I want to take a moment to be real with you, because I don’t think we say this part out loud enough: this was not the plan I had for my life. I thought I would be moving faster than this, doing more, building in a straight line. I didn’t imagine waking up and having to check in with my body before I even get out of bed, trying to figure out what kind of day I’m allowed to have. But this is where I am. And maybe this is where you are too.

For a long time, I told myself that if I just tried harder, pushed through better, ignored it a little more, things would eventually fall into place. That I could outwork it, out-discipline it, outthink it. And the truth is, I tried. I know you’ve tried too. But there comes a point where you realize this isn’t something you can negotiate away. It’s something you have to learn to live with, honestly, even when that honesty is uncomfortable.

For me, that reality has names. Fibromyalgia. Status migrainosus. Endometriosis. Ovarian cysts. Conditions I lived with for years without answers, without language, without anyone really connecting the dots. Just waking up every day in a body that felt…off. Heavy. Unpredictable. Sometimes painful in ways I couldn’t explain, even to myself. And for a long time, I thought it was something I was doing wrong—that maybe I just wasn’t managing my life well enough, pushing hard enough, being disciplined enough. It took time to understand that what I was feeling wasn’t failure. It was my body asking for something different, long before I knew how to listen.

So I built something instead. Not because it was easy, and not because I had extra energy lying around, but because I needed a way to support myself—as a woman, by myself—in a body that doesn’t always cooperate. And if I’m being honest, I also wanted to create something that could give back to a condition that affects so many women, and affects Black women even more, while still being overlooked or misunderstood in ways that can feel isolating.

I know what it feels like to be in pain and not look like it. To be trying and have it read as inconsistency. To be doing your best and still feel like it’s not enough. That quiet frustration, that second-guessing, that moment where you start turning it on yourself—I know that space. And if you’re in it, I want you to know you’re not the only one.

Everything here is connected to that reality. To the days that don’t go how you planned. To the version of you that still shows up anyway, even if it looks different than it used to. This isn’t about fixing anything or pretending it doesn’t hurt. It’s just something you can reach for, something that meets you where you are, on the days you don’t have the words or the energy to explain yourself.

And if nothing else, I hope this feels like a small reminder that you are still here, still trying, still building something out of a reality you didn’t choose. And that matters.