06/17/2026
I’ve been reminded lately that joy and grief can exist in the same breath. ✨
Lately, I haven’t been feeling my best 😢. Then I lost my beautiful soul dog, Rambo, far too early to an aggressive cancer. He had just turned 5 💔. Not long after, my own health flare hit even harder.
But somehow, woven through all of the hard, there have been beautiful moments too.
This June, I signed up to walk for cancer research with Yogi in Rambo’s memory and have already surpassed my fundraising goal. I’m incredibly proud of that.
I’ve been forced to slow down. To sit with grief, pain, uncertainty, and keep moving forward anyway. To keep searching for the beauty in this world. And my gosh, there is so much magic in everyday life when we pause long enough to notice it.
Life gets tough sometimes, and it’s okay to let it soften us. To let it slow us down. To remind us that every single day is a gift.
I turned 40 this week. Forty.
It may not have looked the way I imagined. I thought I’d be stepping into this new decade feeling my strongest. But the universe had different plans.
Instead, it’s brought me back to meditation, breath, gentle movement, reading more, taking photos, writing, and being fully present. It’s reminded me that every small step counts, and sometimes the most important thing we can do is adjust our sails and keep going.
And while we can’t always choose what happens to us, we can choose how we meet each day. We can choose to keep going. To keep looking for beauty. To celebrate the small wins. To let ourselves feel it all and still remain open to joy.
And that is absolutely beautiful. That is strength.
So maybe I did turn 40 at my strongest after all… because strength doesn’t always look the way we expect it to.
Because as my oldest tattoo says:
“Let the joy scream across the pain.”
And that’s exactly what I’m choosing to do.
