Struggle & Perseverance: A Personal Update

When I was in my early twenties, I was diagnosed with endometriosis during a laparoscopic surgery. When I was in my early thirties, I was diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder. I spent much of this time being a guinea pig, trying out medicines, diets, supplements. You name it, I’ve done it. In my mid thirties, I went through a wellness journey and an awakening in many ways. I was avidly doing yoga and got my yoga teacher certification. I was doing a lot of energy work and got my Reiki certification. I started strength training and ate very intentionally with my health in mind. I even started up my own business to do healing sessions on others. Fear prevented me from continuing. I didn’t have the confidence to really put myself out there to make my business work, so I folded. This was a hard lesson for me. 

I got a job in the real world instead. I burnt out very quickly. Quit. Wrote my first novel. Healed my past in many ways I didn’t know I needed. Then I went back to that job part time. I was a good worker, a high performance employee that was appreciated by my patients. I helped a lot of people with their eyes & brains. I helped children with learning difficulties do better in school. I helped stroke patients, post eye surgery patients, strabismus patients, patients with concussions. I made lifelong friends, and while I was doing all of this, I was also writing two more books and taking care of my children and working through grief. Somewhere along the way, (probably around the time my brother died) I stopped working on myself. My ambition to do well in life, to succeed in writing, to help improve people's lives at my work, to be a good mother and wife, made me hit a wall. Ambition became my curse.

Last October I was telling one of my coworkers that I felt the time at my job was needing to come to an end soon. I had a date in mind and I didn’t tell anyone. I trusted the universe to do its thing if I needed a different direction in my life. During the winter, my symptoms got worse and the perimenopausal symptoms I had also been experiencing over the last couple years had also been wreaking havoc on me. My body was changing. I was struggling. My hours at work, along with my fellow employees, started to get cut. I stressed about money, and yet I dreaded going into that job on the days I did work. I loved my patients but the environment I was working in was less than ideal. I went from working three days a week to two days a week. By April, I started getting concerned about the schedule. It was not looking good. Business was down and we were all paying the price. My patients were graduating, which was amazing, but new patients weren’t being put into our schedules. There were some other shenanigans with upper management and new employees that I won’t get into, not to mention I hadn't had a raise for two years, but the problems at work that all of the staff had been very verbal about, were coming to a head. An amicable termination. My contract didn’t have a minimum number of hours that needed to be provided to me, so I basically asked to be let go if they couldn’t provide it. May 2026. The four year anniversary of my start at the company. The month I was relieved of my job. The date I had kept in my mind from last fall. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be there any more. So did the universe.

Work politics aside, I’m grateful for everything that job gave me. I’m also really grateful it’s over. My health has been in shambles for months. I have had some very bad PMDD episodes that have made me question if I should be admitting myself in a hospital (I worked through it). My pain has been worse and my sleep has been non-existent. I’m tired in every part of me, but my soul most of all. 

HOWEVER, this entire year has made me realize that my wellness journey was put on hold a long time ago and that my body is dealing with the consequences of that. I lost so much of who I was by putting so much pressure on my ambition. I refuse to become a victim. I refuse to have my diagnosis be my story or dictate how I live my life. I want to say “I used to have” not “I have.” I believe the mind is a powerful thing and it has the power to heal, but I’ve been slacking on mine. So I decided after turning 39 this month that it was time to make a change. I started a new diet that helps with both low histamine in the body and is anti-inflammatory. I’ve got back into my yoga routine and have forced myself to be more active than usual outside of the house. I’ve been using my mini apothecary for medicine. I’ve been meditating, which has felt so good to get back to. I’ve also been doing some energy work and I forgot how much I loved it. I feel little bits of myself coming back and I know it’s going to take some time but I’m determined to find myself again. 

My husband insisted I don’t rush back into another job and I’m grateful for his support because right now, I get to focus on healing. I know that’s a privilege. I’m still doing all the mom stuff and cooking and cleaning, the appointments, bills etc, but I’m finding my grounding in that too. Hanging my laundry outside in the sun while walking barefoot on the grass. Making my own cleaning products. Letting myself catch up on sleep when I’ve had a rough night from night sweats and nightmares or bouts of insomnia. I’m cooking clean, proper meals every day. I’m writing and editing, but finding balance with it rather than overwhelm with my own due dates. I’m aligning with the moon and my cycle. I’m trying to love myself, even as broken as I feel some days. Because it’s not my forever story. I know that I’m in the in-between before my next stage of life. I know it’s a blessing to get to have this time. It’s also terribly uncomfortable. I’m sitting in that discomfort. I’m still having bad days, but I know next month I’m going to have more good days and that’s enough to keep me going. 

So this is my life right now. I’m grieving for the old me that no longer exists. I know that things fall apart before the next great thing begins. I know my expectations for myself need to change. I’m still ambitious but I’m trying to remember why I started this all to begin with. 

I know I haven’t been as present on social media. I think many authors get sucked into the pressure of performing and needing the likes for validation. I’m working on that too. 

My new book comes out in November. I’ve given myself more time to work on this one. It’s also very different in a lot of ways. I would categorize it as speculative fiction with romance. My books have all represented the part of life I was in when I wrote them. This new book is a new awakening and I’m incredibly proud of it. Someone asked me recently if I put myself into my characters, and I do believe little fragments of my life do go into both the characters and the plot, good and bad. I’ve also realized that I don’t fit into the same box I tried to put myself in with my first release. I’m not just a dark romance author. My books don’t follow the rules. I create them myself, and it has been so freeing to allow myself to do that with this new book. I’m evolving and so is my writing. 

So what’s it about? A girl. A woman. Events that destroy her. A community that tries to re-build her. And a handsome spirit guide who signed up and got more than he bargained for. It has elements of reincarnation, near death experiences and is based on an experience I had in my real life. I’ve cried so much writing it. I have been told it’s the best thing I have written to date. I have also had to do this on an extremely low budget having to ask loved ones to beta read, help me edit, (thank you husband, Mom, and friends) and I’ve done all the formatting myself. I also have a tentative book cover in the works that I will be releasing in August. I’ve left everything else in my life up to the divine. I trust I’m going where I need to.

Thank you for the love & support. 

-A