So here I am, writing this from an airport gate that I sleepwalked to, while dreaming of laying my head on my hotel collection pillows after a week-long graduate school orientation in Washington, DC. This, all while hearing my flight get delayed for the third time over the intercom. “But I’ve got this.” I keep saying that. At some point I have to actually believe it.

I’ll spend the weekend prepping for a presentation at my actual paying job, the one I fly out for on Monday. Oh, and my son starts school on Thursday. I don’t think I’m complaining. I’m not even sure that I’m venting. I think I’m narrating it out loud in the hopes that hearing it will help me make sense of it. Because the version of me that believes in God also believes that anything other than gratitude here would be an insult to every prayer that got answered.

Be careful what you pray for, they say.

Be careful what you complain about, too, because God gives, and God can take it away.

Can both of those be true at the same time? I’m starting to think yes.

Here’s what I know for certain: these five days in DC changed something in me. You know that feeling when you visit a city and quietly ask yourself, could I live here? This was the internal version of that exact question. “Could I actually be this person?” A maybe this person is actually “THAT girl.” Turns out the answer was already yes. I’d just been asking it too quietly.

We were dropped into a case competition on day one, handed a product, told to build a marketing strategy, and sent off to pitch it to the company that actually owns it. My team won. I also won Best Presenter, which, if you know my relationship with public speaking, is the kind of plot twist you’d reject in a first draft for being too unrealistic. Something about that room, about being surrounded by people who don’t just tolerate ambition but actually believe in it, in me, cracked something open. I’ve been wondering ever since why I’d been thinking so small.

What works for me, I’ve learned, is never knowing how I’m going to do something, just knowing that I am, and then digesting each day on its own terms after I’ve already bitten off more than I could chew. I’m starting to think opportunities don’t find you unless you were meant to receive them. Or maybe the real prayer isn’t for more opportunities. Maybe it’s for discernment. The wisdom to know what to accept and what to politely let walk by.

Funny story: I saw that particular prayer in action almost immediately.

My best friend took the two-hour train down from New York to celebrate my loading MBA. We had dinner at Maestro’s, then decided to keep the night going at a spot called Shotto.

I smelled him before I saw him. A man walked in trailing the suffocating stench of his cologne behind him. My first thought was: overbearing. We sat at the bar. He sat at the other end with a male friend. Before we’d even hung up our purses, he sent over two shots of Don Julio reposado via the bartender, then raised his hand across the room for an air toast. We accepted the shots, free tequila is free tequila, and went back to girl talk.

Fifteen minutes later, he was in the seat I’d been saving for my friend. He introduced himself as a gentleman who had moved to DC five days ago, works in oil and energy, Nigerian by way of London. Seeing any red flags yet?

Being generous with my conversation, I kept talking to him anyway… and then an unfamilar woman walked up, hugged him, and seated herself on his other side. Just like that, I’d gone from a girls’ night to a third wheel on somebody else’s date. He insisted she was “just a friend.” Her interjecting herself into our attempt to get to know each other insisted otherwise. Not that I was going to interrogate it, I’d known the man 13 minutes.

We exchanged numbers to possibly pick up the conversation at a later time without an audience and I headed to a lounge called Goodluv. The man from the bar, as we started calling him The African, because he was, in fact, from Africa, and every girlfriend knows that a man gets a funny nickname until he becomes truly relevant, texted asking where I was and whether I’d come to Gaia. Knowing I don’t do well with a fourth spot, I still obliged.

When I got there I immediately spotted The African, the same woman from the bar, and two other couples. New venue, same conclusion, this was a date. A triple date, in fact.

Small plot twist, I’d been to Gaia once before, and tonight, the owner remembered me. He happened to be in the section next to ours, also on a date, and because I have developed social skills, I went over to say hello. He asked who I was with and what we were drinking, then offered to send a bottle over as a courtesy.

This is where the evening turned. The African, whom I had known for a grand total of 75 minutes now, informed me that I was “trying to make him jealous,” that “The Mans aren’t taking drinks from another man,” and that I was, and I quote, “F’ing disrespectful.” I tried to explain the owner, the history, the entirely unromantic nature of a hospitality bottle to him, but I also want to note that I owed this man zero explanations after now 94 minutes of acquaintance. After he stopped me mid sentence to ask me why I was touching him, I grabbed my purse, grabbed my friend, and I left.

The next morning, nearly late for orientation, I woke up to 5 missed calls, from a man I’d known, by that point, a grand total of 960 minutes. I spent the day toggling between a lecture on responsible AI use and responsibly ignoring his calls. That evening, orientation finally behind me, I was slouched in the back of an Uber Black when an unknown Atlanta number called. I’m an always-on mother, so naturally I answer unknown numbers on principle. It was him. Calling from a fake number. After less than a day of knowing me!

He asked if I was okay, said my silence had worried him. I thought about just hanging up. Instead, I did something I don’t usually do. I told him, plainly, what I would not accept from a man, why he’d never see me again, and exactly who he was dealing with. It wasn’t really for him. It was for me.

He was, in his own words, “lost for words.” He asked for a second chance, a redo date, or at minimum, redemption drinks. I declined, politely, and hung up. His follow-up text read a little too much like begging, and that’s when I blocked him. In hindsight, I should have known when he suggested my first trip to Nigeria happen during Dutty December. I definitely should have known when his cologne nearly took me out before we’d made contact.

This was never really a story about a man at a bar, though his apparent narcissism may think otherwise. It’s a story about what The African actually walked into, without knowing it; a woman mid-transformation. The old me would have smiled through the confusion, let it slide, maybe vented about it to a friend later instead of saying it to his face. This me picked up the phone and said the thing, plainly, in real time. That’s the trade I made in DC, passive for direct, avoidant for clear. I’m done writing paragraphs in my head that I never say out loud, replaying scenarios in the shower.

Because here’s what I actually feel, underneath the exhaustion and the delayed flights and the group projects that keep me up until 2am. I feel changed, capable, and resilient, in a way I don’t think I fully was five days ago. I know my worth, specifically enough to price it, and I’m not discounting it for anyone or anything suffering from sticker shock. I’m demanding my respect, and for once, I’m not asking permission to.

I don’t know exactly how I’m getting up this mountain that is the graduate program, the fellowship, the corporate job, Ayden starting back school, all of it, at once. I just know I’m going, one foot in front of the other. Some days it might just be God and me on the climb, and I’ve made my peace with that. It turns out that’s more than enough company. A delayed flight isn’t going to stop me. A controlling man with a fake Atlanta number isn’t going to stop me. In this season, i’m embracing what I prayed for.

P.S. for whoever needs this too...

During orientation, we were given an exercise to design our Board of Trustees. Being freshly planted in business school, I took that at face value, a boardroom, bylaws, the whole corporate fantasy. But the ask was something else entirely. What they were really asking us to build was our village.

Turns out you don’t need a hundred people in your corner. You need a few, in the right seats: a cheerleader who roots for you unconditionally, a coach who challenges you when you’d rather coast or quit, a confidant who listens without handing you judgment along with it, and a sponsor who advocates for you in rooms you’re not even in yet. The people who hold these seats quietly shape how you show up in the world, whether you walk into a room small or you walk in like you already won.

Mapping mine out, and being honest about which seats were sitting empty, changed how I saw everything that happened after. The “changed” feeling I carried out of DC wasn’t something that appeared out of nowhere on day five. It was the foundation I brought in with me, built by my own Board of Trustees, multiplied by a cohort of people who fully embraced me, poured into me, and handed me back a belief in myself I didn’t know I’d misplaced. They didn’t just support the dream. They made me dream bigger.

So I challenge you to identify who’s on your board of trustees? And more importantly, which seats are still empty?

Love,

Kara

You know where I am. You’ve been here for the healing, the almost-wedding, and now welcome to the “I don’t have time for meaningless dating” era. I’ve been loudly narrating for months. So when I say I walked into this one still believing in the word “intentional,” understand that’s not naivety. This is a woman who genuinely does not have the bandwidth to be played with, still believing in the ability of people to mean what they say.

So when he said he too was “intentional,” I believed him. That’s on me. Because here’s what I’ve since decided: intentional has become the trending dating trigger word. Everyone says it. Almost no one means it. It’s a word you drop in a bio to signal seriousness while doing absolutely nothing that signals intentionality at all.

Which brings me to the concept I’ve been sitting with for the past 48hrs; the difference between chasing and pursuing. I don’t think men know courtship anymore and they now mistake the desire to be courted for a woman’s demand to be chased.

Believe me when I tell you, there's a specific breed of man who takes one look at a woman with her life “seemingly” together (even when her life is quietly a mess) and decides she's standing on a pedestal he didn't build, and so he must be her humbler.

Here’s what I mean. When a woman knows what she wants and says so plainly, a certain kind of man doesn’t hear “these are my standards.” He hears “she wants me to chase her.” He translates confidence into a game, and expectation into a challenge to be won, as if the only reason a woman would articulate what she’s used to is to bait him into performing scarcity. That’s not what’s happening. I’m not asking anyone to chase me. Chasing is a sport. It’s ego dressed up as effort, all about winning, none of it about knowing me beyond the perfectly curated IG feed and preceding stigmas.

Pursuing is the actual answer to a woman who’s told you plainly what she wants. It’s a man who’s intrigued by a specific person deciding to act on that intrigue, showing up, asking questions, being curious about her life and where his might fit into it, and operating from a masculinity that is brave enough to be vunerable, with deep connection being the reward. It’s courtship, a lost art form. The confusion between the two is exactly why so much of this feels off: he wasn’t pursuing me because he was intrigued by me. He was chasing an idea of me he’d built and intentionally trying to see if he could be the one to unsettle it. That’s not romance. That’s a personality test.

Somewhere along the way, dating stopped being an exchange and started being a transaction. I say that as someone who’s grown tired of shopping. I used to feel lonely when my phone was quiet. Now I’ve learned that the noise isn’t necessarily better. You answer the text, take the call, go on the date, and it’s the same conversation with a different face attached to it. Same questions. Same storylines. Same favorite colors. It’s like rewatching a movie you’ve already seen. You have to be in a very specific mood, because you already know exactly how it ends. ATP, I prefer it quiet on the creek.

Which is, conveniently, exactly how this one ended.

I told him honestly: he was being “confusing, and I don’t do confusion.” Not because I can’t handle nuance, but because confusion in the early stage of something isn’t mystery, it’s a preview, a pink flag. True to the passive-aggressive form I’d been quietly clocking, his response to that honesty was to wish me well. No follow-up question, no discomfort, no interest in closing the gap. Instead, a soft, well-lit exit that in his mind, allowed him leave looking like the “reasonable and emotionally stable one.”

And that, honestly, is where the real lesson showed up.

Because the wildest part of getting to a place of peace is watching how it lands on people who haven’t done any of that work themselves. Clarity doesn’t just sit quietly next to confusion. It puts a spotlight on it. It’s almost uncomfortable to witness. I found myself wondering if I used to look like this to people who’d already done their healing when I hadn’t yet. Did my actions look like a small, defensive spiral, dressed up as nonchalance. Because that’s is not cute!

The more simply you show someone what ease looks like, the more complicated they seem to become in response. It’s not a conversation at that point. It’s a slow-motion unraveling happening in real time, and you’re just standing there, watching someone’s defense mechanisms dim the potential you saw in them.

Here’s what I know now that I didn’t fully know a year ago: you cannot like someone into healing. You cannot lead someone to emotional stability by example, no matter how good the example is. You have to find someone already operating at your altitude, because a relationship isn’t a rescue mission, and I am done playing that position. I did the work to soften, to unlearn the hardened version of myself and let myself be vulnerable without treating every reaction like a threat. I’m a New Yorker, that wasn’t an easy thing to do! So, No! I’m not interested in un-doing that for anyone. I refuse to let someone’s unresolved past turn me back into a woman who has to armor up in the name of a second date.

Ninety-five percent of how someone treats you in those first few interactions has nothing to do with you. It’s a rerun of their past situations, putting you as the leading lady in a role you never auditioned for.

But none of that answers the actual question: How many chances do you give someone to realize they are self sabotaging before you just say, calmly, “this isn’t going to work”?

So here’s where I’ve landed. Lowkey, “I’m not what you need” or whatever Tems said. I’m not chasing and I’m not looking to be chased. I’m just over here, pursuing my own peace, which has yet to try to humble me. But it wasn’t all in vain. Thank you for being the subject of my Substack. I had writer’s block for weeks :)

Seriously though:

1. Dating should not be complicated.

2. Chemistry is real, but it’s not enough.

3. He should hype you, not humble you.

4. Pink flags turn red when the darkness comes.

5. You will know when it’s something because it won’t be confusing.

Love,

Kara

I am in the “what I ordered vs what I got” era of life. The moment that you realize that everything they said would be on the other side of hard work, good character, hustle and sacrifice turned out to be nothing more than a watered-down dupe. Many of us are coming to the realization that we are midlife, midcareer, or mid marriage and life is feeling… well, mid AF! The fulfillment and reward of doing things “the right way” is absent and we are left wondering, was it all worth it?

And this may simply be a millennial’s problem. We were the top consumers of the American Dream. We took the students loans, we went to college, we interned, we prioritized our careers, and we delayed our gratification only to wake and watch the generations after us becoming millionaires in one viral TikTok moment… and I respect it. But one can’t help but question, “was it all worth it?”

After feeling lied to, there is no surprise that most millennial women are finally choosing the liberation that comes from being honest with themselves. Many of us are leaving lifeless careers where most of us have all but hit our ceiling, pursuing our suppressed passions, dating differently with bolder boundaries and bare minimum tolerance, traveling to escape our mundane routines and expand our realities, viewing motherhood in a different light and alleviating ourselves of the idea that being a mom meant smiling through burnout and relinquishing our own lives, and building our own dream homes with a door man where the white picket fences were supposed to be. Our priorities are shifting, and we are abandoning our old ideals of what “making it” looks like on a pursuit of finally figuring it out on our own terms with our own definition of success. Success for many of us has now been reduced to one quest; the simple desire to feel fulfilled.

But here’s what no one tells you about choosing yourself after over a decade of choosing the script; it doesn’t feel like freedom at first, it feels like grief. Abandoning the version of yourself that played by the rules means admitting that you have sacrificed the years, relationships, and energy for a return that never came; a miscalculated ROI. It means coming to terms with the fact that you are not getting those years back. This is not a small thing, it’s a reckoning! What I need to work on, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this, is removing the narrative that those were my “good years.” That’s the mindset that turns a pivotal moment into mourning.

The exhaustion we are feeling isn’t laziness or ingratitude. What we are feeling is the accumulated weight of performing a life that was designed by someone else’s imagination. We are not exhausted simply because we have been paddling our boats, we are exhausted because we are finally realizing that after all this time, we’ve been rowing in the wrong direction. The cruel irony of it all is that we were good at who we were. We showed up early, stayed late, smiled through the mediocre middle management and unsettling corporate cultures. We optimized ourselves to exhaustion chasing a version of success that turns out, was never custom made for us. It was a hand-me-down dream from our parents based on their struggles, and like most hand-me-downs, the fit is off.

So, yes, we are tired. But not in the way that validates “nothing worth having comes easy” and all of the struggle now celebrate later innuendos that we bought into to keep our legs moving on the hamster wheel. We are tired in the way you get tired after realizing that for years you were in a situationship with the American Dream. You did everything right, kept showing up, never asked for too much, and still got left on read. No closure, no explanation. Waking up one day wondering where it all went wrong.

Somewhere between the exhaustion and the awakening, something shifts. You stop asking “was it worth it?” and you start asking “what do I actually want?” For me, the answer looked a lot like going back to school. Ironic right. This has to feel like the time your friend told you to unfollow her ex on socials and then posted a “couple goals” pic with the alleged ex only days later.

I know. I know. Bear with me.

At this big age (I love this catchphrase), I am getting my MBA. But this time it is not to validate my mom’s sacrifices, not for the approval of a hiring manager, not for a résumé line, and definitely not for anyone who ever raised an eyebrow at my timeline. I’m going because I finally know exactly who I am and what I want to build. This time, I want the tools to build it for myself. Two decades of corporate experience taught me things no classroom ever could. Now I’m going back to learn the language to match the vision. This time the business, the dream, the life will be built on my terms, by my rules, in my own time. I need to build something that no corporate layoff, dismantled DEI department, or company re-org can take away from me. Now, I AM the business and i’m standing on it

.For years I let the world dictate my timeline. I didn’t go to grad school when I should have because someone convinced me that window had closed. And I thank them, genuinely, because not only did that delay allow me to differentiate my dream from the American Dream façade but it also reminded me exactly which opinions I was done living by. Now im going back to get the technical language, frameworks, and tools to build something entirely and unapologetically mine.

And somewhere between the chaos and the clarity, I took notes: the dream didn’t fail, it just went out of style. Last season I learned. This season I redesigned. And for the first time in a long time, everything finally fits.

Love,

Kara

And then there is our own tendency to put ourselves into a mental prison of being who the world expects us to be. Some of us feel the pressure to live up to an unrealistic version of perfection, painting a picturesque existence while others don’t thrive for anything more than the little that they feel the world has set aside for them; a predetermined destiny of mediocre living, absent of growth and determination. They missed the “Think Big Bih” memo. Either way it goes, no one talks about how hard it is to stop being who we are “supposed” to be?

This year I’ve wrestled with the awkwardness of having one foot in my old life and one foot in my new life. I reached the point where I feel extremely disconnected from who I once was, yet I don’t quite know the new version of me on a first name basis. I look at people, places, and things like “i’m too old for this now” but then again I also find myself feeling like, i’m still “TOO YOUNG for that.” Is this the definition of a midlife crisis?

The hardest thing for me has been closing chapters. I struggle with permanent detachment.

I used to think it was a flex to say “i’m still cool with all my exes” because I thought that in some way, being agreeable meant being above.

I’ve started to realize that this was more of an absence of boundaries and spoke to my self worth more than it provided proof of my being a “good person.”

I don’t want to simplify this through the lens of intimate relationships because its much broader than that. Detaching from the old version of myself requires deading already dead conversations, replacing hindering habits, partying in different places, reevaluating what I find fun in, detaching from ungodly behaviors, changing the narrative on limiting thoughts, living among likeminded individuals, choosing men who align with my future self and not my previous self, and doing the uncomfortable, the inconvenient, and the hard things today for a better tomorrow. That’s is a lot and i’m just a girl.

Why is there such a negative connotation around being “alone?” I used to look at my absence of companionship like there was something wrong with me. Lately, I’ve been finding the reasoning in why God has set me apart from everything I once knew. Spending time with myself has allowed me the stillness needed to realize that I was existing in a world that I had actually outgrown. Every day, I was unconsciously choosing the routine of familiarity over the life that was quietly waiting for me on the other side of my own resistance. I was choosing the comfort of what I knew over the life that was aligned with who I was becoming.

The problem is, the barrier wasn’t circumstance or other people, it was me!

Not because my life was bad. Not because my life was “unhappy.” My life wasn’t unhappy it was uncomfortable. Solely because I had become someone new without allowing myself to live like it.

And here is where it get’s complicated. Changing in private is one thing, but changing publicly? That takes a high level of courage and self assertiveness. I have spent years sharing a version of myself on social media, in rooms I’ve entered, and in relationships I’ve fostered. That version has a reputation to uphold. She is an aesthetic, a lane, and a type. That version of has gotten comfortable with the opinions others have of her, even if they no longer fit.

What happens when the girl who has been known for one thing starts to quietly become someone else? You know how they say '“a woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life?” Well, what do they say about a woman who changes her circle, stops going to the same places, starts talking about things she never talked about before? Rhetorical question. Here’s what happens; people notice and people have thoughts.

The key is to never let the thoughts others have about you grow louder than your own.

This year I decided to be radical and just do the things. This year I decided to do the things that are “out of character” for the old me but feel completely natural to who I am now. I made peace with the fact that changing isn’t betraying who I am. Changing is actually the most loyal thing I did for myself. I gave myself permission to change privately and publicly without explanation (unless you count this Substack, I guess).

I realized that when people put you in a box, its for themselves, not for you. It’s to make you easier to process. The most limiting box is not the one people build around us but instead it’s the one we keep crawling back into. So this year, join me on my journey of learning to permanently close chapters so that the story can go on.

And somewhere between the chaos and the clarity, she took notes: the most expensive real estate she ever occupied was the box other people built for her. She's since moved out with no forwarding address.

Love,

Kara

Let me take a beat to state the obvious; I am not saying this is ALL men. I know this because every time I open the Instagram app, without fail, I am witnessing another heartfelt proposal, another baby announcement after a 9-month hidden pregnancy, another red carpet gender reveal, and another day in the life of some couple spoon feeding each other home cooked meals. An abundance of fairytale love stories from seemingly happy couples. So, YES, to be clear, I do think love exists and people are finding their mates. I am just not one of those people… yet.

After my last failed attempt at dating, I decided to open myself up to dating outside of my typical type. Candidly, saying this out loud still feels strange to me since I’ve always maintained that I don’t necessarily have a specific “type.” But, clearly a specific type has me. This core fact caused me to analyze what is it that i’m giving off. This is a conversation for another day, probably best had with Marissa, my therapist. I’ll double back with anything news worthy or ground breaking but for now…

Recently, My best friend with good intention, shared her opinion with me. After knowing me for 15 years, she believes that while I am currently “single,” I am not “emotionally available.” I had to sit with that for a while because, “Huh?” After I let this statement play over and over in my head as I am inclined to do with everything else, I decided that this conversation was worth revisiting. She later provided me with some much needed context. In her eyes I was situationally single but my demeanor in public spaces still gave, I am very much in a relationship. I get it, I guess. And I only accepted this feedback to possibly be true because other friends have shared similar sentiments that my IG feed gives “kept woman.” The sad realty is that I AM a kept woman. The problem is, i’m doing the keeping!

This year I did something I have never done before. I was starting to feel like I was getting the blame for being single. I was the problem. It was as if, to my friend group, I wasn’t fully applying myself. Like, I was trying, but I wasn’t trying trying. So, I did “it.” I joined a dating app.

Hinge to be exact. Initial thoughts; “why Hinge,” right? I actually joined Raya at first. Then I remembered that as bad as things may have been in my dating life, I was NEVER going to PAY to play. That is where I draw the line.

As a college educated woman with over a decade of experience growing global brands through sales and marketing, something so simple as picking a profile pic for my Hinge profile was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever had to do. Completing the prompts that “showed my personality” was even cringier. I can literally sell gasoline to a fire, but selling my personality to a potential partner just felt performative. Very “pick me” coded.

Status update: Year-to-date, I haven’t been on a single Hinge derived date. And before you start judging me, it is not my fault. I’ve crawled into bed with a glass of Prisoner several nights excited to receive a rose from my potential future husband only to feel underwhelmed and slightly disappointed by the pool of candidates. The number of times I’ve changed my neighborhood to open up my options with the hopes that maybe my match was in Chicago, Dallas… I think I even tried Wyoming one week after re-watching Yellowstone. I’ve swapped out my pics, added new prompts, opened some non-negotiables up for negotiation and lowered my age requirement incase God does in fact have a YN on my bingo card. Yet… nothing. Unless you want to count the slightly attractive couple looking for a 3rd player. I’ll pass for now.

I think what really offended me were the profiles that Hinge identified as a perfect match for me. It was very telling that there was a major disconnect between what I thought I was putting down vs what the world was picking up. This gave me something to think about.

Nevertheless, this social experiment was not in vain because I learned a few things by being on Hinge, and here they are…

1. It is really hard for a heterosexual man to take a selfie. The unintentional intentional arm up to show off his watch, the not-so-sexy sexy smile, the awkward angles or the cringe worthy mirror pic. How is a man supposed to take a judgement free selfie?

2. I am unaware of what I am actually looking for in a man.

3. Hinge too is unaware of what I am looking for in a man.

4. There is nothing for me in Chicago.

5. Men still use corny pickup lines. Corny pickup lines in your prompts? You thought that through? Wrote it? Read it? Laughed at your own joke AND posted it?

6. A lot of men are probably single because they are in relationships with their dogs. Now that I think about it, I should start spending my Saturday’s at a bougie dog park.

7. We never like who likes us… and that may not necessarily be a bad thing.

8. I should probably go ahead and spend the money for a paid HingeX account. Maybe im just getting what I paid for… nothing.

9. There are men who will never approach you in real life and then match you on Hinge. It’s just a little awkward around the office when it’s a coworker.

10. Everything isn’t bigger in Texas.

And somewhere between the chaos and the clarity, she took notes: she wasn't finding love because she was still busy becoming the woman the right love would actually find.

Love,

Kara

No one talks about the fact that losing the old version of yourself literally feels like a death and is even accompanied by a period of grieving. There’s little chatter about the eventuality of getting to a point where you need to be formally introduced to yourself. You spend so much time reacting to life and chasing goals that you miss the moment where you outgrow people, habits, ways of thinking , and spaces.

At some point you not only have to do the work to find yourself but also to find “your people.” Your people are not just the ones that have been around forever. In actuality, they are the ones who currently align with your values and principles no matter how long or short the period of time is that you’ve known them.

Outgrowing a person also feels like a death and is as equally attached to mourning as outgrowing yourself is. The fact is, when you outgrow a person, you lose a piece of you that you have grown attachments to and dependencies on. There is a shift in the comfort of a familiar face that stops feeling comfortable and damn sure doesn’t feel familiar. The interactions start to feel foreign. Now there’s an emptiness inside of you where you once held space for that person. An emptiness that needs to be filled. The healthiest way to feel whole again is by growing closer to the new version of yourself, doing the work to better understand who this new version of you is at the core and then finding people that align. Finding “your people” with intention as opposed to affiliation and proximity. The problem is, no one wants to hurt and very little people know how to handle grief. So we gravitate back to those very people that we are no longer compatible with in order to soothe the loneliness, quick fix the pain or temporarily full the void. Metaphorically, we can dig up the corpse of a dead relationship but the soul of the relationship is no longer present.

Over the years I struggled to respect the seasonality of life. With time and experience, I have learned to compartmentalize for the sake of survival. I learned that we have family and we have relatives. The two are not synonymous. The truth is, family we are bonded to and relatives we are simply related to. There are friends that you knew longer than you’ve known what a friend is and there are friends you picked up along the way. Friends that will stay long enough to witness multiple versions of you and passerby’s that will stay until they’ve fulfilled their purpose and lived out their season in your life and you in theirs. Peace, happiness, mental and emotional health are attached to your ability to recognize this, adapt to this and lean into the inevitable death of this dynamic.

So many people I know are going through this exact cycle. They are losing closeness and questioning themselves as to why. They are becoming distant with loved ones and they are closing chapters on lingering relationships. They have said that 2025 was the Year of the Snake and it was associated with a lot of shedding. We must remember that when we shed dead skin, it makes way for fresh and vibrant skin to thrive just as when we shed lifeless relationships and dieing versions of ourselves, we make room for the good. Staying sane in the process is internalizing the truth that this is not happening to you, it is happening for you.

And somewhere between the chaos and the clarity, she took notes: she stopped watering dead plants and went outside and touched grass.

Love,

Kara