There was a time when I thought healing meant getting back to who I was before.
Before the things that changed me.
Before the disappointments.
Before the losses.
Before certain people.
Before the versions of myself I had to leave behind.
I think a lot of us do that.
We look backward and imagine that somewhere back there was the person we were supposed to still be.
And maybe healing means finding her again.
But somewhere along the way, I realized that I wasn't trying to go backward anymore.
I was becoming someone new.
Not because I had forgotten who I was.
Because I had finally started to understand her.
There are pieces of us that don't survive everything.
Some versions of ourselves have to end.
Some dreams change shape.
Some relationships change us.
Some memories become softer with time.
Some things we thought would last forever simply don't.
And for a long time, I thought those things disappearing meant I had lost pieces of myself.
But maybe that's not what happened.
Maybe some things were never meant to remain.
Maybe what remained was the part that was always mine.
The part that kept creating.
The part that kept loving.
The part that kept looking for beauty.
The part that still wanted to tell stories.
The part that, somehow, kept coming home to herself.
Me.
Not the woman I was before everything.
Not the woman I thought I was supposed to become.
The woman standing here now.
A little more weathered.
A little softer.
A little stronger.
Still carrying pieces of every version of myself I've ever been.
And finally understanding that I don't have to put myself back together exactly as I was.
I can become something else.
Something honest.
Something mine.
That's what I Am What Remains means to me.
It isn't a declaration of what survived because everything else was destroyed.
It's a declaration of what endured.
What stayed.
What was real enough to make it through every version of me.
And maybe that's what this collection has really been from the beginning.
A healing journey.
A coming home.
Not a return to who I used to be, but an acceptance of who I am now.
I am what remains.
And for the first time, I don't hear that as a sentence about what I've lost.
I hear it as a statement about what I've found.
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