’s exactly what we need. Time to quiet the noise, slow down, and exist without the constant pressure of deadlines, responsibilities, and the never-ending list of things that need to get done. No laundry, no dog to walk, no bills to pay. Just the ability to BE.

One of the things that became very clear to me is that no matter where you live, we are all doing many of the same things. What feels different is the pace and the intention behind it. Travel has a way of creating this temporary version of life where your time feels like your own. You wake up and decide how your day unfolds. Maybe it’s a slow morning with coffee and fresh air, or maybe it’s walking 25,000 steps through a city, taking in the architecture, eating something on the street, and connecting with people in a different language.

It can feel like a fantasy. But for the people who live there, it’s not a vacation. It’s just their life.

In Greece, I noticed how many people work seasonally. They leave their homes for seven to ten months out of the year to work in hospitality in different cities or islands. I met people like Nikos, the general manager at Rocabella Mykonos, who spends most of the year on the island even though his home and family are in Kalamata. Yes, the place where the Kalamata olives comes from.

It made me think about what sacrifice looks like in different parts of the world. Is that kind of separation from home a short-term decision made in order to eventually enjoy a more grounded life later on? Is it a defined chapter, or does it become a long-term way of living?

Lyon gave me a different kind of perspective, and a much more personal one. The real reason I went there was to spend time with my friend Lorena, who has been living in France for nearly ten years and is currently navigating a very difficult stage in her life. She is also a single mother who has had to rebuild, in more ways than one.

Staying in her apartment shifted something in me. It was small, beautiful, and simple. And I remember thinking very clearly, this would make me so friggin’ happy. I don’t need the three-story townhome I live in. I don’t need a car. I would loooove to walk everywhere, to live in a way that feels more connected and less consumed by logistics.

And the reality is, that kind of life isn’t easy to replicate where I live now. Not in Mexico, not in Tijuana, not even in most parts of the United States.

But beyond the physical space, it’s who Lorena is that has stayed with me. The way she lives her life, the resilience she carries, and more than anything, the courage she has to make difficult decisions. She is a big part of why I’m feeling the courage I feel right now to question everything and reevaluate where I am.

I had a similar, though different, moment in Lyon with a friend I met while traveling, Dan, who is from Scotland. He’s exploring, experiencing France, and taking in everything around him. At the same time, you can see how different our day-to-day realities are back home, even if we are both ambitious and driven in our own ways.

That contrast made me reflect on the work culture I’ve been part of for most of my life in the United States. There is a constant push to do more, achieve more, and build toward something bigger. There is always another goal, another milestone, another version of success to chase.

And I find myself questioning how much of that is actually aligned with what we want as individuals, and how much of it is something we’ve been conditioned to accept as the only way forward.

When I think about someone like Nikos, I see a different model. Work intensely for a period of time, make what you need, and then return home and enjoy your life. The sacrifice has a defined purpose and, ideally, an end.

But if the sacrifice becomes your entire life, if you are constantly working in order to someday live, then what are you actually working toward?

Are we living to work, or working to live?

How many years of effort make that trade-off feel worth it?

Do we work for decades just to have a limited number of years where we can slow down and enjoy what we built?

And if so, is that enough?

I don’t have a clear answer, but I do know that these questions are sitting with me more heavily than they have before.

I genuinely love what I do. I love being creative. I love helping people. I love building something that feels meaningful. And I feel very aware of how privileged I am to be able to say that, and to even have the space to question how I WANT to live my life.

That awareness has been reinforced over the last couple of weeks.

As I shared parts of this trip on social media, some people responded by saying I was complaining about first-world problems. That I should feel LUCKY to even be traveling. LUCKY, to experience delays and cancellations. LUCKY, to be in those situations at all.

And the truth is, I understand that perspective. There was a time in my life when I was those people.

I didn’t travel. I didn’t have access to these experiences. Everything I have now is something I’ve worked for, sacrificed for, and built over time.

But that doesn’t mean frustration, disappointment, or pain aren’t valid. Spending my birthday alone in an airport is not something I would wish on my worst enemy.

It was lonely, it was exhausting, and it was brutally hard. And it felt disappointing in a way that I hope anyone could understand.

What’s been more surprising is how quickly people are willing to dismiss those feelings. It’s easy to sit behind a keyboard and reduce someone else’s experience down to a single narrative. What isn’t easy, is actually living it.

It’s not lost on me that I am in a position where I can ask these questions. That in itself is a privilege. But I also think it takes courage to sit with them honestly. To question whether the life you’ve worked so hard to build is actually the life you want to keep living.

Because change is hard. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

Walking away from everything to go on MasterChef. Taking opportunities without income. Building something from nothing. Those weren’t easy decisions, and they didn’t come without consequences.

There are parts of my life that people don’t see. The financial pressure, the debt I’ve had to take on at times just to keep moving forward, the constant balancing act of being a single mother while trying to build a career and trying to make ends meet.

I’ve worked incredibly hard. And sometimes I’ve made decisions that were driven more by instinct and desire than by financial security.

So when I think about what comes next, I know it’s not going to be simple.

It’s going to take courage. It’s going to take conviction. And it’s going to require some very real, very difficult choices.

I’m not a materialistic person, which makes some of those choices easier. I can let go of things. I can simplify. I can rebuild. The harder part is the emotional side of it. The idea of leaving my family, the people I’m closest to, is not something I take lightly.

But I also can’t ignore the feeling that maybe where I am right now is not where I’m meant to stay.

Maybe what I need is a reset. A different environment. A place where I’m not defined by what I’ve already done, but by what I’m still becoming. A place where I can feel like I belong in a way that challenges me and supports me at the same time.

I’ve spent a lot of my life learning how to survive. Then I learned how to build. Now I think I’m learning how to CHOOSE.

And maybe that’s the real privilege.

Not just being able to travel. Not just being able to experience different places. But being able to ask, honestly and without apology, what kind of life I want to live next.

I don’t have the full answer yet.

But I do know this. If I’m going to keep doing the work, if I’m going to keep building something meaningful, I want it to be a life that feels as good to live as it does to look at from the outside.

And I think that’s worth figuring out.

At that point, I had only ever been on one flight in my life. ONE.

Everything that came after that moment, the travel, the opportunities, the life I built, none of it was something I grew up with.

It was something I worked toward.

Something I’ve fought for. Something I figured out along the way.

So when I finally planned this trip, the one that lived on the bucket list, the one that felt like a reward after years of grinding, saving, sacrificing, it wasn’t just a vacation.

It was personal.

This is Athens.

The land of Socrates.

The birthplace of Democracy!

The place I had imagined standing in for decades.

And yet, somehow, I got here last.

A Lufthansa pilot strike.

Canceled flights x3 .

Reroutes. Delays. Missed connections. A Damn Mess.

Out of a group of seven people, seven people who rearranged their lives, spent their money, showed up for me, I was the last one to arrive!

Three days of the trip, gone.

What was supposed to be time together turned into me sitting in an airport from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., chasing updates, holding onto hope that something would change while holding for a supervisor who would never show… knowing deep down that nothing would change.

By the time I landed, it was nearly 11 p.m. Athens time. My bag had broken, my Luggage taken accidentally by someone, then returned 39 mins later!

And I cried.

Not the cute, single-tear kind.

The kind that comes from frustration, exhaustion, disbelief.

The kind that makes you question everything.

Because this was not just about a delayed flight. It was about YEARS of sacrifice.

About being a single mom.

About paying for University.

About living across the border because San Diego became too expensive to call home.

About putting in the work, over and over and OVER again, just to create a moment like this for me. For Once.

And then watching it unravel in real time.

I have gotten messages from people across the spectrum.

Some full of empathy.

Some reminding me that these are “first world problems” I’m complaining about.

That I should just be grateful.

That everything will be fine and God only knows why you were delayed….

And I understand that perspective. I really do.

But gratitude and disappointment can exist at the same time. That is the part people do not always talk about.

From the outside, I know it can look like everything in my life just works. Like opportunities appear, like things fall into place, like this life is curated and effortless.

It is NOT.

It is built. It is earned. And it is held together sometimes with nothing but determination and faith that it will all be worth it at some point.

And in that moment, sitting in that airport, it did not feel worth it. It felt unfair.

It felt like Murphy’s Law had booked a seat on my itinerary. And more than anything, it felt exhausting. Because if I am being honest, that is the real emotion underneath all of this:

I am tired.

Tired of things always having to be hard.

Tired of the uphill climb.

Tired of the battles that seem to come attached to every win.

For once, I just wanted something to be easy.

There is no perfect lesson tied up in a bow here. No grand philosophical breakthrough, even though I am writing this from the very place that shaped so much of philosophy.

Just a quiet realization:

You can plan everything. You can save. You can sacrifice. And still, the world will do what it does.

And maybe that is what so many of us are feeling right now, in different ways.

That lack of control.

That sense that things are shifting faster than we can hold onto them.

One of my friends did not even make this trip because of fears about where the world is heading. And yet, the rest of us came. We showed up anyway.

Because there is also this feeling of we refuse to stop living.

We do not get to pause joy because the world feels uncertain! We do not get to cancel connection because things feel chaotic.We CHOOSE to keep going. To keep dancing.

To keep showing up for each other.

And maybe that is the only takeaway I have right now.Not that everything happens for a reason. Not that there is always a silver lining. But that even when things fall apart, I do not.

I might cry.

I might doubt myself.

I might sit in the mess of it for a while.

But I get up.

I wash my face.

I put on the makeup.

I take a breath.

And I keep going.

Do I wish this birthday looked different? Of course I do.

I did not work this hard, save this long, and dream this big to pretend that missing half my trip does not matter.

It does.

But so do the hundreds of messages.

The stories.

The love.

The people who showed up for me in ways that go far beyond a single day or a single destination.

Because maybe a birthday is not just about the day you were born. Maybe it is about how you are held. How you are loved. How you show up and how others show up for you every single day. 🥺

It is nearly 3 a.m. here in Athens as I write this.

Traffic is probably building back home. Life is moving on, as it always does.

And me?

I am here.

Tired.

Grateful.

A little heartbroken.

But still standing.

And if there is one thing I know about myself, it is this… This is not the only time I will come here.

I’m calling it… this is just the first of two trips.

Because if the universe thought this ordeal would take me down, it clearly does not know me very well.

It was an instagram post that shared a story about a cashier and a customer.

When she handed him his receipt, he asked her to write a note on it.

Just anything. So he could have proof that someone had seen him that day.

He told her no one had spoken to him in six days.

SIX DAYS!

I just sat with that.

Because as simple as that story is, it hit something really deep and painful for me.

It reminded me of a time in my life when I was living in Mexico City, filming and away from my family.

There were stretches where I would go days, sometimes weeks, without any kind of human touch.

No hug. No handshake. Nada.

To the point where I had to pay for a massage just to feel another human being touch me.

Even writing that right now is hard.

I can barely see the screen through the tears. Give me a minute.

You see, loneliness doesn’t always look the way we think it does.

And I think that’s the part we don’t talk about enough.

Even as someone who lives a very public life, who is constantly surrounded by people, who is seen in the most literal sense, I can tell you that loneliness still finds you.

It doesn’t care about your career, your platform, or how many people recognize your name, hair, or face.

Loneliness is quiet. It’s internal.

And I really believe it is one of the biggest epidemics we are living through right now.

We are more connected than at any other point in history, and somehow more disconnected than ever at the exact same time.

We live our lives through screens. We interact through comments and messages. We measure connection through engagement.

And then when we are actually with people, we are still not fully present.

We are looking down at a minicomputer in our palms.
We are distracted, not making eye contact.

We are not really seeing each other.

And I do not just mean emotionally. I mean physically too.

I understand that things have shifted. After COVID, physical space changed.

Conversations around consent have made us more aware of boundaries, as they should.

But I do wonder sometimes where the balance is.

Because there is something deeply human about a handshake, a hug, a kiss on the cheek.

In Mexican culture, we greet each other that way.

It is warmth. It is acknowledgment. It is presence.

And for me, I have realized that physical touch is not just something nice to have.

It is how I feel connection. It is how I feel loved. It is how I feel seen.

So when that is missing, you feel it.

Deeply.

And I think that realization has changed me.

Not just in my relationships, but in the smallest, everyday moments.

I try to put my phone down when I am with people.
I turn it over at the dinner table.
I look people in the eye.
I smile with my eyes.
I acknowledge the person serving me, the cashier, the person greeting me at the door.

Because I never want someone to walk away from an interaction with me feeling invisible.

I hope that if you have ever met me, you have felt that.

And if you have not, if I missed that moment, I am sorry. I am still learning too.

But I am trying. And I am trying with intention.

Because I really believe this…

We do not heal the world in big, grand gestures.

We do it in small, human moments.

By seeing each other.
By acknowledging each other.
By being present.

So as we head into the weekend, I want to leave you with this.

Take a moment. Even 10 seconds will do.

Look at the person in front of you. Really LOOK.

Ask them how they are doing and actually listen. Answer honestly when they ask you how you are doing.

And if it feels natural, if it feels welcome, hug someone.

You really do not know how much they might need it today.

And also one of the hardest.

I met with a group of people who felt like the most aligned clients I’ve ever had the privilege of connecting with.

The kind of alignment that doesn’t need a long explanation.

You just feel it.

And I left that meeting genuinely excited about what we’re going to build together.

Lately, I’ve been trying to move more intentionally toward that. Toward people and projects that actually bring me joy.

That make me feel alive.

That feel like they’re worth telling a story about.

Not just because I chose storytelling as my word this year, but because I’m at a point in my life where I’m realizing I actually get to choose HOW I spend my time.

I turn forty-three in sixteen days .

And over the past several months, being an empty nester, has created a kind of vacuous space I wasn’t prepared for.

Space to think, to reflect, to really look at my life and ask myself if what I’m building is what I actually want.

And at the same time, the world feels like it’s going in completely the opposite direction.

What’s happening to happen to migrant communities and people of color in this country.

The wars in Ukraine and Iran.

The constant conversations around a recession that’s affecting how everyone is making decisions right now.

It all feels heavy and disheartening.

Today I said something on a call that I haven’t been able to shake.

It feels like the people who should be investing in our stories, the same people who have built their wealth from our labor, our culture, and the way we show up and spend, are also the ones who continue to overlook us.

They don’t invest in us. They vote against our livelihood.

And that shows up in the day-to-day reality of it.

Yesterday I paid $6.49 for a gallon of gas in California.

And I understand the sunshine tax, I do.

But it’s hard not to question it when you look at who’s in the White House, what was promised, and where money continues to be spent.

We’re still not seeing relief.

Groceries are expensive. Gas is high.

Just living your day-to-day life feels harder than it should.

And trying to build something meaningful in the middle of that can feel almost impossible.

And yet… we still show up. We still spend. We still perform.

And if I’m being honest, today it just feels a little pointless.

Because yesterday, in the middle of all of this, a family member ended up in the Emergency Room.

And in that moment, none of the rest of it mattered.

Not the work. Not the pressure. Not the noise.

Just health. Just the reality that everything can change in a second.

It reminded me how fragile all of this is. And how much we take for granted, especially when it comes to our mental and physical health.

I wish I could say I have a clear takeaway from all of this, but I don’t.

What I do know is that I keep moving between two extremes.

Feeling deeply hopeful, and then feeling like everything is headed in the wrong direction.

And that swing is exhausting.

But maybe the point isn’t to choose one or the other.

Maybe the point is just being honest about both.

That you can feel aligned and still feel overwhelmed.

That you can be excited about what you’re building and still question what any of it means in the bigger picture.

That both things can exist at the same time.

So today, I’m not trying to wrap this up with a clean lesson.

I’m just naming it.

This moment.
This tension.
This in-between.

Because maybe that’s where the real story is anyway.

And if you listen to the criticism that’s often aimed at women, you might think it’s not a coincidence that March, International Women’s Month, carries that noise.

But when I look around, much of that noise is not coming from women. It’s coming from systems, decisions, and leadership that continue to create conflict, division, and harm.

Meanwhile, the women in my life are doing something very different.

They are holding things together. They are grounding conversations. They are reminding the people around them that not all is lost. There is still hope.

I don’t believe women are simply nurturing because of some instinct tied to motherhood. I believe it runs deeper than that.

There is a thoughtfulness, a care, and an awareness of consequence that often gets mislabeled as “too emotional.” And yet, that very emotional intelligence is what makes many women less reactive, more reflective, and more mindful of how their choices affect others.

Of course, I don’t speak for all women.

I have encountered many a woman who are selfish, manipulative, and performative in their intentions. Just like men, not all women are the same.

But broadly, I have also seen an ability to empathize that feels almost innate. Perhaps it comes from the fact that women have brought every human into this world. Literally.

Or, perhaps it comes from carrying the constant weight of others in their day-to-day.

They [women] have a tendency to try to understand before condemning. To search for reasoning beyond bad behavior. To extend grace even when it may not be deserved.

Because, if you have ever loved a child, you understand that love does not fade when mistakes are made. And sometimes, that lens extends far beyond your own child to the world around you. It’s as if every child is our own.

I am not a perfect mother. I am not a perfect woman. I am a work in progress who wakes up every day trying her best. Some days I fall short. Some days I am not as focused, as patient, or as productive as I would like to be.

But at my core, I choose to be a decent human being.

I choose to show up in a way that reminds people that caring is more powerful than destruction.

That love is not a limited resource.

That friendship means showing up, especially when it’s inconvenient.

And that reflection should always come before reaction.

As I get older, I feel more grounded in my womanhood.

I have stopped apologizing for what others once called “too much.” I no longer dilute myself to make others comfortable.

Loving deeply is not a flaw. It is not recklessness. It is a choice to care without measure or reason.

To the women reading this: Give yourself grace.

Not just this month, but every day. You are not hard to love. You are not hard to understand. You are not unreliable. You are carrying more than most people will ever fully see, often with a mind that is constantly holding space for everyone else and their issues.

And sometimes, the hardest part is not loving others…It’s allowing yourself to be loved in return.

To the men reading this: As March comes to a close, I hope the reflection continues…

Honor the women in your life.

See the young girls for their strength, not just their innocence.

Hold space for the women beside you who are still healing.

And listen to the women who came before you, who can tell you exactly what it has meant to navigate a world that was not built with them in mind for decades before you were born.

Masculinity has power, Yes.

But your power was never meant to dominate.

It was meant to protect, to support, and to nurture alongside us.

I have often wondered if, in trying to raise strong, confident boys, we may have overcorrected and unintentionally disconnected them from empathy.

From the softness the world requires.

From the understanding that strength and care are not opposing values.

I hope we find our way back to balance and eachother.

Because the truth is, women are not the only ones capable of healing, raising, nurturing, and holding the world together.

We were never meant to do it alone.

We were meant to do it together.

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It felt like things started shifting around the full moon. The blood-red moon that appeared in the sky at 3:33am on 3/3/2026. A moment so oddly specific it almost felt symbolic.

That night, and the day that followed, felt terrible. Not catastrophic. Just… off.

Like the energy of the cosmos had shifted in some way that my body couldn’t quite calibrate to.

Exhausting.

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Now listen, I’m not someone who blindly subscribes to every astrological explanation for life’s chaos. But I do understand something very simple: humans are made up mostly of water. The moon has a gravitational pull strong enough to move entire oceans.

So it’s never been that hard for me to believe that it might move something inside of us too.

And ever since that moon passed and Mercury decided to start doing whatever Mercury does when it goes retrograde, everything that could go wrong has, in fact, gone wrong.

My Wi-Fi disappeared for almost five days.

My laptop took a spill and has been glitching ever since.

The internet appears to be running, but somehow nothing connects when I actually need it to. Google Meet refuses to work right before important meetings. Messages send late. Calls drop. Conversations get misunderstood.

And beyond the technology, there have been communication breakdowns with friends, with family, with coworkers. The kind of subtle misfires that leave you wondering how something so simple suddenly became so complicated.

I hate all of it.

Because if there is one thing I pride myself on, it’s communication. Positive communication. Thoughtful communication. Storytelling that connects people rather than divides them.

And yet for the past several days, I haven’t even had the words to come here and write.

It has felt like I’m sitting in a small boat in turbulent water, rocking back and forth, unable to plant my feet long enough to find steady ground. For fucks sake!

The strange thing is that even in the middle of all of this chaos, there’s a quiet part of me that knows everything will be okay. Call it intuition. Call it faith. Call it whatever you want. But it’s there.

Still and calm, even while the rest of the world and life feels discombobulated.

Over the past few months, that intuition has become louder in my life.

Especially after something jarring happened late last December.

After more than a year of distance, my intuition led me back to someone who had once been very important to me. Someone who had been completely out of my life.

And when that person reappeared, it happened in the most unexpected way.

Emotional.

Vulnerable.

Honest in a way that only time and distance sometimes allow.

That moment changed something in me. It reinforced a belief that had always lived quietly in the background of my life, that

Intuition is not something to ignore. It’s something you listen to.

The universe gets loud when you start paying attention. And the more I’ve started listening to it, the more it feels like I’m suddenly aware of currents moving around me that I didn’t notice before.

Whether you believe in Mercury retrograde or not, there’s something interesting about the idea.

When people talk about retrograde, they talk about things breaking down. Technology failing. Communication misfiring. Old flames reaching out.

And sure, maybe that’s coincidence.

But it’s also possible that when we start paying closer attention to our intuition, we simply become more aware of the patterns that were always there.

The tension in a conversation that had been building quietly.

The person who reappears in your life right when you thought you had moved on.

The strange timing of things falling apart just when they needed to.

Maybe retrograde doesn’t create chaos.

Maybe it just exposes the places where things weren’t aligned to begin with.

So yes, Mercury is in the Microwave, as I always joke. Or maybe you prefer:

“Mercury is in Gatorade.”

“Mercury is in whatever appliance we can blame for our problems this week.”

And honestly, I laugh at those too.

Because humor is sometimes the only way we cope with the fact that life can feel wildly unpredictable. But underneath the jokes, I do believe something deeper is happening.

No matter what you believe, whether you believe in astrology or not, whether you believe in a God or the Universe or simply the randomness of existence, there is something that feels undeniably true to me.

We are all interconnected.

Yes, we are physical beings. Bodies made of bones and water and electricity firing through our nervous systems.

But somewhere in the ether, beyond what we can easily explain, we are also something else.

Little balls of energy floating through the same universe.

Crossing paths.

Colliding.

Influencing each other in ways we don’t fully understand.

And when you step back far enough, it makes you realize something important.

We are only here for a Moment.

The world right now can feel reckless.

Wild.

Unpredictable.

Your Wi-Fi might stop working. Your laptop might break. Your meetings might fail to connect. Your ex may suddenly call you out of nowhere. (Don’t answer)

Life has a way of shaking us up when we least expect it.

But underneath all of that noise, there’s something simple that I keep returning to.

We are only here for a moment.

A brief flicker of time in the middle of a vast universe.

So maybe Mercury being in retrograde is just a cosmic reminder to SLOW DOWN.

To take a breath.

To remember that the people around us are also navigating their own turbulent waters.

And in the small amount of time we have here, I hope we choose kindness.

I hope we forgive each other.

I hope we love each other.

Because none of us will be here for very long.

My friend Charo hosted a Galentine’s Event to celebrate womanhood.

I debated going, last minute, inundated in work and meetings, and living south of the border in Tijuana.

As many of you know, the capture of a certain Capo of a Mexican Cartel was just killed Sunday, and as a result, a wave of violence unfurled throughout the Republic of Mexico. Eleven incidents alone, near my home.

I won’t lie, there is a certain sense of desensitization that exists in my nervous system as a result of the known corruption and violence that has existed in Mexico for a long time. Growing up on the Tijuana and San Diego border crossing sometimes multiple times a week, and now living full time in Tijuana, means you see a sense of militarization that is common place here. But what happened last Sunday shook me enough to make me stay put at home. Grateful to have my pug companion, and having a free day to fail at focaccia (whoops), and cook myself a meal from scratch with time, effort, and unhurried intent.

So you will understand how on a Tuesday night, just two nights post-violence, I felt reluctance in leaving home. I love my home, and leaving my safe space, and emerging to go out to party… felt irreconcilable.

Nonetheless, your girl got it together, put on a red lip, curled my hair, got dressed and out the door I went.

It took me an hour and forty-five minutes to drive to Rancho Sante Fe one of the nicest neighborhoods in San Diego county. Along the way taking in the gorgeous sunset, and watching the skies darken as the sun went down. Driving up the winding streets I promised myself to stick to only a couple glasses of wine as my current obsession “Spark of the Everflame” by Penn Cole, boomed out of my speakers. Romantasy escapism has been my prescription lately for a mad and chaotic world this last year.

As I walked in I didn’t see any familiar faces, my body was hurting from the long drive, the tightness in my body from the stress of the weekend, and the reluctance in thinking of what I was walking into an if I would know anyone at the party, outside of our host.

The moment Claire, my friend turned around I felt like I exhaled. The dread of walking into a party alone faded and I was grateful to see not just someone I know and love, but someone who I can be myself with, 1,000 percent. And as if to soothe my nerves, person after person emerged one after the other of women I recognized.

The night ended up turning into a flurry of hugs, kisses, catching up, adoration at everyone dressed up in the Queen of Hearts theme Charo had established for this Galentine’s Party. Some wore straight up costumes, while others, like me, went for much more comfortable options in every color under the rainbow. Nonetheless, every woman there, whether in tight fitting dresses, or overflowing ball gowns, looked like a Queen in their own right.

After capturing some content, grabbing a bite to eat and stealing 5 minutes from the host to catch up, it was time for a drink and dancing. I spent the better half of the next two hours, singing, dancing, and just letting loose surrounded by iconic women. At one point I stopped to sit down and looked around the room. Realizing that I was worried for no good reason. Realizing that I was surrounded by game changing women who are effecting positive change in the world. Realizing that my circle has expanded to include women who make me feel seen, loved, and valued.

As the night evolved and the crowd thinned out, it was a school night after all, I looked around and just stole the moments to take internal pictures. Claire the CEO of Thee Local Magazine chatting with Michelle, the Founder of Berry Good Food Foundation, Kate the Marketing Director of one of the fanciest hotels in all San Diego, dancing with Brigette the Owner and Founder of El Faro Seafood.

What is my life? Last year, at my birthday, I drunkenly kept repeating this phrase.

What is my life?

As a girl who grew up on food stamps to a hard working single mom in the hood of National City, who sold flour tortillas to her neighbors, and had to scrape her way to everything she has achieved, looking around this room, healed a little part of that little girl. You could have told that 7 year old little girl that this is who she would become and she wouldn’t have believed you. It brought tears to my eyes. I rushed to the bathroom, wiped my eyes, took a minute to breathe. Took a couple selfies, obviously. And walked out with the last realization of the night: You DESERVE to be here Queen.

At times, I have felt imposter syndrome, thinking that I don’t belong in these spaces, with these people, with means beyond anything I could ever dream of. But surrounded by these women… I felt seen, inspired, reminded, and as they straightened my crown all night and made me feel safe, I took a deep sigh of relief and sang louder, clapped harder, and danced the night and stress away.

Oftentimes, when we come from humble beginnings it’s hard to reconcile your new life when it changes so much. But as Paulina pulled me up to dance Bad Bunny for one last dance before we drove home, I thanked the heavens for reminding me that all of us have worked so hard for our lives and families. We have sacrificed, cried, and yes sometimes clawed for our space in the world. This collection of women truly are Queens.

And I am one of them.

There are times, where I wonder to myself if I can ever become cynical about dating, and love. I have friends who deem me “stupid” or “naïve” because I still believe in true love.

You know, that ideal that you grow up with as a young girl?

That hope, that someday, some man, with his charming smile, humor, and deep rich eyes, will make the butterflies swirl in your insides, and your feet light and flirty?

You know exactly what I’m talking about, that “AHHHHHHHHHHH he is sooooo Amazing” feeling!?

Well call me dumb, naïve, or even crazy and unrealistic, but this Single Latina Mama, believe it or not, still has hope.

Perhaps it’s the fact that not enough time or dates have come and gone that I’m so bitter that the cynicism has set in.

Regardless of what you feel love should be or is, for me, Love is simply just that, Love.

I sometimes like to believe that if everyone thought the way I did, always choosing to see the beauty in people instead of what is wrong and flawed, our world would be a MUCH better place.

I know I’m getting sappy on you.

If you need a shot of 5 hour Energy, I’d totally understand!!

What I’m trying to say is, well gosh darn it, having hope doesn’t mean I’m dumb!

It just means I believe when you have chosen to lose hope.

Why be so damn cynical anyway?

Don’t you think that if you might have given somebody just a little more credit, or just a little more love they might have perhaps responded differently?

I mean just think about it, what if someone had been more loving to you?

Or rather, what if they had given YOU more credit or appreciation?

Would you have responded differently?

Cynicism isn’t about them, and their issues, it’s about you, and your perception of them.

I am rough around the edges, we all are, there is no mistaking that.

But through the rough patches in life we face, like any coarse wood being sanded down against its own grain, we are slowly smoothing ourselves out!

–Cheers! ~SLM

24 Suns is the baby of some Addison alum, like my friend Nic Webber, amazing people who have worked with the best of the best, and who have opened this small restaurant that feels both unassuming and incredibly intentional.

It is nouveau in spirit, but deeply respectful of its roots.

As I sat there with friends, both in the industry and outside of it, one common thread kept coming back to the table as we explored this cuisine.

Yes, it is rooted in Chinese food.

Yes, it incorporates local and regional ingredients.

Yes, there are Mexican touches and techniques from around the world woven in.

But what does that make it?

Authentic. Traditional. Explorative. Creative. Boundary pushing.

Those words were tossed around all night.

And at one point I brought up my time researching and preparing for Taste of the Border, a TV show I created, produced, and hosted, where I explored food on both sides of the border from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas, and specifically talked about the Chinese Exclusion Act.

That act pushed many Chinese railroad workers and laborers out of the United States and further south into Mexico. These migrants, who were brought to the Americas both willingly and unwillingly, were first exploited for labor and then excluded as if they were an inconvenience.

They were not necessarily welcomed with open arms in Mexico either.

In the early 20th century, many Chinese migrants went underground in an area called La Chinesca, in the heart of Mexicali, just south of the Calexico border. There, they created underground tunnels filled with restaurants, casinos, and gathering spaces.

During Prohibition, Americans crossed the border for nightlife, and these Chinese immigrants fed and entertained them.

It is estimated that over 15,000 Chinese migrants settled in the region at one point, building businesses, farming the land, and creating community.

And with that migration came a new kind of food.

They did not have access to every ingredient from home, so they used what was available. Local vegetables. Mexican chilies. Regional meats. Soy sauce meeting lime. Stir fry techniques adapting to new produce. Over time, an amalgamation formed. What we now casually call Comida China, spanish for Chinese food, was born from displacement and adaptation.

You will find very traditional Chinese dishes using regional Mexican ingredients. And at the same time, you will see Mexicans adopting Chinese flavors into our own dishes. Think tiraditos dressed with soy based sauces brightened with lime, something reminiscent of japanese ponzu. Think chili crunch very similar to our Salsa Macha. Think broths layered with flavors that feel almost like but speak in a Mexican accent.

Migration transforms food. It always has.

So sitting at 24 Suns on the eve of Lunar New Year, tasting dishes that were emblematically Chinese in their spice profiles and techniques yet clearly influenced by California produce and regional nuance, I kept thinking about how arbitrary our definitions can be.

Authentic according to whom?

Traditional compared to what moment in time?

From the late 1800s into the 1940s, waves of migrants reshaped northern Mexico and the American Southwest. That reshaping did not just change labor patterns or demographics. It changed flavor. It changed what comfort tastes like.

Even today, as I look out my window and watch the rain come down, my neighbor and I inevitably choose to order in. And what we choose, almost every time, is Comida China. It feels homey. Familiar. Something I grew up with. Literally.

On days like this I feel grateful for migration and what it means for cuisine.

Oftentimes we restrict ourselves with words like traditional and authentic and use them to limit our beliefs about what food can be, or better yet, what it could be.

What I have found through and through is that I am grateful not only for everyone’s willingness to share their delicious foods, textures, and techniques with the world, but also for this co-mingling and dance between cultures that allows us to create and combine in ways that bring nostalgia and food memory into our lives.

In a way, I grew up with this food. My life would not be what it is without Chinese people, Spanish speaking Chinese people in fact, and my love for this culture and its food. Even if it is not perfectly authentic. Even if it is a variation based on regional ingredients. Even if it was made to suit the Mexican palate.

I am grateful for it because it gives me a way of feeling like we are part of something bigger. A community where it does not matter where you come from, what ingredients you cook with, or what techniques you carry. We always have a space at this table. The community table.

What was once a Christian holiday honoring a saint named Valentine on February 14 has somehow become a day almost entirely devoted to couples and romance, wrapped in roses, fine dining menus, and unrealistic expectations.

This is not about comparing the United States to Mexico, but I do have to say that I much prefer Mexico’s way of honoring this day.

In Mexico, it is not really called Valentine’s Day.

It is known as El Día del Amor y la Amistad… translation: the Day of Love and Friendship.

There is something tender and expansive about that name.

It leaves room. It makes space.

It allows love to be celebrated in all its forms, not just romantic love between couples, but love between friends, between family, and between people who choose each other every day in quieter ways.

I really, thoroughly prefer this version of the holiday.

In the United States, it has often felt like you need an alternative just to belong.

Anti Valentine’s Day.

Galentine’s Day.

A workaround so women or single people can dress in red and pink, go out to dinner, and feel included in a celebration that has been narrowed to exclude them.

In Mexico, much like when we were kids in elementary school, valentines are shared freely. They are given to friends, to coworkers, to classmates, to people you appreciate.

No explanation required. No romantic storyline necessary.

I wanted to share this in case you did not already know it, so that maybe this year you can take a different approach.

Maybe instead of focusing only on a partner, or lack thereof (if like me you are single), you buy valentines for the people who hold you up.

Your best girlfriends. Your best guy friends. Your coworkers who have slowly become family.

Maybe it is your parents, who are also single, who never receive flowers, and who would genuinely be moved by a small reminder that they are loved.

Love shows up in so many shapes and textures. Sometimes it looks like friendship. Sometimes it looks like checking in. Sometimes it looks like showing up. Maybe it is love for your neighbor. Maybe it is walking next door with a small box of cookies to say thank you for helping with the trash, or simply for being there.

Those small gestures matter. The handwritten notes. The printed valentines. The handmade gifts. The thrifted finds. The small business purchases. However you choose to show appreciation and care, that choice is enough.

If you can, take a step back from the impulse to resist the commercial nature of this holiday. Reframe it instead as an invitation. A reminder to practice love out loud in a time when many of us are craving connection, humanity, and softness, even across differences.

And if nothing else comes to mind, I am sharing a recipe in this post for my famous sprinkle cookies.

Make them with your family, with your friends, or for whoever you choose to love on this Día del Amor y la Amistad.

And in case you need a reminder.

Te Quiero Mucho! Thanks for being MINE! <3

Mexican Sprinkle Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks/ 8oz)

• 1 cup granulated sugar

• 1 medium egg

• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

• 2 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

• ½ tsp. baking powder

• ½ tsp. baking soda

• ¼ tsp. kosher salt

• 4 oz. Rainbow sprinkles (nonpareils)

Makes 16 to 32 cookies (depending on size)

Directions:

Preheat Oven to 350F

· Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, and pale yellow in color (almost white), about 10-15 minutes. Add egg and vanilla extract and continue whipping until fully incorporated, about 3-5 minutes.

· In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add dry ingredients in two parts to wet ingredients and beat on medium using a paddle attachment or using a spatula, scraping down sides to ensure everything is incorporated.

· Portion out cookies into small 1-2 oz. balls using cookie scoop or spoon. Dipping only one half into sprinkles. Place cookies on sheet with sprinkles facing up about 2” apart.

· Using a flat spatula or coffee mug, press down on cookies to create rounded circles. Each cookie should be about 1/2 inch thick. DO NOT MAKE TOO THIN. Add more sprinkles as needed.

· Bake for 10 to 12 minutes (Underbaked Cookies are softer cookies)

· Allow cookies to cool on cookie sheet before moving, about 15 minutes.

· Enjoy!

And if you’re Latino, I don’t think any of us were ready for what we saw on Sunday. I’m not even sure what we expected, but I know it wasn’t that.

Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, also known as BAD BUNNY took the Super Bowl halftime show and turned it into something that felt like it wasn’t made for everyone.

It felt like it was made for us.

For Latino culture.

For Latinidad.

For people who so rarely see themselves reflected at that scale.

I was sitting in the middle of one of my friend’s restaurants, Makai Seafood in Barrio Logan, recovering from far too much wine the night before and staying up way too late (why do I do that to myself?), with my daughter next to me.

A flat screen TV in front of us reflected back small businesses, Latino traditions, familiar textures, familiar jokes. Within about thirty seconds, my daughter and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes.

And it surprised me how fast it hit.

It felt like Benito, because at this point he feels like my cousin, my neighbor, my friend, was telling us something simple and enormous at the same time.

That we are valuable. That we are seen.

Even now, typing this, I’m tearing up remembering what that moment felt like.

Representation matters.

You’re going to hear that everywhere. You may already be tired of hearing it.

You might even scroll past most of it. So if you’re still here, reading this particular note, I want you to know I appreciate you. Because sometimes writing on Substack really does feel like you’re speaking into a void.

But that Sunday didn’t feel like a void.

I saw so many of us crying. Not because we were sad, but because we were holding the weight of everything we carry.

Our culture. Our people. The pressure. The constant explaining.

And suddenly, joy lifted it. Representation lifted it. Even humor lifted it. Small moments, like a child asleep across two chairs at a wedding. Things that feel so specific, so ours, finally centered instead of erased.

From nail culture to the Los Angeles taco stand. From field workers cutting sugarcane to the people endlessly trying to fix the electrical grid in Puerto Rico. It all felt validating. It felt good. It felt validating.

To see that on a platform watched by more than 135 million people around the world, then echoed and multiplied across social media, has been overwhelming in the best way.

My algorithm is now filled with people from other countries who saw clips or the full performance and felt something click for them too. People saying, I didn’t know, but now I feel it.

And maybe my favorite moment of all was Benito standing there, football in hand, splashed with the words “Together We Are America”, calling out the countries that make up America. Not just the United States. All of Latin America. South, Central, North. The Caribbean. Even Canada!

Because YES, we love our Canadian brothers and sisters.

In one performance, he reminded us that joy can be a form of resistance.

That representation isn’t a trend.

That love travels farther than hate.

And that no matter how the government tries to displace us, we are not disappearing.

We are still here.
And we are allowed to feel joy about that.

Lately, I’ve been feeling a lot of despair. Frustration. That sense of impotence that comes from watching the world move in ways that feel heavy and unkind.

But moments like this remind me that I still have a voice, and that it matters.

So I’m going to use it to create joy, to center representation, and to bring humanity back to those of us who need it most right now.

Today and forever, I’m choosing to bring the same energy I bring into rooms.

With my laugh. With my smile.

With the simple act of showing up.

Joy is on the menu. I hope you’re hungry.

Nothing could have prepared me for the sadness and rigidity that settled in my body.

It was as if I had been holding my breath, bracing for a blow to smash across my chest and gut. But instead, what came was a release of deep grief, followed by realization.

A realization that the world is far more unsafe than people like to claim.

That every time that I have felt in my gut, that I couldn’t trust a man around me, I wasn’t wrong.

A realization of how much sickness exists in the world. And the unbearable desperation of knowing I couldn’t stop it from happening to so many children.

I had just set my phone down after nearly 4 hours of reviewing, reading, and scanning what are plaguing my algorithm lately, the 1% relased of “The Epstein Files.”

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I was once a pre-law major. I know what it’s like to review documents like this, how to scan, how to identify what matters, how to separate noise from evidence.

Nothing here was unnecessary.

Everything felt triggering, traumatizing, and shocking.

Having previously worked in child welfare services for the County of San Diego, I have unfortunately been privy to sickening accounts of sexual and domestic abuse involving children.

But this, felt maniacal.

My head and heart were desperately swimming for footing in a lake of disgust ridden with bodies, blood, and neglect.

The OCD proofreader in me briefly fixated on the terrible grammar and spelling.

Did these people skip basic English?

Focus Claudia!

What. The. Actual. Fuck!

I’ve never openly spoken about being a victim of sexual abuse.

I’ve kept much of my personal life private, even as my public life has often been very visible. In my mind, this wasn’t a detail people needed to know.

But perhaps much like “The Files” as they are being coined, there is importance in things being known.

It was Friday night, as I decided to put the phone down, not believing what I had just read from a government website.

Not understanding how people are not more outraged. We should be more angry.

Blood?

What is the deal with all the blood?

Are these people satanic, abrahamic, vampires?

Are people really eating human flesh?

What in the Eyes Wide Shut / Hostel nightmare is this?

This cannot be real, right?

It feels like a conspiracy theorist just dumped all the documentary evidence needed to prove their point—and suddenly, I can’t shake the feeling that everything I once dismissed as Illuminati fanaticism might actually be real.

WHAT did I just read?

The human in me.

The woman.

The child, who has suffered at the hands of men in power.

She doesn’t want to believe this could all be true.

What logic would there be though for writing these things?

In e-Mails no less!?!?

The un-redacted names of SA victims is horrifying, and their re-victimization makes my stomach turn.

Why would the Government do this?

This can’t be legal.

The next morning it costs me everything to get out of bed.

Nearly 11 hours of tossing and turning all night with nightmares plaguing every inch of my so-called rest.

My body continues tight, and I realize I am holding onto the tension because of fear.

My body has returned to that sad and afraid little girl.

Maybe people aren’t afraid because they’re too busy processing their fear—or ignoring these accounts altogether, chalking it up to AI or something else.

Gosh, my shoulders ache.

I tell myself I should get to the gym, to work out the kinks.

Instead I crash back down onto my bed and cry.

The tears consuming, gigantic, and relentless.

Aching.

It’s hard to catch a breath.

Almost instantaneously, the sadness turns to anger.

I jerk upright, grab my pillow and hurl it at the wall screaming. FUCKKKK!

WHAT THE FUCK!

This man is a pedophile, and he’s in the White House.
And people are still protecting him. Defending him.

The most powerful people in the country & around the world.
Billionaires. Named. All participating in this sickness.

This must be hell.

81% of women have been victims of sexual harrasment or sexual abuse as per the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. And it’s no wonder.

We are clearly surrounded by sexual deviants.

What a sad sad reality to face.

Deep Breaths.

Today, I am choosing to focus on the helpers.

We are surrounded by people who are trying to protect, heal, and interrupt this harm every single day.

Naming the sickness is not the end of the story.

It’s the first step toward refusing it.

-CS

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P.S. I wanted to share this because I’ve been struggling with it for a while now. I know that, given the statistics, many of you reading this, may also be careful about what you consume because of the same triggering feelings. I wanted you to know that you are not alone.

If reading this brought anything up for you, support is available. You deserve care, safety, and to be heard.

• National Sexual Assault Hotline (U.S.) — 800-656-HOPE (4673)
  Available 24/7 via phone and online chat at rainn.org. Confidential support for survivors of sexual violence and those affected.

If you’re outside the U.S., I encourage you to seek a trusted local resource or crisis line in your country.

That probably makes sense, given how I grew up. In my family, the table was never just a place to nourish our bodies with a meal cooked by loving hands. It was a place to connect. To talk about life. To sit with hardship. To laugh. To argue. To listen. To be seen.

The table was where humanity lived.

But the more I think about it, the more I realize that food is not the only way we gather like this.

Music does it too.

Have you ever listened to a song and felt different afterward? Like after you have moved your body, sung the lyrics, or let the sound wash over you, something inside you settles. You feel more rested. More open. More connected.

Think about a concert. Thousands of strangers arrive without making eye contact. Everyone stands in their own little bubble. And then the music starts.

Suddenly, you are belting out lyrics alongside people you have never met. Your bodies move in rhythm together. For a few hours, you are not strangers at all. By the end, you look over at the person next to you and smile. A big, knowing smile. A shared acknowledgment that you just experienced something real together.

You leave feeling like you somehow know hundreds, maybe thousands of people. All because a group of creatives reminded you how to be present.

Art can do that too.

I remember the first time I walked into an art gallery where a friend of mine was showcasing their work.

I arrived knowing almost no one.

I left with new friends.

We bonded over composition. Over emotion. Over storytelling. Over the way our friend was able to hold memory, feeling, and meaning inside a frame and offer it to others.

We did not arrive connected.
We became connected through creation.

That is the power of art.

When you really sit with the word “creative,” it simply means a person who chooses to create.

Over the last several years, I have intentionally stepped back from being only a chef creating recipes for mass consumption. Instead, I have leaned into creating spaces. Experiences. Moments.

Spaces where food, music, art, movement, and human presence come together. Multi-sensorial experiences shaped by people who choose to create in order to connect.

Because when we create with our hands, our minds, our voices, and our bodies, we create connection.

And that is why I am writing this today.

We are living in a time where the world feels fractured. Disconnected. Loud. Heavy. It can feel hard to create when everything feels uncertain or overwhelming.

But this is exactly when creation matters most.

So this is my call to action.

If you are a creative, do not stop.

Find the space.
Find the time.
Find the courage to keep creating.

Create the dinner.
Create the song.
Create the photograph.
Create the painting.
Create the gathering.
Create the moment.

Whether it is a massive festival or a small dinner with friends. An art show or a photo shoot. A concert or a booth at a farmer’s market.

Whatever form your creativity takes, keep going.

Because connection does not happen in a vacuum.
Humanity does not survive without shared experience.
And the only thing that will ever help us move through what is happening right now is our connection to ourselves and to each other.

Creatives do that.

So whatever you do, do not stop creating.

The world needs you more than you know.

As we talked, really talked, I told him something I have been sitting with for a while now.

Yes, people are calling this the loneliest time in modern history.
Yes, there is real conversation about a male loneliness epidemic.
Yes, anxiety is up, and dopamine is everywhere. Social media, endless scrolling, constant stimulation.

But I think there is something else happening beneath all of that.

Over the last two years, I have had the rare gift of space. Space to look honestly at my own relationship with social media. My own patterns of distraction. My own flaws in how I show up in friendships and everyday conversations.

I have written about it here before, sometimes through storytelling, sometimes through self-deprecation, but what I have come to understand is this:

A lot of us are not lonely because someone did not text back.
Or because plans were rescheduled.
Or because life got busy.

We are lonely because when we are together, we are not actually connecting.

Instead of real, honest, vulnerable conversations, we fill the time with fluff. With small talk. With words that carry zero weight.

We talk about the weather.
We talk about schedules.
We talk around each other.

In a weird dance around real connection and vulnerability.

But we do not talk about how our kids are actually doing in school.
Or how education systems are shaping them in ways that mirror algorithms and attention economies.
Or how grief is sitting quietly in our bodies poisoning our daily lives.
Or how love feels complicated and just out of reach.
Or how tired we are of pretending we are fine day-in and day-out.

And I want to be clear. This is not an article about diagnosing why we feel this way or offering some neat conclusion.

This is an invitation.

An invitation to reflect.

If you feel like you are living life through your phone, watching instead of participating, this is for you.

If you feel disconnected even while surrounded by people, this is for you.

What would happen if, instead of automatically answering “I’m fine,” we said, “I’ve been better,” and then allowed ourselves the time to explain why?

What if we let conversations touch grief, aspiration, confusion, love, and even our own inability to be honest, with ourselves, our coworkers, and our friends?

Because I believe this deeply.

When we share where we are struggling, we remind each other that we are not alone.

We remind ourselves and each other of our humanity.

Right now, so much of our interaction is curated. Polished.

Optimized for likes, approval, and the next dopamine hit.

In trying to keep up, to appear okay, successful, and unbothered, we are quietly losing our humanity.

Real connection is not algorithm-friendly.

It is not neat.
And it is not superficial.

So here is my promise to you.

Over the next month, I am committing to honesty. When someone asks how I am doing, I will not default to “fine.” I will lead with vulnerability.

I will make space for real connection, whether that is at a table, on a walk, or even in those moments we usually dismiss as “casual conversation”.

Consider this my notice.

I do not want superficial small talk.
I do not want to talk about the weather.

I want to know what you are struggling with.

Because right now, and honestly every day, we are all going through something.

Connection begins when we stop pretending we are not.