08/19/2026
This was me before the public service. Before the startup. Before the speaking engagements. Before the AI slop. Before the art, the murals, and the international features.
Before people started seeing the results.
There was a version of me who had to make a decision:
Do I stay where life is comfortable and predictableā¦ or do I trust this feeling that I am meant for more?
I chose more.
And whew. Nobody said purpose was going to be easy, but DANG. š
Because what you don't see when you look at where someone is today are all the things they had to survive, release, rebuild, and become along the way.
There were doors I was convinced were supposed to open that never did.
Relationships I thought would be part of my forever that I eventually had to close the door on.
There was grief that changed me. The kind of loss that leaves you carrying love for someone who never got the opportunity to grow up beside you.
There were career changes. Financial uncertainty. Rejection. Starting over. Being underestimated. Learning things I had absolutely no business knowing how to do until life basically said, "Well, figure it out."
So I did.
I taught myself.
I built.
I ran for office ā and won.
I stepped into public service and learned firsthand how government actually works.
I started building technology.
I became obsessed with AI before most people around me understood why I wouldn't shut up about it.
I started writing and translating complicated technology for everyday people.
I created art that traveled farther than I did.
I found myself on stages and in rooms I couldn't have predicted when this picture was taken.
And somewhere along the way, my life became this strange combination of government, technology, entrepreneurship, art, advocacy, writing, public speaking, and a whole lot of figuring-it-out-as-I-go.
None of it happened in a straight line.
And I think that's the part we don't talk about enough.
Purpose doesn't always arrive looking like purpose.
Sometimes it looks like losing something you desperately wanted to keep.
Sometimes it looks like a relationship ending.
Sometimes it looks like rejection.
Sometimes it looks like being forced to reinvent yourself when you were perfectly comfortable with the person you already were.
Sometimes it looks like standing in the middle of your own life saying:
"Okay, God. Now what?"
And then moving anyway.
I still don't have everything figured out. I'm still building. Still learning. Still getting things wrong. Still getting back up. Still walking into rooms wondering how the hell my life brought me there.
But today, when I look at this woman, I understand something she was only beginning to discover:
She was meant for more.
And maybe you are too.
Maybe the thing ending isn't the end.
Maybe having to start over isn't proof that you failed.
Maybe you're not too old.
Maybe you didn't miss your moment.
Maybe the woman you're becoming requires you to release some things the woman you used to be thought she couldn't live without.
Become her anyway.
Become the smartest version of yourself.
The bravest version.
The most curious.
The most creative.
The most disciplined.
The most unapologetically you version.
You don't have to know exactly where it's going to lead.
The woman in this picture certainly didn't.
She just decided she was meant for more ā and started walking toward it.
