A Whole New Year | Where I've Been

We’re halfway through 2025. Just making it here feels like an accomplishment. This year has already been so heavy.

It started with the LA fires. We were safe, but the anxiety was constant. Every day felt like a maybe. Maybe we’ll have to evacuate. Maybe we won’t. I barely slept.

Then my grandpa passed. We were close, and his death hit my heart quite sharply. But then, only a few months later, I also lost my mom.

And that broke everything.

This has been my first real introduction to grief. Sure, in the past I’ve lost pets, distant friends + family I wasn’t super close to. But never someone central. My grandpa’s passing was a severe blow. My mom’s death was something else entirely.

She was my best friend. I talked to her every day. Asked for advice about everything. Shared every update I could think of. I always wanted her intuition to weigh in because it was just so sharp. We come from a line of psychic mediums. It runs in the family. And she had that quiet knowing that I always trusted.

Once, a friend of mine, who is an incredible psychic, picked up on her while giving me a reading. He could feel her energy interwoven in mine, and he said it felt like we were the same soul. That when something happened to one of us, the other would experience it in their own way.

I remember being weirded out by that. Not because I thought he was wrong...I actually knew he was right. I just felt embarrassed - in a teenage kind of way. That teenage cringe when your mom is too much like you and you don’t want to admit it.

Now I’d give anything to feel that again. That connection. That closeness. She filled a space in my life that I know no one else will ever touch. That was her spot. I’m not trying to replace it, I don't think that's even possible. I'm just waiting for it to scar over...

Since she passed, I’ve been thinking a lot about her life. And mine. And all the things that got cut short.

I grew up in a household that was full of abuse. She lived in it. Emotional. Verbal. Physical. It wore her down. And every time she got close to succeeding, every time she moved toward something she dreamed about, someone interfered. Over and over.

Until eventually, she stopped reaching. She didn’t go crazy. She wasn’t checked out. She could still hold conversations + act normal. But she was deeply depressed. And nothing I did could pull her out of it.

Her motivation dimmed. Her vision got stuck in old loops. The pain from her past got so embedded that she started becoming the one who blocked herself.

And I think that’s what hurts the most...I saw how many dreams she had. And I watched her slowly become the voice in her own head telling her

she couldn’t do it

When I was growing up, she saw herself in me too strongly. She tried to live through me. If we're honest - forced it. I’d get grounded for not wanting to do things she wanted, like dance. And be punished if I made choices behind her back, like signing up for theatre or singing projects on my own.

Even the way I walked, talked, or wrote was something she tried to control. And when I got opportunities to sing or be seen, she’d either talk about how inconvenient it was or ask if I really thought I was good enough.

Eventually, I started to hate her. Especially as a teen. I learned to shrink myself. To doubt my gifts. To not expose anything I was proud of. And I fell into these dark spirals where I’d fantasize about dying. Not because I wanted to die, but because I didn’t see the point of living if I wasn’t allowed to be who I actually was.

She wanted us to be best friends during those years. And I think deep down, it was because she could sense how alike we were. But she made the mistake of assuming we had the same passions. So when I didn’t want what she wanted, she took it as rejection. She probably felt insulted.

But the truth is, we were alike, yes. So alike. But we were still different spirits. And because of her trauma, I don’t think she could tell the difference between me pushing back + me abandoning her.

It wasn’t until I moved away for college that we started to heal. The distance helped. I finally had space. And weirdly, that’s when the closeness began.

She became my go-to. My anchor. And we actually got to build a real friendship. Over time, she became my best friend for real. And I think that best-friendship sort of blinded me or gave me a soft ignorance to what we lacked as a family.

In her final months, it really hit me how much we lacked, and all that, in theory, we should have had, but we didn't. We didn’t have a family home where she could die in - like she always wanted. She didn't have a loved one by her side, caressing her face when she was in pain or sad about dying - like she always hoped for.

We weren’t going to have one of those stories people post on social media where the whole family gathers around, where love pours in from every direction, where the ending is sad but meaningful.

That wasn’t our reality.

Her ending wasn’t peaceful.

It wasn’t sweet. It was filled with pain and resistance. Some family members were cold. Others ignored our calls for help. Her body broke down fast. She was in so much pain that all she could express was rage. And she spontaneously left so fast, there was no chance to capture a last heartfelt message of love we could hold on to.

Her beginning was heavy. Her end was heavier.

And I feel so much anger about that.

Not just sadness. Anger.

Anger at what could have been but wasn’t. Anger at the life my siblings and I didn’t get to have. Anger at the lineage of psychological pain that never got interrupted. Anger at the people who should have been there but chose not to be. Anger at the people who always put a cold, blind eye to what was right in front of them.

I know anger more intimately than any emotion, other than happiness. Anyone who meets me immediately notices how bubbly I am. That’s real. But when I’m angry, people can feel it in their bones. It's never unintentionally lethal, but it is always potent. And focused. And people can always notice it.

Anger is so misunderstood. A lot of people suppress it because they’ve only seen it at its worst. But suppressing it is part of the problem.

Anger is natural. It’s a defense mechanism. A boundary signal. It exists for a reason. We all have different ways of releasing it — movement, breath, sound, writing. The issue isn’t that we feel it. It’s that we don’t know what to do with it.

We treat it like it’s wrong when it’s really just energy. High energy. And when it’s directed with awareness, it can create things.

So I’m channeling mine.

Everything I’m feeling, all the grief + heat, is being poured straight into my Astrology work. Into the business I’ve always dreamed about. Into the empire I used to talk to my mom about for hours.

I’d call her and tell her every idea I had. How I wanted to help people understand astrology in a way that was actually engaging. How I wanted to make it fun. How I wanted people to get it, not just memorize signs or interpretations, but actually feel the power behind it, and know how to work with it.

That’s what I’m building now.

I don’t know exactly what it’ll look like. It’s still unfolding. But I know my mom had huge dreams for me. And I know I’m going to manifest a version of those dreams that actually reflects me.

I want her to know that nothing she gave me in our later years was wasted. That her efforts mattered. That she no longer needs to worry.

I’ve got it from here.