Not consciously, of course. I understood that healing wasn't supposed to be a straight line and that therapy wasn't a magic wand. I knew all the right things to say about growth. Still, somewhere underneath all of that knowledge, I think I believed there would come a point where I had unpacked enough, processed enough, and connected enough dots to finally feel... done.

What I’ve learned instead is that understanding yourself doesn’t always make being yourself easier.

There is a particular kind of frustration that comes with self-awareness. You can know exactly what is happening and still struggle to stop it. You can recognize that your anxiety is looking for evidence of something that hasn’t happened. You can identify an intrusive thought as an intrusive thought. You can trace a reaction back to an old wound and understand why your body is responding the way it is. And still feel it.

That, for me, has been one of the more humbling parts of therapy.

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Sometimes I leave therapy feeling incredibly clear. I’ve connected the dots, named the pattern, and learned a new way to approach something that once felt impossible. Then I return to my actual life, where someone says something that hits a nerve or a situation doesn’t go the way I expected. Suddenly, all of that insight is being tested in real time.

Knowing what to do and being able to do it immediately are two very different things.

I think this is where the conversation around therapy can sometimes become too simple. We’ve become much better at talking about mental health. We have language for boundaries, triggers, emotional regulation, and old patterns. That’s essential. But I sometimes wonder if we’ve also created the expectation that once you know better, you should automatically be able to respond better.

As if self-awareness should prevent you from struggling. As if recognizing a pattern means you’ll never repeat it. As if going to therapy should eventually make you immune to being affected by the things that once hurt you.

That’s not realistic.

Therapy has given me tools I genuinely value, but I’ve also had to learn that a toolbox isn’t the same thing as a life. You can have every tool available to you and still have to practice using them when it matters. You can understand a coping strategy in theory and find it difficult to access when your mind is racing. You can know that you are safe while your body is taking much longer to believe you.

That doesn’t mean therapy isn’t working. It means you’re human.

I’ve also realized that therapy can’t be the only place where healing happens. You can spend an hour talking through your life, but eventually, you have to return to it. You have to practice what you’re learning when you’re at work, navigating relationships, sitting alone with your thoughts, or dealing with something unexpected.

For me, this has meant looking beyond the question of, What tool do I need right now?

Sometimes I need sleep. Sometimes I need to get outside or put my phone down. Sometimes I need to laugh with my friends and remember that my entire identity isn’t contained within whatever difficult thought I’m having that day. Therapy has helped me understand myself, but living has reminded me that I also need community, joy, rest, and experiences that pull me out of my head and back into the world.

Maybe that’s the part I’m still learning: therapy can give you language for your fears, but eventually, you have to decide what you want to do with your life despite them.

I don’t expect myself to never feel anxious again. I don’t expect every intrusive thought to disappear just because I know where it came from. What I’m learning instead is that I don’t have to give every fearful thought the final word.

While this feels like the tallest mountain I've ever had to climb, there’s so much more to gain than there is to lose. I can do hard things, even when I haven’t seen anyone else do it, yet. I deserve to enjoy the things I've worked so hard to heal for.

Besos,

Jenn 🩷

There was no announcement or carefully worded post explaining that I was taking a break. If anything, I kept telling myself I would get back to it soon. I had ideas saved in my Notes app and topics I wanted to explore. Every few weeks, I would think, Okay, this weekend I’ll finally sit down and write.

Then work would get busy. Life would happen. I would feel tired in a way that sleep didn’t immediately fix, and writing; something that had once felt like a place I could return to, became another thing on my mental list of things I hadn’t gotten around to yet.

For a while, I felt guilty about that. I thought about consistency, the people who had subscribed, and whether disappearing for two months meant I wasn’t taking my writing seriously enough. The harder I pressured myself to create, though, the further away I felt from the part of myself that actually wanted to write.

Eventually, I had to admit something I wasn’t particularly interested in admitting: I was tired.

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Not the kind of tired that a lazy weekend fixes. More like the kind that accumulates when you’ve been moving through life on momentum for so long that slowing down feels unnatural. You keep showing up to work, answering texts, meeting deadlines, and handling whatever is in front of you. Since you’re technically still functioning, you convince yourself that everything must be fine.

I think that’s where many of us get ourselves into trouble. We’ve become incredibly skilled at functioning through things that deserve our attention. We can be overwhelmed and productive, anxious and reliable, exhausted and still available to everyone around us. Sometimes we use our ability to keep going as proof that we’re okay, when really, we’ve just gotten good at pushing through.

I don’t think every busy or difficult season means something is deeply wrong. Sometimes work genuinely demands more from us. Sometimes life gets complicated. There are periods when we simply have to carry more than usual. Still, there is a difference between moving through a demanding season and refusing to acknowledge what that season is costing you.

My body had been trying to tell me things long before I was ready to listen. Everything started feeling like one more thing to do. Creativity became harder to access when my mind was constantly occupied by what needed my attention next. Even when I had free time, I struggled to enjoy it because I was already thinking about everything I should be doing instead.

The body has its own language, but I think many of us have become fluent in ignoring it.

We call exhaustion being busy. We call disconnection a lack of motivation. We call our inability to focus procrastination. Then we search for ways to become more disciplined so we can continue moving at the same pace that may have contributed to the problem in the first place.

There is an entire culture built around teaching us how to override ourselves: drink the coffee, push through, wake up earlier, make a better schedule, optimize your routine. Rarely do we stop and consider whether the answer might simply be to pause.

I think that’s what this unplanned break from writing gave me.

I didn’t stop writing because I stopped caring about it. I stopped because, somewhere along the way, I didn’t want something I loved to become another performance of productivity. I didn’t want to force myself to create simply so I could say I had remained consistent.

I’m beginning to understand that consistency doesn’t always mean never stopping. Sometimes it means knowing when to step back so you can return without resenting the thing you once loved.

That lesson has been difficult for me because I’ve always taken pride in being capable. There is a certain comfort in being the person who can handle things, figure them out, and keep going. I’m still learning to listen before I reach my limit. I’m still learning that I don’t need to be completely depleted before I take myself seriously, and that stepping back from something doesn’t mean I’ve given up on it.

I don’t have a perfect conclusion about what these two months taught me. I haven’t returned with a revolutionary routine or the secret to never feeling overwhelmed again. What I do know is that somewhere in the middle of trying to keep up with everything, I stopped making space to hear myself.

This time, I noticed.

I’m writing again, not because I forced myself to become disciplined enough to do it, but because I finally found my way back to simply wanting to.

I hope you learn to listen to what your body needs, because you deserve it.

Besos,

Jenn 🩷

Not necessarily detached from other people, but detached from our own enthusiasm. Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, many of us learned that excitement should be tempered, interests should be curated, and joy should be expressed carefully. There seems to be a lingering sense of pressure to present ourselves as self-aware at all times, as though openly loving something or caring too much about something, makes us less sophisticated.

I notice it everywhere. People downplay the things they’re genuinely excited about. They hesitate to post the photo, share the project, admit they have a crush, or reveal how much they care about a particular hobby. Everything is filtered through a subtle fear of being perceived as trying too hard. The worst thing someone can be online today isn’t rude or dishonest. It’s cringe.

What’s interesting is that most people can’t even define what cringe actually means anymore. It has become shorthand for visible enthusiasm, sincerity, or vulnerability. We use it to describe people who are willing to be seen trying, caring, hoping, creating, or expressing themselves without irony.

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And yet, when I think about the people I genuinely enjoy being around, very few of them fit the internet’s definition of cool.

They’re the women who host themed dinner parties for no reason other than the fact that they thought it would be fun. They’re the friends who become deeply invested in a reality television show and spend hours discussing it in the group chat. They’re the people who take dance classes despite having no professional aspirations, who collect hobbies that don’t generate income, and who decorate their homes in ways that make them happy rather than ways that might perform well online.

There is something incredibly refreshing about people who allow themselves to experience joy without immediately trying to justify it.

I think many of us spent our childhoods doing exactly that. Children rarely need a reason to enjoy something. They become obsessed with niche interests, create imaginary worlds, spend entire afternoons engaged in activities that serve no purpose other than enjoyment. Their curiosity isn’t strategic. Their excitement isn’t curated. They aren’t concerned with whether their interests make them appear impressive.

At some point, many adults lose that instinct.

The older I get, the more I realize that adulthood often encourages us to treat everything as an investment. Hobbies should be productive. Interests should be useful. Leisure should be optimized. Even rest is frequently framed as something that exists to improve performance elsewhere. We are constantly encouraged to become better, faster, healthier, wealthier, more efficient versions of ourselves.

What gets lost in that process is play. Not childishness. Not irresponsibility. Play.

The ability to engage with something simply because it delights you.

I think that’s why there has been such a visible return to hobbies over the last few years. Women are joining book clubs, taking pottery classes, learning to bake, starting gardens, hosting watch parties, and teaching themselves crafts that have no obvious return on investment. On the surface, it looks like a trend. Underneath it, I think something deeper is happening.

People are searching for experiences that reconnect them to themselves.

Not the version of themselves that is constantly producing, improving, or performing. The version that exists outside of achievement. The version that remembers how to enjoy things without immediately evaluating their value.

As women especially, I think there can be pressure to age out of certain forms of joy. There is an expectation that maturity should look serious, composed, and practical. Whimsy is often treated as something that belongs to children, not adults.

I’ve never understood that.

Growing older should expand our capacity for wonder, not diminish it. Experience gives us perspective, but perspective does not require cynicism. Maturity does not require abandoning the parts of ourselves that find joy in small, seemingly insignificant things.

Some of the most grounded women I know are also the most playful. They understand that adulthood is already filled with enough responsibilities, obligations, and uncertainty. They don’t see delight as something frivolous. They see it as something necessary.

The truth is that life becomes heavier as you get older. There are more decisions to make, more people to care for, and more realities to navigate. That reality alone makes joy worth protecting.

Recently, I’ve been trying to give myself permission to lean further into the things that make me happy, even when they don’t serve a larger purpose. I’ve stopped asking whether an interest is productive enough, useful enough, or impressive enough to deserve my attention. Some things are valuable simply because they make life feel more alive.

I think that’s ultimately what I’m advocating for when I say we need more cringe.

Not more embarrassment. Not more performative eccentricity. More willingness to be seen enjoying things wholeheartedly. More openness to delight. More enthusiasm. More sincerity.

Whimsy was never something we were supposed to outgrow. It’s something we’re supposed to carry with us.

Love,

Jenn 🩷

And somehow, we all understand exactly what’s happening.

A new season of Love Island has begun.

Objectively speaking, it’s a ridiculous show. The premise is absurd. The challenges are embarrassing. The conversations often sound like they were generated by people who have never had a genuine thought in their lives. Yet every year, millions of women willingly tune in and become deeply invested in the romantic decisions of strangers living in a villa.

For a long time, I thought the appeal was simply entertainment. Now I think it has much more to do with what the show creates around it.

Love Island has become one of the few modern rituals that consistently brings women together.

What fascinates me most is that nobody has to organize it. There is no official invitation. No obligation to participate. Yet every summer, women naturally gravitate toward one another to discuss the episodes, analyze the relationships, rank the outfits, and collectively decide which man is currently testing everyone’s patience.

The show becomes a shared language.

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At a certain point in adulthood, friendship stops being automatic. Nobody is assigning you a roommate anymore. Nobody is placing you in classrooms with the same people every day. Maintaining connection requires intentionality. It requires effort, planning, and often coordinating schedules that seem impossible to align.

Life becomes fragmented. One friend is engaged. Another is building a career. Someone else moved to a different city. Everyone is balancing responsibilities that didn’t exist a decade ago.

Finding reasons to consistently gather becomes harder.

That’s why I find something oddly comforting about the arrival of Love Island every year. Beneath all the gossip and commentary, it serves as a reminder that women genuinely enjoy being in community with one another.

I think people often speak about girlhood as if it’s something we eventually outgrow. The word itself tends to evoke images of sleepovers, mall trips, passing notes in class, and spending entire afternoons talking about things that felt incredibly important at the time.

What I’ve realized as I’ve gotten older is that girlhood doesn’t disappear. It simply changes form.

Instead of sleepovers, there are watch parties. Instead of passing notes, there are group chats and voice notes.

Instead of discussing the boy who sits three rows behind you in class, you’re debating whether a twenty-six-year-old personal trainer from Manchester is emotionally available enough for a woman he’s known for four days.

The details change. The experience doesn’t.

At its core, girlhood has always been about shared observation. It’s about gathering together and making meaning out of everyday experiences. It’s about laughter, commentary, storytelling, and the comfort that comes from being understood by other women.

Love Island just happens to provide the perfect backdrop for that.

What I appreciate most is that these gatherings aren’t productive. Nobody is networking. Nobody is optimizing themselves. Nobody is discussing five-year plans or personal growth goals. For a few hours, women get to be completely unserious together.

In a culture that constantly encourages self-improvement, productivity, and achievement, there is something refreshing about collectively caring about something that has absolutely no impact on your life whatsoever.

The conversations are rarely just about the show anyway.

The episode starts a discussion about dating. Someone brings up a past relationship. Someone else shares a story about a terrible first date. Suddenly the conversation shifts from reality television to life itself.

The villa becomes an entry point into deeper conversations about trust, standards, friendship, relationships, and womanhood.

The older I get, the more I realize that friendship isn’t maintained through grand gestures. It’s sustained through small rituals. The recurring experiences that give people reasons to continue showing up for one another.

For some friend groups, it’s book clubs. For others, it’s monthly dinners.

For many women, every summer, it’s Love Island.

And honestly, I think there’s something beautiful about that. The return of Love Island doesn’t just signal the start of summer. It signals the return of a particular kind of togetherness.

A reminder that girlhood was never something we left behind. It simply found new places to live.

Besos,

Jenn 🩷

I’m turning twenty-seven.

Objectively, I know that’s still young. People constantly say your twenties are meant for figuring things out, making mistakes, changing directions, becoming yourself. I’ve said those same things to other people before.

Still, twenty-seven feels different.

Maybe it’s because this is the age where “mid-twenties” quietly expires and “late twenties” enters the conversation whether you’re emotionally ready for it or not. Twenty-seven feels more serious somehow. More defined. Close enough to thirty that you start hearing the countdown in the background of your life.

Three years sounds short when you say it out loud. Close enough to make you reflect on everything you thought your life would look like by now.

I think birthdays have a way of bringing unfinished expectations to the surface. Not necessarily sadness, but awareness. You start mentally comparing your current life to the version you imagined for yourself years ago.

By this age, I thought certain things would already feel settled. I thought I’d feel more certain about the future. More emotionally organized. More “arrived.” I assumed adulthood would eventually stop feeling so transitional all the time.

Instead, life still feels deeply in progress. Some days, that excites me. Other days, it quietly terrifies me.

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There’s a strange emotional mix that comes with getting older as a woman, especially in your late twenties. Gratitude exists alongside pressure. Excitement exists alongside comparison. You can genuinely love the life you’re building while simultaneously wondering whether you’re running out of time to build the rest of it.

And the pressure is subtle until it suddenly isn’t.

What surprises me most about getting older is how differently adulthood feels compared to how I imagined it as a teenager.

I thought adulthood would come with a stronger sense of arrival. I expected confidence to feel permanent once I reached a certain age, as if clarity would eventually lock into place and stay there. Instead, growing up has felt far more fluid than I expected. More layered. More emotionally complex.

At twenty-seven, I feel more aware of myself than ever before, but also more aware of how much life cannot be controlled through planning alone.

There are parts of adulthood no one really prepares you for. The emotional whiplash of watching your life expand while still feeling uncertain at times. Realizing you can be deeply grateful for what you have and still want more for yourself simultaneously. I’ve noticed that birthdays now make me reflect less on age itself and more on identity.

At the same time, there are realities about my current life that younger versions of me would probably find unbelievable.

That tension has been sitting with me lately.

This uncomfortable realization that life rarely arrives all at once. Some parts bloom while others remain unfinished. Some areas of your life feel deeply stable while others still feel transitional. I think that’s why twenty-seven feels significant to me.

Not because I suddenly feel old, but because I can feel myself changing in quieter, more permanent ways. My priorities are changing. The way I spend my time is changing. The things I tolerate emotionally are changing. Even the way I define happiness feels different now than it did a few years ago.

What I want from life has become less performative and more personal.

Less about proving something.
More about building something that genuinely feels good to live inside of. That shift feels subtle from the outside, but internally, it feels enormous.

Part of me still feels nervous about time. I don’t think that feeling disappears overnight. But another part of me feels curious about who I’ll become over the next few years if I stop approaching life with so much pressure attached to every step.

Maybe getting older is not about having everything figured out. It’s about becoming someone who knows how to stay present while life continues unfolding around them.

Love,

Jenn 🩷

So much of who I became was built around pressure I never consciously agreed to carry.

Not because my family demanded perfection from me in some harsh or obvious way, but because sacrifice was always present. You grow up aware of it. Aware of how much your parents gave up to build a life here. Aware that opportunities came attached to effort, struggle, and responsibility.

And when you grow up with that awareness, achievement stops feeling personal very quickly. It becomes emotional currency.

Every good grade, every accomplishment, every career move starts to feel tied to something bigger than you. You’re not just succeeding for yourself—you’re trying to make the sacrifices worth it. Trying to become the kind of person your parents dreamed about when they came to this country.

There’s pride in that, of course. Deep pride. But there’s also pressure.

I think first-generation children, especially daughters, learn very early how to become high-functioning versions of themselves. Responsible. Adaptable. Independent. You learn how to carry things quietly.

And culturally, there’s often this expectation to always be moving forward. “Sigue adelante.” “Haz algo de ti.”

Rest is rarely framed as something valuable. Stability is.

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I don’t think my family intentionally taught me to associate exhaustion with worth, but somehow I still learned it. I learned to feel uncomfortable when I wasn’t being productive. I learned to measure periods of rest against what I “should” be doing instead.

Even now, after accomplishing things I once prayed for, there are moments where I still feel behind.

I graduated from New York University with my master’s degree. I transitioned from teaching into tech. On paper, those are the kinds of accomplishments younger versions of me thought would finally make me feel settled.

But being first-generation teaches you that once you reach one goal, another immediately replaces it. There’s always another level of success to unlock. Another milestone to reach. Another way to prove you’re doing well.

And I think that’s why so many first-generation women struggle to feel fully present in their own lives. We become so focused on building a future that we don’t know how to exist in the present without feeling guilty.

Especially as a Dominican woman, there’s another layer to all of this: presentation.

We are expected to hold themselves together no matter what is happening internally. Hair done. Nails done. Looking presentable. Looking polished. Looking like life is under control.

There’s almost this silent understanding that even if life feels chaotic, you should never let it fully show.

And honestly, I carried that mentality for a long time. The idea that strength meant handling things quietly. That being emotional made you weak. That struggling should remain private until you’ve already figured out how to overcome it. Though, the older I get, the more I realize how exhausting it is to constantly perform resilience.

I think many immigrant daughters inherit survival modes from women who never had the luxury of slowing down long enough to ask themselves what they actually needed emotionally. Our mothers and grandmothers often did what they had to do. They endured. They adapted. They kept going.

And because of that, many of us grew up believing survival itself was the goal. Lately, I’ve been questioning that.

I don’t want my entire life to revolve around proving I can endure difficult things. I don’t want success to come at the expense of peace. I don’t want to spend my life constantly chasing the next achievement without allowing myself to enjoy what I’ve already built.

I’m learning that there’s a difference between honoring my family’s sacrifices and emotionally imprisoning myself inside of them.

I can be grateful for where I come from without believing I have to constantly overwork myself to deserve it.

I can want softness without feeling weak.
I can rest without feeling lazy.
I can choose fulfillment alongside stability.

And honestly, that mindset shift has been difficult.

Because when survival is what shaped your family, peace can almost feel unfamiliar. Sometimes I still catch myself waiting for something to go wrong the moment life starts feeling good. Sometimes I still feel guilt when I slow down too much.

I’m trying to build a different relationship with success now.

One that includes rest. Presence. Joy. Community. A version of ambition that doesn’t require me to abandon myself in the process.

I don’t think our parents came here just so we could survive more aesthetically. I think they came here so that eventually, someone in the family could learn that life is allowed to be more than survival alone.

It ends with me.

Besos,

Jenn 🩷

And maybe that says a lot about me.

What keeps pulling me back to the show isn’t the relationships, though people love debating Lawrence like he’s a city council issue. It’s the evolution. It’s watching a woman in her 30s realize that self-discovery doesn’t stop just because society decided your twenties were supposed to be your “figuring it out” years.

Somewhere along the way, we were sold this idea that adulthood comes with a finished blueprint. By 25, you should know your career path. By 30, you should have emotional maturity, financial discipline, a skincare routine that actually works, and probably a person to split rent and Sunday errands with.

Meanwhile, most of us are just trying to answer emails, survive the group chat, and remember why we walked into the kitchen. O sea, estamos improvisando with confidence.

Issa Dee felt real because she wasn’t polished. She was still trying things on: jobs, friendships, apartments, boundaries, confidence, versions of herself. She made mistakes. She doubled back. She outgrew things she thought would last forever. She was still becoming.

And honestly, that’s what made her feel familiar. She wasn’t behind. She was living.

That’s my hot-take: we need to stop treating self-discovery like it has an expiration date.

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People talk about “glow-ups” like growth is supposed to be quick, visible, and aesthetically pleasing. But real transformation usually looks like confusion. It looks like quitting something that no longer fits. It looks like grieving a version of yourself that survived but never really felt fulfilled.

Sometimes it looks like starting over for the third time and pretending that doesn’t humble you. That kind of growth doesn’t photograph well, but it matters.

What I loved most about Issa was her willingness to be uncomfortable. She let herself be bad at things (Chileee, I can learn from her). She left what was familiar. She risked embarrassment. She made choices that didn’t always make sense to everyone else, but they made sense for the person she was trying to become.

That takes real courage.

Reinvention sounds exciting until it asks you to release people, habits, and versions of yourself that no longer fit. Until it requires honesty. Until you realize that some of the things you were praised for were actually just survival skills.

Nobody warns you that becoming yourself can feel like losing yourself first.

We love celebrating success stories, but we rarely talk about the middle, that strange season where your old life no longer fits, but your new one hasn’t fully arrived. It’s awkward. It’s uncertain. It doesn’t look impressive from the outside.

But that middle matters.

That’s where clarity happens. That’s where confidence gets built. That’s where you learn if you actually trust yourself.

I think that’s why Insecure remains my comfort show. It reminds me that there is no ceiling, no invisible deadline, no universal timeline handing out gold stars for who figured life out first.

As someone who still wrestles with anxiety and intrusive thoughts, I know how easy it is to stay attached to predictability, even when it’s making you miserable. The unknown can feel like danger. Starting over can feel like proof that you got it wrong the first time.

Therapy has been helping me challenge that. It’s been teaching me to stop seeing uncertainty as punishment and start seeing it as possibility.

What if the delay wasn’t denial?

What if the discomfort is actually growth?

What if God is saying, mija, relax… I’m not finished yet.

That perspective shifts everything because it reminds you that becoming isn’t a one-time event. You do not arrive at some magical point where you suddenly have every answer and never question yourself again. Growth keeps asking new things from you. Life keeps introducing new versions of you.

And honestly, I think that deserves way more celebration than perfection ever will.

Besos,

Jenn 💌

P.S: If you love Insecure just as much as I do, please reach out with your hot takes because I gain a different pov after every watch!

It meant holding everything together, even when things felt like they were falling apart internally. It meant being the one people could rely on, the one who could handle difficult situations without needing much in return. It meant pushing through, staying composed, and not allowing myself to fall apart too visibly.

And for a while, that version of strength worked. It got me through situations I didn’t know how to navigate any other way.

But over time, I started to realize that kind of strength came at a cost.

Because endurance, when it becomes your default, can start to look like self-abandonment. You become so used to holding everything that you forget what it feels like to be held. You become so focused on managing what could go wrong that you rarely allow yourself to consider what could actually go right.

That shift didn’t happen all at once.

Even now, I still find myself navigating anxiety and intrusive thoughts, those quiet but persistent “what ifs” that try to pull me back into old patterns of thinking. The kind that make you question things that are going well. The kind that prepare you for outcomes that haven’t happened.

For a long time, I thought the goal was to get rid of those thoughts entirely, but through therapy, I’ve learned something different.

The goal isn’t to eliminate them. It’s to change how I respond to them.

To pause.
To question them.
To remind myself that not every thought deserves belief.

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And more importantly, to create space for a different perspective:

What if things work out?
What if this is safe?
What if I don’t need to anticipate the worst to protect myself?

That has been one of the hardest shifts for me, learning to loosen my grip on control and allow myself to experience life without constantly preparing for its disruption.

But it also keeps you from fully experiencing what’s in front of you.

What I’m learning now is that there is just as much, if not more, possibility in what could go right.

That doesn’t mean ignoring reality or pretending everything will always work out perfectly. It means allowing yourself to consider that good outcomes are just as valid as negative ones. That life isn’t only something to brace yourself for. It’s something you’re allowed to move through with a sense of openness.

“There’s so much more to gain than there is to lose.”

That thought has started to ground me in moments where my instinct is to retreat.

It reminds me that connection, opportunity, and growth all require some level of vulnerability. That choosing to show up, to trust, to try even when there’s uncertainty is what allows life to expand. And that’s where my understanding of strength has changed.

Strength is no longer about how much I can hold or how well I can hold everything together.

It’s about discernment.
It’s about knowing when to stay and when to walk away.
It’s about allowing myself to be supported, not just relied on.
It’s about choosing peace, even when chaos feels more familiar.

Softness, in that way, is not the opposite of strength. It’s a result of it.

It’s what becomes available to you when you no longer feel the need to prove how much you can endure. It’s the space you create when you stop equating struggle with worth.

I don’t want to be strong in a way that requires me to constantly sacrifice myself. I don’t want to live in a way that feels like I’m always preparing for something to go wrong.

I want to trust what’s in front of me.
I want to experience things as they are, not as I fear they could become.
I want to allow myself to receive support, care, consistency without questioning whether I deserve it.

And I’m still learning how to do that.

Some days it comes naturally. Other days, it takes more intention. But the difference now is that I recognize it as a practice, not a destination. A way of moving through life that feels more aligned with who I am becoming.

Because strength, to me now, isn’t about how much I can carry. It’s about how gently I can hold my life without feeling like I have to brace for it.

Kisses,

Jenn 🩷

Not always through a dramatic ending or a clear conversation, but often in quieter ways. A shift in energy. Less communication. A growing distance that neither person fully names. And before you realize it, something that once felt constant no longer exists in the same way.

What makes friendship breakups particularly difficult is that they rarely come with the same language or validation as romantic ones. There’s no defined script for how to process them, no clear permission to grieve. You’re expected to move on without acknowledging how much that person may have meant to you.

But the truth is, some friendships hold entire versions of who you were at a certain point in your life. They witnessed your growth in real time. They were there for the in-between moments, the ones that don’t always make it into the highlight reel.

So when those friendships end, it’s not just about losing the person. It’s about losing the version of yourself that existed alongside them.

I’ve experienced that kind of loss in different ways. Some friendships faded naturally as life moved in different directions. Others ended more abruptly, leaving me with questions I didn’t always get answers to. And for a while, I struggled with what to do with that.

There’s a tendency, after experiencing disappointment in friendships, to become more guarded. To keep people at a distance. To convince yourself that it’s easier and safer to rely only on yourself. But over time, I’ve realized that protecting yourself by avoiding connection isn’t the same as actually being at peace.

We’re not meant to do life alone. Community plays a significant role in how we experience the world, and friendships, especially between women, offer a kind of support that is difficult to replicate elsewhere. There’s something grounding about having people who understand you without needing a full explanation, who can sit with you in both the ordinary and the significant moments of life.

At the same time, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we define friendship as adults.

Lately, I’ve noticed how often people describe themselves as “low maintenance friends.” It’s almost framed as something ideal: easy, independent, no pressure. And for a while, I thought I aligned with that. I’ve never needed to talk to my friends every day. That’s never been my version of closeness.

But the more I’ve paid attention, the more I’ve started to question what “low maintenance” actually looks like in practice. Because sometimes, it feels less like ease and more like absence. Like an unspoken permission to not check in, to not show up, to let time pass without intention and still call it connection.

And I’ve realized, that doesn’t work for me.

I might not need constant communication, but I do need consistency. I want to hear from you. I want to spend time with you. Even if it’s just once a month, even if it’s a quick check-in in between everything else life demands, I value presence.

So maybe I’m not a low maintenance friend. Maybe I’m someone who believes that relationships require maintenance in order to exist. And that shift has changed the way I approach connection.

Not every friendship is meant to last forever. That’s something I’ve had to come to terms with. Sometimes people are part of your life for a specific season, and as you grow, your paths no longer align in the same way. That doesn’t mean the friendship wasn’t meaningful. It doesn’t take away from what you shared. It simply means that not everything is meant to continue in the same form indefinitely.

Understanding that has shifted the way I approach relationships. I’ve become less focused on permanence and more focused on presence. Less concerned with how long something will last and more appreciative of what it is while it exists.

Still, choosing to open yourself up to new or evolving friendships after experiencing loss requires intention. It means allowing yourself to be seen again, even when you know what it feels like to be misunderstood or let down. It means trusting that there are people who will meet you where you are now, not where you used to be.

I’m still learning how to navigate that balance.

To acknowledge the friendships I’ve outgrown without minimizing their impact.
To miss people without feeling like I need to return to what no longer fits.
To remain open to connection without ignoring what I’ve learned.

And through all of that, I’ve realized something simple but important:

Even after disappointment, connection is still worth pursuing. Not in the same way. Not without boundaries. But with a clearer understanding of what I need, what I offer, and what I’m no longer willing to accept.

Because the goal isn’t to avoid being hurt. It’s to build relationships that are aligned, reciprocal, and able to grow with you.

And that only happens if you’re willing to keep choosing people.

Besos,

Jenn 🩷

It shows up in comments during family gatherings like, “¿Y el novio?” (“Where’s the boyfriend?”), “¿El anillo para cuando?” (When are you getting engaged?), or “¿Y qué más?” (“What else do you plan on doing?”). Questions that sound harmless, but carry weight. And somewhere along the way, you realize you’ve been measuring your life against milestones you never consciously chose for yourself.

Engagements.
Offer letters.
Apartment keys.
Announcements that read like proof that everyone else is “on track.”

And even when you are genuinely happy for people — when there’s no jealousy, no bitterness—there’s still a faint feeling that lingers.

A subtle question: Am I behind?

It’s not loud. It doesn’t take over the room.
But it sits with you.

Because the truth is, many of us were raised to believe that by this point, we would have it together. That there was a timeline. A sequence. A right way to arrive into adulthood.

But what I’m starting to understand is this:
those rules were never universal. They were inherited.

And inheritance does not always mean alignment.

There’s a difference between something being delayed and something being misaligned. And when you begin to separate the two, everything starts to shift.

Because maybe you’re not behind.
Maybe you’re building something that requires more time.

Maybe your life isn’t unfolding in the expected order because it was never meant to.

There is a kind of voiceless confidence that comes from trusting that your season is arriving, even if you can’t see it yet. Not in a forced, overly positive way. Not in a “everything happens for a reason” kind of way.

But in a grounded understanding that your life is not on pause.

It is in progress.

And progress doesn’t always look like milestones you can post.

Sometimes it looks like:

• choosing rest when you used to choose burnout

• walking away from things that almost fit

• rebuilding your sense of self without an audience

• learning how to be alone without feeling incomplete

These are not delays.
These are foundations.

We don’t discuss enough about how much courage it takes to exist in the in-between. The space where nothing looks finalized yet. Where your life doesn’t have a clear headline.

But that space is not empty.
It’s formative. It’s where you get to ask yourself questions you might not have considered if everything had worked out sooner.

What do I actually want?
What kind of life feels like MINE?
What am I no longer willing to settle for just because it’s “time”?

It’s choosing not to rush into things just to feel caught up.
It’s allowing my life to unfold in a way that feels sustainable, not just impressive.
It’s understanding that timing is not something to control, but something to collaborate with.

Because what’s meant for you will not require you to become unrecognizable just to reach it. And maybe the most radical thing you can do in your late twenties is this:

To believe that your life is working out, even when it doesn’t yet look the way you imagined.

To celebrate others without questioning your own worth.
To hold space for desire without turning it into pressure.
To trust that what is taking time is also taking shape.

Your season is not late.
It’s arriving.

And when it does, it will make sense. Not because it followed the rules, but because it followed you.

Besos,

Jenn 🩷

When I first started my writing page, I had just entered my twenties, freshly out of my first relationship that left me feeling both lost and afraid of myself in ways I didn’t yet have language for. Writing became the place I went to make sense of it. Not after the fact, but in real time. Mid-feeling. Mid-grief.

What began as an outlet for heartbreak slowly unraveled into something deeper. In tracing the outline of that relationship, I found myself mapping things I hadn’t named before: childhood wounds, patterns I inherited, the quiet ways I had learned to abandon myself long before anyone else did.

I wrote through it. Honestly, sometimes too honestly.

And in that honesty, something unexpected happened: people stayed.
Not just as readers, but as witnesses. As mirrors. As community.

What started as a page became something softer, fuller…something that felt like family. People shared their own stories. They told me my words helped them connect dots they didn’t know were connected. At one point, I even began selling pieces of my writing, framed fragments of a life I was still learning how to live.

For a while, I became known, both to others and to myself, as someone who was healing.

And then, quietly, something shifted.

Because what happens when you’re no longer in the thick of healing that part of your life? What happens when the wound that once defined you no longer aches the same way?

You start to live.

That’s exactly what I did.

I started dating again. Some experiences softer than others, some that taught me more than I wanted to learn. I went out more. I partied, sometimes harder than I should have, testing the edges of this new freedom I didn’t quite know how to hold. I made new friends. I graduated with my master’s from New York University. I pivoted careers, from teaching into education technology, building a life that looked nothing like the one I once thought I was limited to.

From the outside, it looked like growth. Expansion. Movement.

And it was.

But there’s a part of the story we don’t talk about enough.

Because healing, in many ways, had become an identity. It gave me structure. It gave me language. It gave me a sense of purpose. There was clarity in being able to say: I am working through something.

Living is different.

Living asks you to show up without that same script.
It asks you to be present without constantly narrating your pain.
It asks you to experience joy without immediately questioning its permanence.

And for me, that was unfamiliar territory.

There were moments I mistook chaos for excitement. Moments I confused emotional intensity with connection. Moments where I almost recreated the very environments I had worked so hard to heal from; not because I wanted to suffer again, but because some part of me still recognized that rhythm as home.

No one really prepares you for that part.

The part where you have to learn that peace can feel quiet without meaning it’s empty.
The part where you have to let good things exist without interrogating them.
The part where you realize that you are no longer surviving and that, in itself, can feel disorienting.

It’s about allowing yourself to evolve beyond the versions of you that were built in response to pain.

It’s about trusting that you can exist in something softer—and stay.

I don’t think I came back to this space because I’m broken again.
I think I came back because I finally have the capacity to reflect on what it means to live after survival.

To write, not just from the wound, but from the scar.
Not just from the unraveling, but from the reconstruction.

Because the truth is, starting over isn’t a single moment.
It’s a practice.

It’s choosing, again and again, to meet yourself where you are now. Not where you once were.

And maybe that’s the real art of it.

Not the beginning itself
but the willingness to return to yourself,
as many times as it takes.

While it’s been some time since I’ve publicly shared my writing, this feels like a return back home to myself, this time with tenderness and grace. I’m coming back with the wisdom I’ve gathered throughout my 20s as I enter my later 20s this upcoming May (ah!!!). Also a Taurus, if anyone cares.

A little about me: soy Dominicana, born and raised in New York City — big uptown! You might hear a little Spanglish from me here and there because, well… ya tú sabes.

On any given day you can probably find me deep inside a book (with a Kindle permanently living in my purse), at the gym quietly hoping my form is correct, curating the perfect playlist to listen to while I do my makeup, yapping to anyone who will listen on hot takes, or wandering around the city searching for something a little whimsical to do — whether that’s with friends or by myself.

I’m creating this space for the girls in their 20s, but especially for those of us on the later side of them. Because something shifts around 27. Some call it a Saturn return. Others say it’s when adulthood and responsibility start to feel real. For me, it’s looked like a series of honest self check-ins; questioning how I show up for myself, reflecting on the relationships in my life, and even redefining what it truly means to be a friend.

I’m looking forward to connecting con las girlies here and to read the work others are sharing.

I’m excited to return but this time, softly.

See you next week Monday at 9am?

Besos,
Jenn ♡