A weekly countdown to my MFA graduation at the end of May 2026 through life lessons and observations from the last nineteen months of study via Substack.
Dear World, We are allowed to change. Sincerely, Women Everywhere.
Original photo by James Arthur MacLean.
In 2023, I started a personal journey of unearthing trauma that had been building up for almost two decades. It wasn’t something I had planned to do - it was something I recognized I had to do to avoid succumbing to a version of myself I would not be proud of or like.
What started as a desperate need to understand why I could barely breathe in spaces I used to - became the domino effect of revelations within myself and my family unit of three.
If I am being honest with myself and any reader, I need to admit that this journey has brought many painful moments, including a lot of retreating, to better recognize from the outside, the chaotic, emotional turmoil of the world I had been trying so hard to get out from under.
This new year, 2026, I am walking forward in a new way.
The word “Sovereign” is often used in relation to a country or a monarchy. Growing up under Pentecostal and evangelical influence, I understood it to mean that the Christian God is the ultimate authority in all things. I understood it to mean that I was powerless against anything without the spiritual and physical authority figures in control.
This year, I chose Sovereign as a personal true north, understanding that I do not need to continue carrying old ways of being, suffering, or limitations.
I am the sovereign authority over my own heart, mind and soul.
I am the co-sovereign authority over my own relationship and family.
I am sovereign over my life.
I am not powerless in any of these aspects, and I am done ceding my life and its expansiveness to constructs that refuse to allow space for others and their voices.
Going against what I was raised to do,
Here I go into 2026.
Onwards,