Soft Life, Hard Lessons: The Ghost of 22

The Evergreen Echo

For 22 years, I held my breath just to keep the floorboards from shaking. But I’ve learned that real love never asks you to shrink. It asks for your nakedness—the raw, unpolished truth of who you are; because you can’t be fake and be free.

I look at the photo of her often. She’s 22, draped in white lace and "forever" promises. She wasn’t looking for a project or a possession; she was just a girl awakened by affection and a shared faith, thinking that would be enough to build a life. But looking back at the combination of 22 years across my first and second marriages, I have to ask the woman I used to be the questions I was too afraid to breathe back then.

I lived those two decades in just two breaths—one at the beginning, and one at the end. I never told myself I could just breathe. I never let myself find my rhythm. I was too busy checking the walls for cracks. Where was my safety? It certainly wasn't in the houses I built for men who didn't know how to keep me warm.

The "I Told You So" Trap

People ask why I stayed 14 years in that first chapter. The truth is, I was stuck at "I told you so." Everyone told me he was too old—nearly twice my age—and that he was a thief who stole my youth. I stayed because I couldn't bear the weight of hearing the voices say I was wrong. I chose the slow theft of my spirit over the temporary sting of public judgment.

It wasn't until my life was threatened that I found the boldness to move. I learned that staying isn't succeeding if you are being annihilated in the process. It is always, always okay to leave a table where love is no longer being served—even if you’re the one who set the place.

The Bankruptcy of the Soul

When I started coaching and met my first client in New Orleans, the light started to flicker back on. I wanted to travel. I wanted to expand. But I was met with jealousy instead of joy. "You aren't going anywhere," I was told. At that moment, I realized I was bankrupting my own joy to keep someone else’s account full. I was a high-caliber woman on the inside, tired of hiding from my true self just to appease a man who was intimidated by my reach. I was holding my breath so the house wouldn't shake, never realizing that a house that shakes because of my success is a house that deserves to fall—and fall hard!

The Evergreen Echo

The Dawn of the Upgrade

If I could go back to 2016, to the 37-year-old woman who had just walked away from a 14-year marriage, I would hold her hands and pray for her strength. She thought she was finally crossing the finish line. She thought the hard part was over. If I could tell her that her next seven years would end in personal annihilation at 46—that it would terminate in a default divorce and a hidden betrayal—she would be devastated. She’d look at me with tears in her eyes and ask, "How could I lose again? I did the work! I healed! I waited!"

But here is the truth I’ve finally found: Real love doesn't require you to shrink and hide; it requires you to expose your nakedness. You can’t be fake and be free. I spent 22 years holding my breath, but today, I am finally learning to find my rhythm. I am ascending to a love that doesn't just allow me to breathe—it breathes with me.

I am no longer a project or a possession. I am a woman who values her future way more than her past, walking into a dawn that was 20 years in the making. And babyyyyy, for the first time in my life, the air is sweet.

The Sweetness of the Exhale

Twenty-two years is a long time to hold your breath, but the exhale is where the music begins and the authentic you emerges. I am no longer interested in the jump scares of the past or the men who want a merry-go-round experience with me—mentally, physically, or sexually. If you are looking for quick thrills, dopamine hits, or a woman to soothe you until you finally figure life out, I am not the one. My days of being a placeholder are over.

I am building a life on a 9.5 foundation where the air is sweet and the love is real. If you are a high-caliber woman tired of shrinking to fit into spaces that weren’t built for your size, come find your rhythm with me. 

Let’s stop being fake and start being free.