An Author’s Note

I am a mother first—a fierce advocate for my two teenage daughters. When my identity had been completely stripped away, being their mother was the one part of myself I still knew. I poured my entire heart into them, every single day.

Eventually, I learned that love alone is not always enough to protect the people we love—and that merely surviving is not the same as actually living. Through the innate instinct to protect my daughters from the chaos and abuse I had endured for more than a decade, I began to find myself again. I found my voice.

I became a warrior. A sponge for knowledge. A lover of nature. A writer. A memoir author. And, somewhere along the way, I finally began truly living—fighting my own way out of the fog that had consumed my life for far too long and into a life filled with clarity, light, peace, and love.

At this stage in my life, I prefer the company of animals to most people. With my loyal rescue dog, I always know what to expect. I find peace at the shoreline, walking with her at low tide, out in the open air where the world feels quiet and simple.

I am also a firm believer that music heals. When the chaos of life becomes relentless, I turn to Pandora, blindly choose one of my perfectly curated stations, and take the first song as the universe speaking to me—reminding me that the chaos will settle and calmer moments are somewhere on the horizon.

These days, I find my greatest comfort in writing. Putting my story into words has become its own kind of therapy—a way to make sense of what happened, preserve what mattered, and recognize the strength that was within me all along.