One Life One Encounter

When I separated from — and eventually divorced — my second husband, it felt like surfacing from an eternity in hell, though in truth it was less than two years of my life (a story for another time). In the messy aftermath, I began toying with the idea of writing a book. I was on an epic, unplanned journey of self-discovery — wide-eyed, cracked open, raw — and I wanted to share everything I was learning with anyone who would listen.

Part trauma response (hello, oversharing), part an unguarded desire to help others (hello, empath without boundaries), writing became my anchor in a life that suddenly felt like shifting sand. It was the one thing that kept me tethered when nothing else made sense.

What I’ve found most difficult hasn’t been the discipline of sitting down to write, or even believing that I have something worthwhile to say — it’s been the impulse to pour it all out at once. The urge to empty every chapter of pain and revelation in one sitting, rather than trusting the gentle cadence that storytelling — and healing — requires.

Because life doesn’t unfold in neat chapters. The beginnings, middles, and endings all blur together sometimes — grief bleeding into growth, endings into becoming. In my mind, the timelines feel clear — but on paper, they often tangle into one long thread of becoming. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s exactly how it’s meant to be told.

So when I tell people that I’m embarking on this deviation from the societal norm — the slow untethering from what’s expected — they ask the usual questions: Why? How? What made you decide this?

And I always want to smile and say, How much time do you have?

Because there isn’t one single event or epiphany that brought me here. It’s a collection of moments — big and small, gentle and jarring — that accumulated quietly until they formed a truth too loud to ignore.

The short answer? I’m driven by curiosity. By the longing to learn another language, not just in words but in spirit — to immerse myself in a rhythm of life that beats differently than the one I was taught. To sit at unfamiliar tables, listen deeply, and let the world re-teach me what it means to belong.

And maybe that’s what all of this really is — an experiment in living differently. A soft rebellion against the life I was told to want. A remembering of the one I almost forgot I already had.

There is no grand plan here, no perfect map or five-year vision. Just one woman, one life, and the quiet courage to follow what feels true — one encounter at a time.

-A