From Immersed to Visible: Lessons from Another Trip Around the Sun
Reflections on becoming, releasing, and the quiet magic of showing up as yourself.
Birthdays always feel like a threshold to me.
A quiet pause between one version of yourself and the next. Not dramatic… Not always even necessarily noticeable from the outside, but real. A moment to stand in the in-between and ask: who was I, and who am I becoming?
This year, when I look back at the woman I was on May 30, 2025, one word comes to me immediately: immersed. Deep in the work. Deep in the stories. Deep in the making.
And when I look at who I am today… about to be standing at the edge of another year, celebrating at Calan Mai of all places, surrounded by magic and music and handmade things, the word that rises up is: visible.
The shift from immersed to visible. That's the story of this past trip around the sun.
Lesson 1: Visibility is an Act of Courage, Not Comfort
Here is the truth I don't always say out loud: being seen makes me wildly uncomfortable.
Not in a small, manageable way. In a my-nervous-system-would-prefer-to-create-in-beautiful-quiet-obscurity kind of way. And yet this year, I stepped forward anyway. Into authorship more fully. Into directing. Into sharing my blog consistently, showing up with my words in spaces where people might actually read them.
I didn't do it because it got easier. I did it because the stories mattered more than my discomfort.
Visibility isn't the absence of fear. It's the decision that what you're carrying is worth the risk of being perceived. Every post, every signing table, every photo— a small, quiet act of courage in the direction of the people who need these stories.
Lesson 2: The Right System Changes Everything
For most of my life, I've tried to fit my brain into systems that weren't made for it. Productivity frameworks designed for linear thinkers. Schedules that ignore energy. Planners that treat creativity like a task to be checked off.
This year, I finally stopped trying to fit and started asking a different question: what would actually work for the way I'm made?
The answer became Roll For You— a system I built for myself that weaves together self-care, creative work, spirituality, health, wellness, and my neurodivergent brain into something that actually feels like me. Something that makes the whole thing feel less like a grind and more like a game worth playing.
When you stop fighting your own mind and start collaborating with it, everything shifts. I wish I had asked these questions sooner. But I think I had to live through enough of the wrong systems to know what the right one needed to feel like.
Lesson 3: Impostor Syndrome Doesn't Go Away — You Just Keep Going Anyway
Every time I publish a book, Impostor Syndrome comes for me.
That voice. That creeping certainty that this time, someone will finally figure out that I don't know what I'm doing. That the work isn't good enough. That I was lucky before and the luck has run out.
Impostor syndrome is a quiet, persistent companion — and honestly? I don't think it fully leaves. What changes is the relationship you have with it. You learn to recognize its voice without letting it make your decisions. You learn that the discomfort of launching something new isn't proof that you've failed, it's proof that you care deeply about the work.
Being visible is scary. Publishing is scary. Sitting at a signing table waiting for the doors to open is scary.
And I keep doing it anyway. Because the stories are real, even when the doubt is loud.
Lesson 4: Joy Comes From the Most Unexpected Places
I did not expect, at this point in my life, to discover that swinging plastic katanas around would make me genuinely happy.
And yet. Here we are.
This year I started spinning swords. Practicing with them as a form of movement and play… something about it just works for my brain and my body in a way I didn't anticipate. There's a rhythm to it. A presence. An energy that I think my nervous system needed more than I knew.
I wish I had picked them up sooner. And that's the lesson, isn't it? Joy doesn't always look the way you expect it to. Sometimes it shows up in the most wonderfully, surprisingly unlikely places. Your only job is to say yes when it does.
Lesson 5: Release What Was Never Yours to Carry
This year, I'm setting something down.
The expectations that other people have of me. The unspoken pressures, the unsolicited visions of who I should be or how fast I should grow or what my creative life should look like from the outside.
I already carry so much… the weight of my own standards, my own dreams, my own relentless desire to grow and make and show up. That weight is mine and I carry it gladly, because it's made of things I love. But I am releasing the weight that was never mine to begin with. The voices that aren't aligned with my mission don't get a seat at the table anymore.
You get to do this too, by the way. At any age. On any ordinary day. You don't have to wait for a birthday to put something down.
A Wish for This New Year
If I could wish one thing for myself in this next trip around the sun — not a milestone, not an achievement, not even a film release or a bestseller list — it would be this:
More days that feel like sunshine.
A lingering warmth that finds me on the days when I want to give up. Because those days happen. They happen for everyone, and they happen for me, and I'm done pretending otherwise.
I wish for the warmth to find me anyway. To cut through. To remind me why I started.
Here's to another year of becoming visible. Of building systems that actually fit. Of releasing what was never mine. Of spinning swords and feeling joy in the unexpected. Of showing up with impostor syndrome in one hand and a spark of hope in the other.
And of trusting that the warmth, even on the hardest days, is always, somehow, on its way.
Thank you for being part of this journey with me. Truly.
P.S. If you want to celebrate with me — come find me at Calan Mai this weekend, May 29–31! I'll be there as an Author vendor with signed books, handmade bookish treasures, and my whole heart on the table. And Melrose Avenue will be playing. It's basically my perfect birthday. Come say hello. ✨
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