I woke up in the countryside this morning. Not “upstate” countryside. I mean the real thing. Quiet roads. Chickens. Cows. Endless green. The kind of silence that almost startles you

I had driven up to photograph a family at Bethel Creamery. Photography has been a huge part of my career for years now. Family sessions, brand shoots, building content systems for businesses that don’t have one. My work has taken me to some unexpected places. One of my siblings recently moved nearby, so naturally I figured: make a Shabbat out of it. I moved in for the weekend. And then I didn’t want to leave

.

Which surprised me. Because I don’t actually think I was longing for the countryside. I think I was longing for something much deeper.

I’ve always been searching. Searching for myself. Searching for meaning. Searching for love. That sorta stuff. I was the black sheep of the family. Not really, though. I just challenged the system early on. I asked questions. ALL. THE. DAMN. TIME. Nobody knew what to do with me. Sometimes I don’t know what to do with me.

For years, I think I approached healing with this quiet desperation to un-f** myself. Like there was something in there that, if I could just find it, understand it, name it, process it, reframe it, heal it, release it... I’d finally be free.

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Therapy? Shmerapy. I did the work. For more than ten years, I did the work. Every angle. Every shape. Childhood. Attachment. Relationships. Patterns. Triggers. Why did I do that? Why did they do that?

Why did that hurt? Why am I still like this?

And lately, just before my 36th birthday, some old things have been resurfacing. Which pissed me off. Because seriously? We’re still doing this sh* ? I thought we covered this already.

But before I tell you where I landed, I should probably tell you where I came from.

I grew up ultra-Orthodox. My family was a little niche, you could say. Orthodox with tiny windows into modern life. We listened to the radio. Read Reader’s Digest. Consumed little pieces of the outside world before consuming the outside world was really a thing.

There was a sacredness to that childhood I will never forget. There were also scars. Both are true. And I wouldn’t erase either one.

Growing up as an ultra-Orthodox girl in the ’90s meant there wasn’t a tremendous amount of room for self-expression. Curiosity could become rebellion very quickly. Free thought was wonderful as long as it eventually arrived at the approved answer. And I had a spirit as wild as Montana. You can imagine how

well that went.

My school was basically the ultra-Orthodox version of Gossip Girl. Ya heard that right. Different rules. Same hierarchy.

I was in a class of about thirty girls, in a grade with nine classes, and mine was ultra-bougie. Cliquey. Brands mattered. Family names mattered. Grades mattered. Pretty mattered. Who belonged to whom mattered. There were no drugs or boys or Upper East Side penthouses. But there was status. And belonging. And the very specific cruelty girls can inflict on each other without ever technically doing anything wrong.

Being loud, creative, opinionated, a Leo, a trendsetter before I knew what a trendsetter was, I wore my confidence well. Underneath it, though, I always felt like an outsider. I knew it through the tiny things. The sneaky remarks. The unconscious exclusions. The social language nobody ever explicitly teaches you but somehow everybody understands. I was Serena with Dan’s family. A no-name family in a community that very much understood names.

And then there was the faculty. I questioned too much. Pushed too much. Not because I was trying to be difficult. I genuinely wanted to know: Why? Why this? Why not that? Who decided? And what happens if I don’t agree? That last one, in particular, tends not to go over beautifully inside systems built on conformity.

There is one moment from high school that has stayed with me all these years. It wasn’t dramatic. Nobody screamed. Nobody hit me. Nothing happened that would make a particularly compelling trauma montage. I was just walking down a hallway.

It was sometime during my junior year, during a period break. This was the early 2000s. No phones. No lounges. No leaving the school building. So what exactly were a bunch of hormonal teenage girls supposed to do between classes? We wandered the hallways and gossiped. And while we wandered, they watched.

I remember what I was wearing. My favorite black Polo sweater. A thin, beige corduroy tiered skirt from Gap. It was the dead of winter, and my lips were perpetually red and chapped because I kept licking them so I wouldn’t feel the cracks. Funny, the details your body decides to keep.

One of the faculty members approached me. She wasn’t my homeroom teacher, but she vaguely knew who I was. She stopped me in the hallway and asked me in Yiddish: “Bistu fun undzere?” Are you from ours? and quickly followed with a “Du kikst ois vi a shiktsa.” Translation; You look secular.

Technically, she was asking whether I came from our community. But that isn’t what I heard. What I heard was: Do you belong to us?

I didn’t have language for what happened inside me then. I was a teenager. I didn’t know anything about nervous systems or attachment wounds or identity formation. I didn’t know the vocabulary I would later spend years learning. I just knew that somehow, standing there in my Polo sweater and Gap skirt with

my chapped winter lips, I had been identified correctly. I wasn’t entirely “from theirs.” Even when I desperately tried to be.

It’s strange how one ordinary sentence can follow you through a life. For years I thought I was looking for belonging. Looking back, I think I was looking for freedom. I just didn’t have that word yet.

Years later, I left.

Life happened. Marriage. Motherhood. Divorce. Career. Reinvention. Love. Heartbreak. More reinvention. And therapy. Lots and lots of therapy.

I learned the words. I learned how to trace a reaction backward. How to identify a pattern. How childhood enters adulthood wearing completely different clothes. How we choose people who touch familiar wounds. How shame works. How belonging works. How the nervous system remembers things the conscious mind has long since filed away.

And all of that mattered. It still matters. Therapy gave me language for things I had spent years experiencing without names. But I think somewhere along the way, healing quietly became another standard I could fail at.

Because every time an old wound resurfaced, some part of me thought: Why is this still here? Haven’t we dealt with this? Haven’t we healed this? Haven’t we talked about my mother enough? My childhood enough? My relationships enough? My worthiness enough?

How many times can one woman discover her inner child before the kid graduates college?

At some point, I had turned healing into another form of perfectionism. There was still a stain. And apparently it was my responsibility to get it out.

Recently, my mother and I had a long-overdue conversation on the phone. Two hours. My mom isn’t someone who speaks in healing language. She didn’t say, “Sara, I carry shame around how I mothered you.” She didn’t say, “I have guilt.” That isn’t how she talks.

But people tell you things without using the words you would use. They tell you in stories. In explanations. In the things they defend. In the details they suddenly need you to understand. In the moments when their voice changes. And somewhere during those two hours, I heard what was underneath hers.

Shame. Guilt.

For things she did. For things she didn’t do. For ways she mothered my sisters and me that she might do differently now. And something inside me shifted.

Because for years there had been a part of me standing on the other side of my childhood saying: You did this to us. Maybe not out loud. But somewhere inside me, absolutely. You did this. This piece is yours. This wound came from there.

And suddenly I could see something I couldn’t see when I was the child inside of it: My mother was a human being raising human beings. She was formed somewhere too. She inherited things too. She had limitations she didn’t have names for. She made mistakes. Some of them hurt us. And none of that stopped being true simply because I could suddenly see her humanity.

That was the part that surprised me. I didn’t have to absolve the past to stop prosecuting it. I could hold both. What hurt me. And the woman who hurt me. What I needed. And what she was capable of giving.

Maybe that is what adulthood eventually asks of us. Not to rewrite the story. To become large enough to hold the whole thing.

And then, not long after that conversation, I found myself sitting in the countryside. Quiet morning. Green grass. Roads leading seemingly nowhere. Farms. Trees. Open sky. And suddenly I was remembering.

Not the wounds. The summers. My parents packing eight kids into a one-and-a-half-bedroom bungalow. Fishing trips. Airplane shows. Sundays exploring. The sweet smell of summer in the country. Before I went off to sleepaway camp. Before life became more structured. Before I understood hierarchy or belonging or who was “ours” and who wasn’t.

There had been freedom here too.

That realization did something to me. Because I’ve spent so much of adulthood looking backward for the places that damaged me that sometimes I forget to look for what nourished me.

The same childhood can contain both. The same mother can contain both. The same community can contain both. I can contain both.

Maybe that’s what I had been missing. Sitting there in the grass, I realized: It’s okay to heal. And it’s okay not to heal every fucking thing.

It’s okay to become aware of something and still occasionally fall into it. It’s okay to understand why you are the way you are without dedicating the rest of your life to becoming someone who was never shaped by any of it.

Our brains are brilliant. They’re also weird little computers with minds of their own. Some things get rewired. Some things soften. Some disappear so quietly you don’t realize they’re gone until years later. And some things remain. A scar. A birthmark. A sensitivity. A place inside you that still occasionally whispers something you intellectually stopped believing years ago.

Maybe triumph isn’t expunging all of it. Maybe triumph is knowing it’s there and living anyway. Loving anyway. Trying anyway. Choosing differently when you can. Forgiving yourself when you don’t.

Maybe the goal was never to become the woman who would have been perfectly okay standing in that hallway.

Maybe that girl never needed to be fixed in the first place.

Maybe she needed to grow up. To leave. To question everything. To make some spectacular mistakes. To make some spectacular choices. To build a life. To become a mother herself. To look at her own mother differently. To come back to the countryside at almost 36 years old, sit her ass in the grass and finally realize:

I’m here now. I walk a divine path, and I AM OK.

Not because nothing can hurt me anymore. Not because I healed every wound. Not because therapy finally scrubbed me clean. But because my life no longer depends on becoming untouched by the life I've lived.

There is no spotless version of me waiting at the end of enough self-work. Thank God. What a boring woman she would be. and g-d made me this EXACT way with intention and purpose.

The scars are here. So are the gifts. The things my childhood took from me are here. So are the things it gave me. My mother's mistakes are here. So is her humanity. That girl in the hallway is here. So is the woman who no longer needs anyone to answer whether she belongs.

And perhaps that is the part nobody tells you when you begin healing: Eventually, you have to stop treating yourself like a problem you’re responsible for solving.

Therapy is wonderful. It can get that engine inside of you roaring back to life. It can wake up the rusty parts. Oil the parts that never moved properly. Give names to things you thought were simply defects in your character

Sometimes you actually, literally, and quite physically need to get outside—and touch some wild flipping grass.

The kids will be alright.

Xx, SaraB.

I didn’t write this right away. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I couldn’t tell if what I felt was clarity… or something far more dangerous dressed as it. Some stories don’t land if you tell them while you’re still inside them, and I was very much still inside this one. Still replaying moments in my body, still trying to understand whether what I experienced was real or just something that felt real enough to leave a mark.

What if I told you sex— is not intimacy at all?

What if I told you kissing, touching, all of it—can happen without intimacy ever entering the room? You’d probably think I’ve lost it. I thought I had too, for a minute. But stay with me, because this story is not what you think it is. It wasn’t for me either.

Before any of this, I was behind the camera. That was my place—observing, framing, capturing what looked like connection between two people and turning it into something, believable.

Romance always looks convincing from a distance. That’s the trick of it. You don’t see the gaps, you don’t feel the inconsistencies, you just see two people fitting into each other in a way that makes sense. A moment and a millisecond captured by click of a button—yet open to interpretation for a LIFETIME.

Yep, that’s me dear reader. But then one day, it stopped being something I was watching…

She brought him. An ex, I later learned. That part should have mattered more than it did. What mattered though, was the way he entered—quietly, without performance, and yet something in the room shifted. He wasn’t beautiful in the obvious way, but there was a presence about him that made you aware of your body without asking for permission. Tall, contained, almost deliberate in how little he gave away. And his eyes didn’t just look—they held. Long enough for you to realize you were being seen, and calculated enough to become unnerved. A realization that does something subtle to you before you even understand why.

I remember thinking, briefly, what it would feel like to be held by him. Not romantically. Not even consciously. Just something that passed through me like it didn’t need approval.

I ignored it.

Behind the camera, I watched him with her. He led her, held her, positioned her without asking, and it didn’t feel performative—it felt natural to him, like he didn’t have to think about how to be in his masculinity, he just was. And yet there was something underneath it that didn’t sit right. Something restrained, intense. Something that felt like it belonged someplace else.

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At some point, she faded. Physically and energetically. And I stepped forward.

We became friends. Real friends. No tension, no slow build, none of the things people love to romanticize after the fact. If anything, it felt clean. it was clean. We talked about everything—our kids, work, the people we were casually seeing. I told him things I didn’t think twice about. There was no charge. No pull. Nada.

Until there was.

It happened in a way that almost felt dismissible. A weekend away with friends, lots of people, kids running around, noise filling the space, the kind of moment where nothing significant is supposed to happen. I wasn’t thinking about him. And then he leaned over and kissed me, just like that. No buildup. No hesitation. And something in my body reacted before I had time to decide how I felt about it.

Immediately, he pulled back and said, “Don’t ask me to take you out… and don’t fall in love with me.” That should have been enough.

It wasn’t.

Because there’s something about being told what not to feel that makes your body question itself. Now it’s not just attraction. It’s tension. It’s seduction—It’s a challenge. It’s something you’re not supposed to want.

And that changes everything.

“And that changes everything.”

What followed wasn’t clean, and it definitely wasn’t consistent. He would pull me in, then remind me I wasn’t the only one. Say something meaningful like; “My kids asked about you…,” then say something that made it clear I didn’t matter. And I didn’t stay physically—I stayed in my mind, in the space between those moments, in the glimpses he allowed me to see when his guard dropped just enough for something real to surface.

The glimpses.

“Not him. The glimpses.”

I walked away. Completely. A full year, told myself he’s the villain in my story and to kick him to the curb—metaphorically of course. No contact, no access, no space for him to come back and disrupt whatever I had rebuilt. And then he came back. Of course he did. They always do…

I left a scarf at his place. Accidentally, I told myself. Though even then, I didn’t fully believe that.

It was December—the kind of cold that sharpens everything. The holiday season has a way of doing that too… softening people on the surface while stirring something deeper underneath. Emotions sit closer to the skin. You feel more. Or maybe you just justify the feelings and the holidays as one.

On a night like that, I drove back.

To pick up a scarf that could have stayed exactly where it was. Should have, probably. But something between us never stayed where it belonged. It hovered. It circled. It waited. It always built around tension like a moth to a flame—drawn, aware, almost embarrassed by its own predictability, and yet completely unable to stop—we kept finding our way back.

He opened the door, piercing blue gaze, and for a moment, everything stilled. Same eyes. Same presence. Same quiet weight he carried the first time I met him—except this time I didn’t pretend not to feel it. I let it register. Fully.

I stepped inside, and we did what people do when they’re pretending there isn’t something else happening underneath the surface—small talk, half-attention, a kind of distance that feels intentional enough to almost convince you it’s real.

It wasn’t.

Because I felt it before he moved. That shift.

That quiet decision.

The energy.

Him closing the distance. Not rushed. Not hesitated.

Certain.

KEEP READING FOR PART 2—Where I tell you what ACTUALLY happened next, and how that moment unraveled more than just the night.

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I woke up already drowning. Not dramatically. Not theatrically. Just that tight, metallic deeply aching feeling in the chest that makes you reach for something before you’ve even formed the thought. At 1:05AM the night before, I typed his name. Five years of up and down. Five years of almost. The kind of connection that rewires your nervous system and then disappears. I knew he wasn’t good for me. That wasn’t the crisis. The crisis was the silence. It was the kind that gets louder by the second and starts negotiating with ghosts.

I hit send. Two minutes later, I deleted it. Two minutes is enough time to undo months of growth. Two minutes is enough time to betray yourself. The screen went dark. “You didn’t come this far to come this far.” But this time it landed differently.

Because this wasn’t about him. It was about the ledge.

My friend once described spiraling as drowning while scanning the room for anything to grab. Not safety. Just interruption. He would have been interruption. Temporary relief. Outsourced steadiness. And somewhere between the deletion and the quiet, something sharper surfaced. We talk about legends like they were always destined for it, like they walked into history already crowned. But no one looks legendary in the middle of suffering. They look late. Rejected. Human.

And maybe that’s why that song keeps finding me lately. Legends never die. It plays on shuffle like it knows something I don’t…, like it understands the part no one sees. “They’re written down in eternity…” But what it doesn’t show you is the price. The scars collected quietly over years no one was clapping. The harm endured just to touch something that once felt impossible. It sounds dramatic in the car on my long drives to and from work, but It feels very different at 1:05AM, deleting a text in the dark and lonliness of the night when no one’s around.

Legend doesn’t feel like legend while you’re in it. It feels like restraint.

Rebbi Akiva wasn’t “great” when he started. Moses didn’t run toward leadership. They endured not because it was glamorous, but because it was necessary. And I started to wonder if legend has less to do with being seen and more to do with what you survive without losing yourself. Not in the spotlight. In the wilderness. In the suffering of the almost giving up.

Not too long ago, my son turned fifteen. We were in the Catskills. Snow everywhere. The kind that softens sound. We walked past the barn and he stopped to admire the horses. Magnificent, gentle giants as I’ve always called them. I stood beside his dad in the hush of winter snow and, for once, breathed easy.

Fifteen years. Courtrooms. Silence. Pride. Growth. Collapse. Rebuilding.

And here we were!

No tension in the air. No unfinished sentence hanging between us. Just our son — tall now, reaching out to touch something steady. Once a dream, now reality.

He will not remember the legal battles. He will remember the quiet, the steady. He will not remember who was right. He will remember who stayed.

And I keep thinking about that night. 1:05AM. How small it looked. Just a text. Just two minutes. And yet, two minutes can reroute a life. Two minutes can reopen a wound you spent years stitching closed. Two minutes can teach your nervous system that relief matters more than growth! Or, it can teach it something else. No one would have known if I sent it. No one would have applauded if I didn’t. But the version of me that walked through snow fifteen years later was built in moments like that. So when you are spiraling, oh and you will, don’t ask yourself if you’re strong. Ask yourself who you are rehearsing to become. Because the world may never write your name down. But someone is inheriting your patterns.

Maybe legends never die. Maybe they just keep choosing to live even when no one sees the cost.

What are you choosing right now?

Was I the villain here, or was he?

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He knew I was coming. He knew I was on my way into the city. And he let me walk into the lounge before telling me he was home.

Bryan, who I do know but had not spoken to in a while, texted about a group ski trip to Mountain Creek over MLK weekend. I said yes right away. I love skiing. I love speed. I love the tension of pushing myself past my own frustration and getting better on the other side of it.

Skiing gives me all of that.

I felt a little unsure since we had not been in touch recently, so I asked my sister to join. She loves skiing too. Done.

I tend to walk into things open. I am always curious who I might meet when I am not trying to meet anyone. I lead with my most vibrant, playful self. That part comes naturally.

We got to the condo around 2pm. A few guys and one girl were there, small talk floating around, energy a little sleepy. I tried to wake the room up a bit. Why are we not drinking, where is the hot tub, are we alive? Nothing really caught.

Then I noticed him.

Quiet. Sitting on the couch in ski coveralls and a plaid shirt. Slightly shy posture. Tousled hair falling forward in two imperfect strands. Not obvious cute. Different cute. The kind you double take at.

I registered it and moved on. I was too hungry and too eager to get on the slopes to chase introductions.

We skied. The day was great. I thanked Bryan. End scene.

Or so I thought.

About a week later I was at a laser appointment in the city with a new technician. We connected instantly. I connect easily. I have been told that my whole life.

What does a thirty something single woman end up talking about? Well duh, of course Dating.

She told me something that stuck. The person who is actually right for you might not be the one you would normally pick at first glance. It’s a game of numbers. Not new, but it landed that day.

So I went digging.

Yes, I am a huntress. In Hebrew we say choféret. A digger. I look. I search. Maybe not traditionally feminine, but when you have wanted to find your person for ten years, I think you earn the right to be proactive.

I scrolled my contacts, who did I overlook? Is there anyone that may be just out of my periphery but worth a shot?

Ski boy.

I found him in the group chat and checked the photo. My brain reacted fast. Not tall enough. Not fit enough. Not cute enough. Not attarctive enough. You can do better SaraB.

Then another voice answered back. If you are looking for a husband and not a highlight reel, widen the door.

Fine.

I sent the text.

“Hi, it’s SaraB from the ski trip. We didn’t really get to talk. I thought you were cute.”

Send.

The next two hours were mental gymnastics. Will he respond. Will I get rejected. I do not often make the first move anymore. Not because I cannot, but because I like a man who leads.

Oh He led.

and fast.

Calls. Directness. Momentum. No hesitation. The quiet ski guy was gone. This was force and drive. A charging bull.

I liked the energy more than I expected. I was meeting fire with fire. What can i say, i kinda like the game.

On our first real call he made a sarcastic jab about my personality. It landed wrong. I went quiet.

He noticed. “That didn’t land well, did it.” and then, “You’re salty, aren’t you.”

I stayed silent.

Then he said, “I’m not emotionally intelligent.”

I logged it.

Sarcasm that cuts is not charm. It is information.

Still, the banter between us was sharp and fast. Verbal ping pong. He turned out to be a lawyer, exactly what my mentor predicted from just his photo. Strong willed. Combative. Driven. Fire type.

We set a date. Drinks in Manhattan.

Morning of, 9am, he texts to confirm. It felt more like a client booking than a date, but I let it go.

My day exploded with work. My business is gaining momentum and that matters deeply to me right now. I am no longer willing to shrink my ambition to make early dating more comfortable. I find most men rarely do that for us, so should we?

By early evening I knew I was running behind. I texted ahead and communicated clearly that I would be late. I gave updates and rough timing. Transparency and effort.

Important detail. From about 6:30 to 8:00 pm he had a full window to cancel, reschedule, or state a boundary around punctuality. He did not. He could have said timing is very important to me. He could have said this does not work for me. He could have rescheduled. He did not. He had 2 hrs, and visible emoji frustration via text may i add, but in my innocence i assumed well, if i communicated and there is no response then we’re good?

I got ready anyway. I looked beautiful. I felt feminine and confident and open to the night.

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I drove into the city, music up, mood up. Parked, checked my lipsgloss one last time, walked into the lounge at 8:50 and texted him.

“I’m here.”

He replied, “Oh nice. I’m not. I’m home.”

Shock. Clean and physical.

“Are you standing me up?” I asked.

“LMFAO you’re an hour late and you didn’t tell me when you left.”

Anger and hurt took the wheel. I reminded him I had communicated I was running late, as well as clearly time stamped it by him and that he had time to cancel or reschedule if it did not work for him.

He started calling. I answered once and challenged him to come anyway. Power struggle entered fast. Then it clicked for me. He felt disrespected and chose punishment over communication. Lawyer moment much.

I ended the call. Later, I cried to a friend because it felt intentional. Not a misunderstanding. A decision.

And what hurt was not losing him, i hardly knew the guy. It was what it touched inside me.

My old insecurity around time. Time management shaped by childhood chaos. Years of work to repair it. Not perfect, but deeply improved. Something I actively communicate and work on every day.

Does struggling with something disqualify me from love?

Dating has a way of pressing directly on your oldest wounds.

The spiral tried to start. You are too messy. Too flawed. Too late. you should probably give up…

The next morning, over coffee, another voice showed up. Quieter, steadier.

You did not come this far to come this far.

He is part of the story, not the ending.

John Gottman says 69 percent of relationship conflicts are perpetual. You learn to live with each other’s imperfections, or you accept the mismatch. Maybe punctuality rigidity and time fluidity are one of those fault lines.

and yet, I am still here. Still growing. Still showing up. Imperfectly, but honestly.

So I will ask you again.

Was I the problem?

Most women think they lose men because they ask for too much.

In reality, they lose themselves because they step off the bridge too soon.

Love does not collapse from lack of chemistry.

It collapses when a woman abandons her position before a man has decided whether he is willing to meet her there.

I have always been a thinker. Thinking is not something I do occasionally. It is how I live. I hold conversations with the many selves inside my head, and eventually something coherent always emerges. This is one of those things.

I want to introduce a framework. Not a dating tip. Not a feeling. A theory. One you may not recognize immediately, but once you see it in real life, you will never unsee it again. As always, I will begin with a story, because stories are how truth enters the body.

A couple of weeks ago, I was introduced to someone. Yes, a man. It had been almost a year since I had dated in any meaningful way, and I said yes to what I assumed would be a simple coffee date. It turned into dinner. The details are sweet, but they are not the point.

What mattered was this. When you are deeply attuned to yourself, you can see through the masks people wear while still seeing their light. That night, I noticed both. I sensed potential and I clocked subtle red flags. Not loud ones. Quiet ones. Being that aware is not always a gift.

Ignorance can be bliss.

At the end of the date, something strange happened. As I looked at him, it felt as though a kind of spiritual fog appeared. As if we were standing on the same page, but in different dimensions of it. I could not quite name it. Later, I spoke with my mentor, a brilliant man, and he offered something that landed deeply.

Spirituality is not always clear when it first appears. Sometimes even spiritual paths arrive wrapped in chaos, confusion, and fog. Often, they draw in partners not to merge, but to create order.

That cracked something open for me.

Because if I am honest, I have always attracted deeply sensitive, spiritual men. Men who arrive with invisible manuals stamped across their foreheads that read decode me.

When a man meets you in his chaos, he is asking a question, whether consciously or not. Will you stay where you are? Or will you step down to meet me in the dark? Will you hold your position, or will you come dance in the shadows with me?

We are taught that women should never fall in love with a man’s potential. I want to disrupt that idea, not to romanticize struggle, but to redefine what potential actually means.

Women are not superior to men. Men are not inferior to women. Women are mirrors. Energetic mirrors.

We look a man directly in the eyes and reflect back not only who he is, but who he could become. The moment this clicked, my mentor said something that rang through me. It is as if you are the bridge between who they are and who they could be.

Women are the bridge to a man’s potential, not because we fix, save, or bend ourselves, but because we hold a steady reflection of what is possible.

When I looked into that man’s eyes, I saw three versions of him at once. The man he is now. The man he could become. And the man he might be ten years from now as a partner, a father, a builder of a life.

This is how women choose, whether we admit it or not.

We do not choose only based on height, profession, or present character. We ask quieter questions. Will you be a great father to our future children? Will you meet me in the chaos and beauty of building a home? Will you be my rock in hard seasons? Will you be gentle when I fall apart at the end of the month because my hormones are raging? Will you rise to meet each season of my life as the man that season requires?

Those are big shoes to fill. And that is precisely why women look for potential.

A good man is seasoned like wine. He grows into himself when he encounters a woman who refuses to bend her boundaries. A woman who holds her standards high and says, here— you can be this will you meet me here.

This is where the Bridge Theory of Love was born.

One morning at 6:45 am, while talking this through with my mentor and explaining the man I had gone on two dates with, he said something simple. The steadier your bridge the faster he will cross it.

So what is a steady bridge. Not coldness. Not emotional withdrawal. Not ruthlessness.

A steady bridge is a woman who knows who she is and who she is not willing to become in order to be chosen. She holds firm boundaries while offering a feminine mirror that says I believe in who you are and who you can be. She silently lets him know, she wants to see his success and be there to cheer him on for it.

Think of great bridges. The Brooklyn Bridge. The Verrazzano. The George Washington Bridge. Strong. Steady. Beautiful. Unshakable.

“That is the Bridge Theory of Love.”

When a woman becomes unshakable in her values, her boundaries, and her self concept, when she understands herself as the bridge to a man’s future potential, the right man will cross. Not because he is pushed convinced or chased, but because he can feel in his body that what awaits him on the other side is exactly what he wants.

A woman’s role is not to move the bridge. It is to steady it.

If your bridge is shaky how will it carry weight? How will it hold a crossing? How will it lead anywhere at all?

Women are nurturers by design. Daughters sisters mothers. We instinctively want to steady everyone around us. But here is the truth no one tells you.

You do not steady your bridge by stepping off it. You steady it by fortifying it’s foundation.

Only bridges built to carry great weight are tested. And the strongest bridges do not chase their passengers. They stand tall and let readiness reveal itself.

Be the bridge. Be unshakable. Do not adjust yourself for those who wish to cross. Only the right ones will.

And that is the Bridge Theory of Love.

.

SaraB · NHS — The SaraB Universe

LLL — Learning, Living & Longing

Trigger Warning: If emotional content is difficult for you or tends to trigger you, please do not read further.

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My dear reader…

How do you learn to live with longing?

Not the sweet kind. Not the poetic ache people glamorize. I mean the kind that rises from your belly, catches in your throat, and demands honesty you may not feel ready to give.

I’m still learning how to live with it.

So instead of a tidy answer, I offer you my story. Because sometimes the story is the answer.

THE BEGINNING: CHAOS BEFORE WOMANHOOD

I’ve been labeled “too intense” more times than I can count. It’s a convenient way for others to shelve what they don’t understand.

But if you’re going to understand what I am about to share, we need to start at the beginning.

In my previous piece, Intimacy of One,

I mentioned that my life is “just me” right now. That wasn’t the full truth.

I have a fourteen-year-old son. A whole universe in human form.

And if you keep reading my work, you’ll see my story in chapters — pieces spread across time.

But emotional intelligence and awareness or attunement was not something I always had. I had to grow into it, painfully and slowly.

I’m one of eleven children. I grew up before I ever understood girlhood.

At nineteen, I was married. At twenty, pregnant. Before twenty-one, divorced.

While others spent their twenties discovering themselves, partying, or building stable lives, mine was pure chaos — not exploration, not discovery, but survival.

The only things that kept me grounded were an older brother who protected me fiercely, and a child who needed me even when I had nothing steady to offer.

(II) MOTHERHOOD: THE PART NO ONE TALKS ABOUT

Motherhood is romanticized endlessly on the internet, and in some ways it should be! But that wasn’t always my truth. And while today It fulfills me deeply, infinitely,

When you are unhealed, your body has no room for peace. Bringing a child into that state magnifies the internal chaos.

I carried shame for years. I wasn’t present in the way a child needs. I wasn’t emotionally steady or spiritually anchored.

Rebuilding my relationship with my son — and his father — took years, humility, and truth. Out of respect for him, the details will remain unwritten for now.

What matters is this:

Parents pass down emotional and psychological DNA. Healing yourself is part of protecting your children.

A few nights ago, I dropped my son at his dorm. Two friends ran to greet him with open arms. He kissed me goodnight five times, and say ‘ I love you’ another three…

On the drive home, tears filled my eyes. We have come so far from the years marked by:

- distance - anxiety - instability - the shadows of my unhealed past reflected in his eyes

And yet, here we are. Healing is slow. But it is real.

Read more

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The real art everyone forgot.

How do we foster intimacy with others if we can’t show up for ourselves in the only way that truly matters?

1:30 AM. Rockland County, NY.

It’s a Monday night. The kind where the rain feels personal, like the sky is processing something too.

Mine is the last car in the parking lot. It usually is.

I pack up my equipment, tossing lenses and lights into the trunk of my SUV — the car I call my wings.

Because it’s the first thing that ever made me feel free. Not teenage rebellion free… but adult free. I

built this. I chose this. I get to go where I want. Free.

Tonight, as I pull out of the dimly lit venue lot, a flickering lightbulb hums overhead, casting an amber

ripple across a layer of rain-pressed leaves. They look surrendered. Soft. Like something about the

world is pausing.

I drive off, the last car to leave. Again. Always.

After COVID I rebuilt myself. I picked up the camera like it was a lifeline and somehow it became the

thing that saved me. I started off small — studio gigs, event gigs, anything.

Now it’s turned into more than a portfolio. More than a hustle. A purpose. A map. A mirror.

Some nights I adore what I do. Some nights I want to run screaming into a forest

because people can be… a lot.

But mostly, it’s given me freedom. Direction. A life I wasn’t even sure I could imagine.

Tonight though, something inside me is shifting.

I hit the Palisades. A Tucker Wetmore track — one of my “obsessively on repeat” songs — comes on.

Volume up. Speed up. Windows down.

The cold air slaps me awake, and suddenly it hits me with a force I don’t expect: I’m driving home to me. Just me.

I’m in my 30s, single, independent, tethered to no one but myself. My life. My rules. My freedom. My sanctuary.

On paper, to some people, I’m the blueprint:

“She comes and goes as she pleases.” “She answers to no one.”

“She’s unstoppable.”

They don’t see the nights where freedom feels like a room with too much space.

They don’t hear the

parts of silence that echo too loudly.

I call my sister — my late-night drive-home soul twin, my mirror, my chaos companion, my emergency

contact for literally everything. Our relationship is raw and unfiltered and sometimes toxic, but also holy.

We hold each other through everything.

She answers — of course she does — and we talk until the call drops and I’m alone again with the

road.

That’s when the ache slips in.

How long will I come home to no one?

How long will the quiet feel bigger than the space it fills? Where is the “I’m glad you’re home safe” warmth?

The tea-in-hand tenderness?

The arms that say, stay, I missed you?

I’m seconds from spiraling into a pity party when another voice — my wiser voice

— cuts in:

Sara… there will be a day you look back at this exact moment and ache for it.

You’ll remember this highway. This song. This night. This version of you, heart in hand, windows down,

cold slicing through your thoughts.

These are the nights that shaped you. These are the nights you held yourself when no one else could.

These are the nights you learned the texture of your own soul.

One day, someone will hold you in ways you’ve never been held — knowing your tiny quirks:

How you tilt your head when you’re listening.

How you dance in the kitchen when you think you’re alone. How you leave mugs everywhere.

How you make the bed with your signature little stamp.

But intimacy with another can only be as deep as your intimacy with yourself. And the truth is brutal:

“If you don’t know how to be intimate with yourself, you will starve in every

relationship you touch.”

Most people want connection without ever learning self-connection. They want depth without knowing

their own deep end. They want to be chosen without choosing themselves first.

Do you look in the mirror and say “I love you”? Do you comfort yourself when someone rejects you? Do

you celebrate your quirks, your rhythm, your private beauty? Your reflection is the first lover you must learn to meet.

Do you praise her? Do you comfort her? Do you admire her? Or do you abandon her?

Because the world will not applaud you if you refuse to applaud yourself.

I think about all the days I’ve stared at myself — exhausted, undone — and whispered:

Damn, this bitch came far. No one saved me but me. No one sat with me in the trenches but me. No

one helped me rise but me.

That is intimacy. Not romance. Not sex. Not validation. Intimacy is the journey inward.

The world sells intimacy like a performance. But intimacy is noticing yourself in the quiet moments, the

unseen moments, the ones where no one is watching.

It’s the In-to-me-you-see… But first: In-to-me-I-see.

Abraham with his kindness. Yitzchak with his strength. Jacob with his integration

— light and shadow woven into one soul.

Jacob became the father of the tribes because he mastered his inner world before stepping into his

outer mission.

That’s Tiferet. Beauty born from truth. Beauty born from integration. Beauty that begins within.

“You cannot crave to be seen by people if you do not see yourself.

And you cannot see yourself if you do not see God.”

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Intimacy begins with you.

But it also begins with the One who created you.

Where does self-connection even come from? Have you ever really asked yourself that? Yes, we all

know the biological answer. Your parents, genetics, the usual script. But when you look in the mirror

and see the freckles scattered across your cheek or the tiny mole behind your ear you never chose, do

you wonder? Do you ever pause and think about who was the master behind those details?

You cannot have intimacy with yourself if you do not have intimacy with your Creator. Period.

And here is the truth. I did not write this paragraph in the first draft. I added it only after telling my mom

about the article, and she gently reminded me that intimacy is the connection you foster with God. The

Lord. The Source. Your Creator. Love me or hate me for saying it. Feel nothing or feel everything. This

is the truth. The only truth. Most people do not want to acknowledge that there is a God in this world.

And I will be honest. I was not always a believer either. I knew there was something higher, but I had no

real faith. I did not believe that God orchestrated the smallest details of my life just to shift me into

alignment.

But that is intimacy. When you step into the world and recognize the buzz of a bee or the scent rising

from a rose and ask yourself, Who designed this? Who engineered this level of precision, beauty,

meaning? Science? So you are telling me the entire universe arranged itself perfectly and accidentally?

You would have to twist yourself into a pretzel to believe that. You would have to stack theories on top

of theories on top of theories instead of simply seeing what is obvious. There is a Grand Master behind

it all.

Take this or leave it. But when you begin to cultivate a deep and honest relationship with your Creator,

when you wake up and understand that He is the only One who can move your life forward, you begin

seeing yourself differently without even trying. You look into your own eyes and marvel at how

intentionally you were crafted. You recognize that the gifts inside you were placed there on purpose

and you begin to treat them with reverence.

That is intimacy.

You cannot crave to be seen by people if you do not see yourself. And you cannot see yourself if you do not see God. Period.

This is not about religion. This is about recognizing the One who made you, the One whose image you

were sculpted from, the One who knows what He wants for you. What that looks like is different for

everyone.

For me, I was coasting. I was lost. Searching. Seeking. Desperately hungry to find God in the eyes of

strangers. It was only when I looked inward that I found Him. Truly and deeply.

And the intimacy I built

with Him did not stay there. It reflected back into me.

Now I can walk into the world and truly see people.

Is that not the whole point of being human? To see one another with clarity and depth?

But you cannot go there until you are willing to go within.

Go inward. Find yourself in the quiet. Discover the intimacy that starts with you.

And speaking of intimacy… there’s a story I have to tell. About a man. About what he awakened in me.

And why it wasn’t what you think. Stay with me

AN UNRAVELING STORY IS COMING…, and its NOT what you think.

NHS — BUniverse

The Diagnosis

I’m pretty sure whoever created that revolving door of abbreviations on the DSM — the chart that classifies every corner of human complexity — forgot one.

Escapism.

Or maybe we should start calling it ESCPM.

Isn’t it time?

Or are we sti

ll waiting for someone in a white coat to prove it’s a real disorder before we admit how many of us are living with it?

I’m no scientist, no guru. I didn’t pull this from a podcast or textbook.

But I pay attention. I read — obsessively. I’ve built an informal PhD out of human patterns. And I’ve lived enough to recognize that the art of running away should probably have its own diagnostic code.

The Baggage Claim

November 2019. JFK.

Suitcase in one hand. Jacket in the other.

A credit card that wasn’t mine. A passport that still felt foreign.

I’d just landed from London — separated, not yet divorced, hovering somewhere between leaving and being left.

I wish I could say it felt good to be home. It didn’t.

It burned — like a thousand tiny lighters fighting for one last puff. I sat in baggage claim waiting for… no one.

No smile past the exit doors, no hug, no quiet “Here, let me take that for you.”

Just me, surrounded by movement.

Picture it:

A time-lapse where you’re frozen in the middle, head in your hands, and the world keeps spinning in fast-forward around you.

That moment marked me.

It will always be the intersection — the end and the beginning.

Everyone loves to quote, “Every dark night is followed by a bright morning,” but what if your night lasts years?

Little did I know the world was about to shut down for COVID, but I was already quarantined in my own heartbreak — bargaining with God to swallow me whole.

And when you’re in a tunnel, that’s all you see — your tunnel. Hence, tunnel vision.

Mine had no exit sign.

The Illusion

Flash back: summer 2016.

I’d fallen for a British man.

Charming, worldly, magnetic. He proposed on a private boat in front of the Statue of Liberty. Pear-shaped diamond. The city skyline behind us.

It felt like destiny wrapped in a movie scene.

Everyone thought I was living the dream. I thought so too.

But I wasn’t in love — I was attaching.

Attaching to wounds that mirrored mine, hoping they’d complete me. That was wave one of escapism.

When he invited me to London, it felt like the next chapter of a fairy tale.

I signed up without reading the fine print — the one that warned: Fantasy may expire without notice.

Because I wasn’t saying yes to him, I was saying yes to escape.

Mrs. Paislyn

Long before London, before the ring, before the heartbreak — there was Mrs. Paislyn. She was seven.

We lived in a two-bedroom apartment— during that time.

The neighbors had a bigger one, with kids my age, and every day after school I’d vanish next door.

My father, the OG storyteller in the family, started calling me Mrs. Paislyn — half joke, half nickname for a girl who always wanted to be somewhere else.

That name stuck for years. SHE— was my first alter-ego.

Even as a kid, I was rehearsing escape — running errands for my mom just to stay out, creating alternate homes out of borrowed moments.

Looking back now, I know exactly what that was:

A body that couldn’t rest in its own skin. A child who mistook motion for safety.

That’s where the habit began. Escaping became my mother tongue.

London, or The Quiet Undoing

Sunday morning. London.

Gray light, overcast sky.

I’d just left the gym, sweat cooling on my skin, adrenaline still humming through my veins. Something told me to go home — to reach for him one last time before he left for work.

We’d started a staging business together, but lately, we were staging our lives. Pretending. Avoiding. He’d begun sleeping later, speaking less.

His silence was a wall I kept throwing myself against.

When I walked in, he was still in bed.

For a moment, I thought I struck gold — that if I could just hold him, we’d remember who we were.

“Why can’t you just be with me?” I asked. Silence.

“What is it that bothers you about me?” More silence.

“Why can’t we try to have kids together?” Nothing.

I was begging for connection, and he was building an empire of distance.

“L,” I said softly, “five years from now, we have two kids, our business is thriving, we’re traveling — we’re that couple. It’s worth it. Can you see it? Can’t you feel it?”

He turned his head.

Those green eyes I once drowned in met mine — steady, empty, DEAD.

For a second, I thought he saw it too.

Then he reached for his phone, opened YouTube, and pressed play.

A random viral clip.

A crowd cheering. Music rising. Anything but us.

I froze.

It was as if I’d never existed.

He wasn’t evil. I never thought he was, just broken.

And I was addicted to fixing broken things.

The Baggage Claim, Revisited Fast-forward. JFK. Queens. 9 p.m. Suitcase in hand.

Everything gone.

I was twenty-nine and separated — not divorced yet, but no longer married in any way that mattered. No home. No plan. No one waiting at arrivals.

I sat there, head down, watching people reunite —

arms around necks, laughter echoing through automatic doors. And I thought, what did I do to deserve this kind of loneliness?

Where are the people who were supposed to love me?

Where is my husband?

My family?

Who even knows I’m sitting here?

They knew.

He knew.

They just didn’t come.

The air felt heavy with absence. That kind of loneliness marks you.

It burrows in, carves its initials into your ribs.

But in the silence, something stirred — the faintest sound of myself, breathing,

as if a small, steady voice whispered, this isn’t the end.

The Brother and the Light

My little brother showed up eventually. Of course he did.

He’s always been too sensitive for this world —

one of those souls wired to help others even when he’s running on empty.

He pulled up in his beat-up Nissan, the bumper plastered with stickers that made no sense but somehow did.

He opened the trunk before I could say a word.

We drove in silence.

No questions. No music. Just road.

When we reached our childhood home, he parked, turned on the dome light, and looked at me. “Sara,” he said quietly, “what’s your plan?”

“I have no plan,” I whispered.

He didn’t flinch.

He just nodded, like he already knew.

“Then here’s what you’re going to do. Take two months. Grieve. Stay in bed, cry, eat junk food, whatever. But after two months, you get the f*** up. You go to therapy. You start again. Because

this—him—this is not your story. It’s part of it. But it’s not your story.”

The Awakening

I didn’t know it then, but that was the night the real story began. The night I stopped outsourcing my happiness.

The night I stopped running.

Escapism had been my native language my passport to false safety, my drug of choice. But healing, it turned out, spoke softly in return.

And as I sat in that car, mascara streaked, bones heavy with exhaustion, I felt the faintest pulse of something holy:

A beginning.

A heartbeat.

The first breath of a woman returning to herself.

✦ An NHS Story | Part of the BUniverse ✦

—> THE PLOT THICKENS BEHIND THE PAYWALL, UPGRADE TO KEEP READING. PT. 2 OF THE STORY!

It was the summer after Covid. Actually, post-Covid — the season everyone was itching to mate, date, and conjugate. Camping had become the new rave in my community. A random WhatsApp group invited me to a potluck weekend — BYOB, tents, chaos. I was twenty-nine, freshly divorced, living back in my childhood home — facing all the unfinished business I’d tried to outrun. I wasn’t ready to face my unraveling, so unraveling became my new identity. So one hazy Friday afternoon, I showed up at this giant campground with a guy friend and a half-baked desire to feel alive. And then he showed up. We were both August babies — Leos. Fire meeting fire. I’m not an astrology diehard, but even I knew this combo meant combustion. We weren’t destined to be a fairytale; we were destined to burn. He wasn’t the flowers-and-romance type. He was odd in the most magnetic way — lived by his own rules, did life on his terms, and owned it. He was the human embodiment of IDGAF, and that was exactly what I craved.

Campfire Spark

It was Shabbat afternoon. I was half reading in my tent, half plotting an escape to flirt. The guys in my group weren’t cutting it, and the campground was crawling with new possibilities. I wandered out and joined a conversation around a picnic table — another Sarah (with an “h”) was mid-debate, and the energy was high. I wasn’t shy that day; I was ready to be seen. I thrived on attention — male validation, if we’re being real. Then I saw him: black high-tops, buzz cut, wife-beater, piercing blue eyes. The kind that hold you hostage. Dangerous. The kind you know will ruin your life, but you walk right into the fire anyway. Between bathroom lines and the September air, the spark was undeniable. We knew the chemistry could burn us — but we let it. There was only one problem: Rule number one — I couldn’t marry a Cohen. We were doomed from the start. I didn’t care. I never followed rules anyway.

Crash Course in Connection

He was the first man after my divorce who impacted me deeply — the first who didn’t flinch at my broken pieces. He taught me to drive — literally. My left hand on the wheel smooth confidence? That’s him, taking me down the Garden State. When I got stuck on the road, he showed up. When I needed escape from home, his place became my hideout. His roommates stopped questioning why I was always there. Looking back, it was strange — like I’d turned into part of the furniture. But his presence helped me heal. He’d leave random Amazon packages for me — things he thought I’d need, without me ever asking. It wasn’t traditional romance. But it was connection — real, raw, lived-in. Modern psychology calls it breadcrumbing. I call it humanity. Because people don’t give you all of them in one day — they unfold, chapter by chapter. I hated how much I liked him. But I loved that I could be fully, messily myself — and he’d still answer the next text as if nothing happened. From him, I learned that not every situation needs a dramatic “conversation.” Sometimes you just Alt Delete and move on. Did I want more? Absolutely. I wanted to consume him whole. But he’d oscillate between “I want to see you successful someday” and “that girl over there is totally f***able.” Who says that? It was toxic at times

— magnetic but misaligned.

Something Else Entirely

People would call it a situationship. But it didn’t feel disposable. We kept finding our way back to each other — without labels, without promises, but with presence. He didn’t give me what I wanted. But he gave me what he could. Over time, we drifted. I wanted more; he couldn’t give it. Yet he never fully left my mind. When I finally asked why we couldn’t work, he said, “Sara, it’s too close to what I know. And I’m not sure that’s good for me.” I still don’t know what that means. Maybe he saw too much of himself in me. Maybe that scared him.

When Caring Is Love

I’ll never forget the morning I realized I loved him. It wasn’t fireworks. It was quiet. It was after two years of small moments, real life, late-night calls — when he texted, “I feel like a f***-up.” I knew he struggled with inadequacy. But he kept showing up — in small,

powerful ways.

“He didn’t need to say he cared; I felt it.”

And maybe that’s what love actually looks like — not the show, but the showing up. Men aren’t taught that enough: that caring isn’t weakness. Caring is love. He was there when my world collapsed. Didn’t interrogate or judge. Just existed beside me.

From Rubble to Road

After I turned thirty, I had to face everything I’d been running from. It was brutal — like clearing psychological rubble. You clean, you rebuild, you start from the ground up. By thirty-one, I was learning how to construct something real — something lasting. And then, funny enough, life circled back. Sometimes you meet again — both of you a little wiser, a little healed. The chemistry doesn’t vanish; it just hums differently. Because attraction doesn’t die unless it was fake to begin with. If it was real — if it lived in the gut — it remains. I met a woman once, in Cartagena, Colombia — sitting by an empty pool under the sun. She told me that the day her first husband was shot, she felt a sharp pain in her stomach and knew. Their marriage wasn’t perfect, she said. They fought, argued, disagreed. But they were tethered — two halves of the same soul. That, I realized, is love. Not the roses. Not the Instagram captions. The gut deep knowing.

Love Isn’t for Quitters

So how do we measure it? By the dinners? The birthdays? The grand gestures? Or by how we show up for each other in real life — over time, in the quiet, in the mess? With him, it was never about passion or performance. It was about what tethered us — the small knots that held, even when everything else unraveled. That’s the metric I live by now. If you keep finding your way back to someone — and every time it’s just a little more honest, a little more healed — that’s love. Not perfect love. Not movie love. Real love.

“Love isn’t for quitters.”

And maybe, just maybe, the boy who taught me to drive was never meant to stay — only to teach me how to move forward.

An NHS Story · A Sara B NYC Original

Part of the growing universe of stories by Sara B NYC

I. The Confession
People assume I’ve always been this way—warm, deep, emotionally aware, the “kind one.”
Cute. I wish. The truth? It took me YEARS to become this version of me. And I’m about to say
something most people would *never* admit out loud. I wasn’t always a kind person. I know.
Who even SAYS that?! Who puts that in a TITLE?! Apparently… me. But hear me
out—because this isn’t a confession. It’s a story. And my evolution over the past decade?
Nothing short of a miracle. Because kindness isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something
life *breaks* into you… and then *builds* back better. If you let it.

II. Radical Transparency
I promised myself that this next era of my life would be defined by radical transparency—the
kind that isn’t loud or messy, but honest. The kind that doesn’t perform vulnerability… it
embodies it. And no, that doesn’t mean oversharing for shock value. It means telling the truth
where it matters. Putting language to the things most people bury. Letting my stories do what
they were born to do: heal. Because storytelling isn’t a hobby for me. It’s in my blood. I come
from a lineage of voices and visions—of people who could turn a moment into a movie and a
memory into a universe. I write because it’s the only way I’ve ever been able to make sense of
this world… and my place in it. And I’ve learned something sacred: the right story, told at the
right time, has the power to save someone—to soften them—to wake them up—to remind
them they’re not alone. That’s why I created NHS. It’s still becoming… still unfolding. But at its
core, it’s a home for the most vulnerable parts of my life—and the lives of others—so they can
finally breathe out loud. But here—right here—this space… This is where the stories go that
need to be read in silence. The kind that slip past the mind and land directly in the heart. The
kind you feel before you ever understand. And that is why I’m willing to say things most people
won’t. Because if my truth can open a door for someone else, then every word is worth it.

III. Where I Come From
I grew up in the 90s, in Williamsburg—back when Williamsburg wasn’t cool or curated, just
real. Fourth of eleven kids, but the first daughter. Which in my world meant two things at once:
I was special… and I was responsible. There was pride in that role—attention, trust, little
privileges. But there was also something unspoken: Help. Handle. Hold it together. No one sat
me down and explained it. It was just… understood. In our house, things weren’t discussed,
they were assumed. Needs weren’t asked, they were absorbed. Emotions weren’t processed,
they were pushed aside. And yes—I was loved. Deeply. But I wasn’t always seen. Not for
what I felt. Not for what I needed. Not for the questions I carried in my head. I was a child who
required conversation to make sense of the world. I needed logic, emotional connection,
meaning. But life around me moved too fast for that, so I had to translate life on my own. And
when no one explained things to me… I started explaining them to myself. Through words.
Through imagination. Through stories. Looking back now, it all makes perfect sense. Of
course writing became my lifeline. Of course expression became my language. When you
grow up in responsibility, survival, and silent expectations… you learn to find clarity inside
your own head. That’s where the storyteller in me was born. Not on a stage. At the kitchen
table. In the chaos. Trying to understand life… before life swallowed me whole.

IV. The Mirror
We grew up in the same house, under the same roof, with the same parents and the same
chaos—and somehow, my sister and I learned to breathe completely different air. She came
into this world with both feet on the ground, like she already understood gravity. Orderly.
Focused. Steady from the moment she figured out what “first grade” meant. Loyal AF. Brilliant
without trying. Consistent to the point of predictable—but quirky in ways you’d never see
coming. Art in human form. Fashion, makeup, creativity… it just lived in her. Meanwhile, I was
over here building universes in my head and asking the sky for answers. She read fiction to
escape. I read philosophy and psychology to figure out why we’re even alive. She moved
through life with logic. I moved through life with passion, fire, and occasionally… delusion.
And because we were so different, we clashed. Constantly. I’d argue with her. Tease her. Roll
my eyes at her cynicism. I thought she was too harsh, too realistic, too unwilling to dream.
She thought I was floating in outer space with glitter in my hair and no plan. But here’s the plot
twist I didn’t see coming: The very parts of her I resisted… were the parts I NEEDED most.
Because my sister? She wasn’t just grounded—she was anchored. She didn’t just show
up—she stayed. Her loyalty was quiet but unshakeable. Her consistency was a love
language. Her honesty was brutal… but it was also pure. She refused to lie to make me
comfortable—and at the time, I didn’t recognize that as kindness. But now? I see it so clearly:
Her version of kindness was tougher, deeper, and more real than anything I understood back
then. She didn’t coddle me. She didn’t enable my fantasy when it was hurting me. She held up
a mirror and said, “Look.” And even when I pushed her away, she loved me anyway. I used to
think I was the soft one and she was the hard one. Turns out… we were both wrong. Because
underneath her realism is the kindest heart I know. And whether she meant to or not—she
was one of my greatest teachers of what real kindness looks like.

V. The Fire
I used to live in a world that didn’t exist yet—one I was determined to build with my bare
hands if I had to. Reality felt… too small. Too flat. Too logical. Too “this is just how things are.”
That wasn’t enough for me. I wanted magic. I wanted possibility. I wanted more. So I dreamed
in full-color scenes. I bent reality in my mind until it fit the shape of my vision. I believed
passion could fix anything. I believed love could save everyone. I believed if I wanted it badly
enough, it had to work. Call it delusional. Call it dramatic. But that dreamer in me? She was
pure life force. I chased intensity the way some people chase safety. I felt everything in
extremes—if I loved you, I loved you to the bone. If I believed in something, I would die on that
hill. If I set my sights on a goal, I wasn’t just going to achieve it—I was going to dominate it.
And somewhere along the way, without even realizing, I became obsessed with winning.
Winning what? I didn’t know. I just knew I had to prove something—maybe to the world,
maybe to myself. Maybe just to the silence I carried inside. On the outside? I looked confident.
Main character energy. Walked into rooms like I owned the script. People saw fire, power,
charisma. But on the inside? I was restless. Misunderstood. Lonely in rooms full of people.
And I was so sure I was invincible… until the day life proved I wasn’t. And here’s the wildest
part—For years, I looked back at that girl with shame. I thought she was reckless. Immature.
Too much. But now? Now I look back and I feel something completely different. Compassion.
Because she was doing the best she could with what she knew. She was just trying to survive
in a world that didn’t speak her language. Awe. Because that girl had power in her bones. She
was fire before she learned how to burn. She was magic before she knew how to ground it.
She was alive in a way most people never are. Pride. Because she walked through the
flames… and didn’t die. She crawled out of the wreckage and kept going. She refused to let
life turn her cold. And if you ask me now who I admire most? It’s her. The girl I used to be. The
one who felt EVERYTHING. The one who wouldn’t settle. The one who believed in a bigger
world… before she ever knew how to build it. She was the beginning of my becoming.

VI. The Unraveling
Life has a way of humbling you when you start believing your own mythology. It rarely
happens in one dramatic crash—it’s a slow unraveling. A mirror you didn’t ask for, held up at
just the right angle to show you the truth: you are the common denominator. That was the
hardest thing I had to face. That I wasn’t just living through stories—I was writing them, too.
And sometimes, I was casting myself in the wrong role. But here’s the thing about falling
apart: when everything breaks open, light gets in. And in that light, I started remembering. I
remembered my dad—the OG storyteller—sitting at the table, eyes alive, voice booming and
bending with every character. He never just told a story; he became it. He’d meow and roar
and whisper, and we’d sit there wide-eyed, laughing until tears streamed down our faces. My
favorite was always The Pine Gum Wolf. The story of the slick wolf who wanted to eat the little
drake but got tricked into licking pine gum instead. He got stuck—nose, paws, tail—and stood
there humiliated, pants falling, unable to move, while the little drake danced away laughing.
My dad would cackle like he’d never told it before, and we’d laugh right along with him. But
beneath the laughter was something deeper—a lesson I didn’t understand then: sometimes
you outsmart the world, and sometimes the world outsmarts you. And when it does, you have
to decide what kind of creature you’ll be next. Years later, when I found myself
stuck—emotionally, spiritually—I thought of that wolf. How foolish he must’ve felt, how small,
how human. And for the first time, I understood the story wasn’t about cleverness at all. It was
about humility. About what happens after you’re stuck. About how you choose to move once
you’re free. That’s where kindness was born for me. Not in triumph—but in that still, sticky
space where you finally see yourself for who you are. Where you realize that cleverness
saves you once, but kindness saves you for good.

VII. The Becoming
Because every one of us, at some point, becomes the Pine Gum Wolf. And when life glues
you to your own mess—you can curse the sap, or you can learn from it. You can fight it, or
you can soften. You can stay stuck, or you can choose to become kind. So tell me—when the
world sticks to you next, will you snarl… or will you evolve?

An NHS Story · A Sara B NYC Original
“Part of the growing universe of stories by Sara B NYC.”

Last month’s article kicked things off with a bang. I wrote the final version — the one that went live — on an airplane, flying home from a work trip for PB.

This piece is part story, part foreshadowing. So, let’s dive right in.

The way I think of the written word is something ethereal — part poetry, part story, part fantasy, part reality. It’s a collision of the mind, the heart, and the soul. It’s past and present, futuristic and nostalgic. A metropolis of ideas that interrupt what was and live on in infamy.

So, I often find myself wondering: how do stories come to be? Where do they get their roots? What makes one compelling and another forgettable?

In February of last year, I was visiting a friend for Shabbat — more of a strong acquaintance at the time. It was a cold winter morning, and as we sipped coffee, I found myself voicing the same question that had been nagging me: What’s next for SaraB.NYC?

Photography has been my life for as long as I can remember. Not just the six or seven professional years, but all the way back to school days with disposable cameras in hand. By high school, I was reloading Kodak film into a little Panasonic or Canon, snapping anything I could. I wasn’t thinking about dark rooms or technique — I just wanted to tell stories of what was happening around me.

But as much as photography gave me — freedom, cool experiences, autonomy — I couldn’t shake the thought: Was this really all I was meant to do?

So there I was, voicing it out loud. My philosophy has always been that when something lives only in your head, it stays stuck. Once you speak it, the energy releases, and often a solution follows.

My friend Elanit listened. Then she shared her own secret: she’d been quietly building a show for women in hair and beauty, called Femme. Her voice cracked as she admitted, “I’ve been working for my husband for years. I love him, but I hate the work. I need something that feels bigger than myself.”

In that moment, I understood her. And I asked the only question that felt right: “How can I get involved?”

That Shabbat conversation turned into a call the following week. Soon after, I was hired to run the social media for Femme.

Through the show, I experienced something I hadn’t before — lifting other women up, turning the spotlight on them, capturing their stories through my lens. It lit me up in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

And when the dust settled, a quiet voice I’d been silencing for years finally broke through: No more. It’s time to tell your own story — so others will feel permission to share theirs.

So here we are.

Without further ado, I welcome you to NHS. A podcast I’m hosting where you’ll hear my story from the very beginning.

All. Of. It.

It gets scandalous, juicy, salacious — all the right words for a girl (and now a woman) who’s lived a remarkable and sometimes tumultuous 35 years.

And just like before, the details, the clues, and the breadcrumbs will live here, inside this Substack.

Come along. Share this piece with a friend. Stay close. Because it’s about to get good.

— SaraB

A year ago, I thought I’d found my person. Today I’m owning every messy, beautiful part of my story — scandal, heartbreak, and all.

Welcome to the SaraB Universe. If you landed here, it’s no coincidence. This is my world, and I’m inviting you into it. Come along.

I’ve always been drawn to stories. From the fantasies I would conjure as a kid to the ones my dad used to tell me, my world has always been a blend of imagination and reality—reality fine-tuned to my palette.

Sometimes the lines get blurry. Everything in this world is stories, and everyone carries one. For me, story lives in the pen. It feels natural—it’s an expression of the heart and the soul. My mom would say it runs in our DNA. Maybe she’s right. My dad never went to college, but he’s a brilliant Torah scholar; when it comes to articulation, comprehension, and oration, he’s gifted beyond words. So I guess I inherited that gift.

But that’s not why we’re here.

Today marks the start of the Jewish new year: September 22 — Aleph Tishrei. A month ago it was my birthday. A year before that, things looked very different. I had just come out of a relationship that cost me so much grief I lost ten pounds. No, I’m not a victim — not anymore

— but it caught me off guard. I thought I had found my person. In some ways, maybe I had. In others, I hadn’t.

Sitting here a year later, reflecting on the whirlwind I’ve been through, I welcome the pain that brought me to this moment.

Where I own my story. All of it.

And trust me, dears — it’s juicy. It’s scandalous; it could read like a reality TV episode gone wrong. I may even be the villain in my own story. Villain — victim? They sound similar sometimes.

Anyway: I have some BIG news coming in the new year. I’m beyond ecstatic.

Before I announce it, I urge you to sign up for the newsletter — it’s completely free, by the way. This is where the clues to everything will live. Think of it as a metaverse of sorts, where the text is embedded with ideas, hints, and breadcrumbs to all things SaraB.NYC and everything I’m building next.

I’m ready. And I’m bringing it all, baby. Your first clue — NHS.

If you liked this piece, I’d so appreciate it if you shared it with a friend who loves to read or who likes solving little mysteries. Sign up, stay close, and let’s see where this story goes.

— SaraB

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