Into the Deep: Why now? Why me?

I’ve never been great at small talk.
After spending years immersed in the deepest parts of people’s lives, the surface level has always felt… hollow. I don’t do shallow well, and I’ve finally stopped apologizing for that.

I’ve had the honor, and the heartbreak, of working in spaces that reveal both the ugliest parts of life and the quiet strength it takes to survive them. I listened to the stories of parents of murdered children, and I carried those stories into my own early years of motherhood, where the weight of their grief made me hold my babies tighter.

In addiction counseling, I heard women talk about what it took to claw their way back from rock bottom. ​​Each story full of unimaginable pain and tragedy: childhood abuse, trafficking, domestic violence, sexual assault, sometimes at the hands of the police sworn to protect them. Survival, in its rawest form.

I’ve led trauma groups and heard the kinds of confessions people bury deep, whispered between sobs or deflected beneath sarcasm. I’ve heard stories people didn’t think they’d ever speak out loud. I’ve held hands in ERs as a rape crisis advocate, and walked beside women in the immediate aftermath of the worst thing that ever happened to them.

Even when I pivoted into health coaching, looking for something “lighter, “ the stories followed me. My work has always drifted toward the emotional undercurrent. Grief wrapped in disordered eating. Loss buried beneath shame. Trauma numbed with food and quiet smiles. The body remembers, even when the mind tries to move on.

Some of these people I only knew for an hour. Others, for years. By witnessing their darkest moments and listening to their deepest pain, they reminded me of this truth: most people aren’t looking for a fix.

They’re looking for someone who won’t flinch.

I don’t mind being that person.
So I guess This Part is a homecoming.

I’ve never been here to stay on the surface.

Which made it all the more disorienting when my own life cracked wide open, and so few knew how to meet me in the dark.

Loss after loss kept coming. Funerals and farewells for people we loved. Then, a sudden layoff, my job gone in an instant. Before we could catch our breath, the next blow landed: My husband was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.

And just as we were learning to live with that new reality, I had to face my own cancer risk after an abnormal mammogram and a visit to the genetic counselor.
The choice was clear:
Wait and watch, or take action.

I chose a double mastectomy and reconstruction because I refused to wait for my next crisis to arrive.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I snapped.
Because I realized: I’m not built for pretending.
I can’t smile through devastation. I can’t package trauma into something comfortable and palatable.

And honestly? I don’t want to.

The world expects us to keep performing through pain.
To downplay it, shrink it, wrap it up in “at leasts” and “it could be worses.”
But I’ve lived long enough to know: naming what hurts is part of how we heal.

So that’s what This Part is.
It’s what I needed and couldn’t find.
A place to tell the truth, even when it’s messy.
Especially when it’s messy.

This isn’t about being strong. It’s about being real.
And if that speaks to you… you’re probably one of us.