35…

The holidays are supposed to be bright. Loud. Full of warmth and momentum.
They’re meant to be a pause that feels celebratory rather than heavy.

This year, they weren’t.

Instead, they arrived quietly—carrying hospital stays, unanswered questions, and the slow, creeping uncertainty of what comes next.

Over the past few months, my body has been asking for my attention in ways I could no longer ignore. Symptoms that were easy to brush off at first became impossible to work around. Fatigue that sleep doesn’t touch. Pain that doesn’t care about deadlines or bills. Dizziness that makes even standing still feel like a risk.

Through the holidays, I kept trying to push forward anyway—because that’s what we’re taught to do. Power through. Be grateful. Keep moving.

But bodies keep score, whether we’re ready to listen or not.

I’ve been diagnosed with Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension, a condition that has led to more hospital stays and a growing rotation of specialist visits. It’s forced me to confront the reality that willpower alone isn’t a treatment plan.

At the same time, my mother has been slipping further away.

There is a particular kind of grief that comes with losing someone slowly. Not all at once. Not with a clean line between before and after—but in fragments. In moments where you realize a version of them you loved has already left the room, even though they’re still sitting right there. Each conversation carries the quiet weight of knowing it will never happen the same way again.

The holidays amplified that truth. Traditions felt fragile. Time felt borrowed. Joy still existed, but it lived alongside anticipatory grief—and neither canceled the other out.

And now, layered on top of all of this, I’m turning 35 in a week.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what birthdays mean when life feels uncertain. Thirty-five doesn’t feel old—but it doesn’t feel young in the way it once did, either. It feels like a threshold. A moment where you start taking inventory not just of what you’ve accomplished, but of what you’re willing to carry forward.

This year, that inventory looks different.

I don’t want to measure my worth by how much I can endure anymore.
I don’t want productivity to be the price of my health.
I don’t want to keep postponing rest until things are “better.”

Bluebonnet Books was built on the belief that stories—and the people who tell them—deserve care. That belief doesn’t stop with authors. It has to include the humans behind the work, too. Including me.

So as 2025 transitions into 2026, I’m learning to give myself grace in the space where grief and gratitude coexist. Where ambition softens into intention. Where healing isn’t linear, and strength doesn’t always look like pushing through.

If you’re walking through something similar—quietly, imperfectly, doing the best you can—please know you’re not alone. There is no moral victory in burning yourself out for the sake of appearing “fine.” Rest is not failure. Slowing down is not quitting.

As I step into 35, I’m choosing to slow down. I’m choosing gentleness. I’m choosing to keep building Bluebonnet Books in a way that honors sustainability—of stories, of communities, and of lives.