42 Candles, Infinite Possibilities

+ two birthday gifts for you

Today I turn 42, and I'm writing this from bed, which feels like the most honest place to begin a birthday missive to you.

Some years slip by, blending into the kind rhythm of seasons and the changes that come with them. And then some years arrive like violent weather systems—unpredictable, transformative, & leaving you fundamentally altered by the time they pass.

This past year was one of those.

C spent three months in the hospital. My novel manuscript remains stubbornly incomplete. C-PTSD showed up in ways that felt overwhelming, eventually leading me to a retreat for women in Utah who have experienced childhood sexual abuse—a necessary journey, but far from an easy one.

There were so many days when I questioned my worth. Days when self-loathing felt everpresent, when I wondered if anything I was creating mattered, if my little bird drawings and essays about living with limitations were just more noise in a noisy world.

But here's what I'm learning as I lie here, writing on my birthday morning: maybe every year is profoundly different from the one before and the one that follows. Maybe that's not the exception—maybe that's the beautiful, terrifying truth of being alive.

And maybe giving myself a new chance, a new opportunity in this new year to look forward, to be grateful that I'm still here and still capable of so many things—maybe that's the most radical act I can perform.

You've been part of that radical act, whether you know it or not.

When I've felt lost in the fog of my own mind, your comments and messages have been lighthouses. When I've doubted whether sharing my struggles with writing and mental health was worthwhile, you've reminded me that vulnerability allows for connection. When I've wondered if my tiny drawings of birds or my essays about finding beauty amid chaos mattered, you've shown me that they do.

You've helped me understand that this work—our conversations about writing through limitations, about finding reasons for living even on the hardest days—makes ripples I can't always see. Somehow, mysteriously, they matter.

So today, on my birthday, I want to offer you two gifts as a way of saying thank you for supporting this strange, necessary work we do together.

Gift #1: A full year of Reasons for Living for $60 (instead of the regular $70). This offer is good for today only—my birthday gift to you for being part of this community that sustains me more than you know.

Gift #2: Yesterday, all early bird spots for my Writing Through Brain Fog workshop sold out. But today, I'm extending that early bird pricing to everyone who wants to join us.

The Writing Through Brain Fog workshop is for those days when your mind feels wrapped in gauze, when the words you know are inside you feel impossibly far away and when cognitive symptoms—whether from depression, anxiety, chronic illness, trauma, or just being human in a complicated world—make writing feel like trying to thread a needle in the dark.

We'll work with gentle, practical cognitive strategies specifically designed for memoir and personal narrative writing. Not productivity hacks that ignore your reality, but compassionate approaches that work with your brain as it actually functions. We'll explore memory-mapping techniques, emotional regulation tools for difficult material, and ways to honor both your story and your limitations.

This isn't about writing through pain or forcing words when your mind says no. It's about finding doorways into your story even when the main entrance feels blocked.

Join us for the early bird price →

Whether you take advantage of either offer or simply continue reading these REASONS FOR LIVING letters, please know this: you matter. Your presence in this space, your willingness to engage with questions about writing and living and finding beauty in unexpected shapes—it creates something larger than either of us alone.

Thank you for being part of this year that changed me. Thank you for helping me remember that my work, our conversations, this little corner of the internet where we talk about birds and books and the courage it takes to write our lives—thank you for helping me see that it matters.

Here's to 42, to new chances, to the profound difference of every year we're given.

With endless gratitude,

P.S. Both birthday offers end at midnight tonight. The workshop early bird pricing returns to regular rates tomorrow, and the annual subscription deal disappears with today's candles. If either calls to you, I'd love to have you join me.