High-Masking Happiness

What if every room you've built has been standing on a foundation poured by a child who never felt safe?

Have you ever spent so much time pretending to be something that you lose yourself?

There are buzzwords for everything these days.

High masking. High functioning. Toxic optimism. Delulu.

Pick your poison.

I know I have spent so much of my life trying to be what other people wanted from me because, somewhere along the way, I learned that was how you kept the peace.

Play the role my mother wanted outsiders to see.

Swallow my tongue around my stepmother to keep the peace.

Make my dad proud of me.

Be the adoring girlfriend so I'm needed and loved.

Be mature for my age.

Be responsible.

Be grateful.

Be fine.

People talk about having to "find themselves again," but I don't know if I ever got to be who I was in the first place.

I wasn't necessarily growing into a person.

I was becoming whatever version of myself seemed safest in the room.

And when you've been doing that long enough, how the fuck do you know where the mask ends and you begin?

WHO LET ME BE AN ADULT?

I joke all the time that I need an adultier adult.

Seriously. Who let me be an adult?

When people tell me I'm a good mom, my standard response is basically, "Thanks. I'm winging it."

Because I am.

I've been winging it for most of my life.

The weird part is that I've also had to be an adult for most of my life.

Those things used to feel contradictory.

Now I don't think they are.

I didn't necessarily have adult development.

I had adult responsibility.

There's a difference.

I worked before I was legally old enough because my mom needed help paying bills. I was expected to act mature for my age. Handle things. Understand things. Deal with things.

But I was still a child.

A child doesn't magically develop an adult brain because the adults around her need her to have one.

She becomes a child doing her best impression of an adult.

She watches.

Copies.

Adapts.

Figures shit out.

Builds an adult out of whatever materials happen to be lying around.

Adult responsibility without adult development.

That's not incompetence.

It's uneven scaffolding.

I built on an unsteady foundation because I was building while I was still supposed to be learning what a foundation was.

Which, apparently, means we've arrived at another fucking construction metaphor.

Welcome back to The Building Life.

I've joked before about being self-taught. Very Moana. Put me on the ocean and apparently I'll figure it the fuck out.

And I usually do.

But I'm realizing how much of adulthood I learned that way.

Recently a friend asked whether my son knew how to work on lawnmowers so he could keep ours running.

Nope.

Can you teach us both?

Then, just the other day, T asked me to teach him how to do taxes.

My immediate reaction was:

Why the fuck do you want to do taxes?!

Because apparently my child has developed a hobby nobody has ever had voluntarily.

His answer was much less dramatic.

"Because I need to know how to do them."

Well, shit.

He's not wrong.

And then I started thinking...

Who the fuck taught me how to do taxes?

No one.

I figured it out.

I researched.

I found people to ask questions when I got stuck.

And taxes and lawnmowers are funny examples, but the gaps go back much further than that.

There were basic things about growing up, taking care of myself, and even understanding my own body that no one really taught me.

My mother never took me to a gynecologist.

I know certain things seemed more taboo to older generations. Bodies. Periods. Sex. All the uncomfortable human-maintenance stuff nobody wanted to discuss.

But in hindsight, understanding how to care for the body I was living in probably warranted a little direction.

I could tell you the story of teaching myself how to use tampons, but my boys occasionally read this blog and I'd like them to continue making eye contact with me, so we'll abandon this particular road here.

You're welcome, boys.

I've always joked that I'm "not very good at girling."

I was a tomboy. Other than putting me in pink frilly dresses with bows in my hair when I was little, there was a lot about growing up that I simply figured out as I went.

And no, I'm not about to wander into some dissertation about what girls or boys are supposed to know. That's another post for another day.

The point isn't gender.

The point is guidance.

I was given a lot of responsibility without always being given the instruction that should have come before it.

Handle it.

Figure it out.

Be mature.

So I did.

And I got very good at figuring shit out.

That's still my approach to a lot of things.

I don't know.

Teach me.

Or I'll teach myself.

Money. Home repairs. Relationships. Attachment styles. Emotional regulation. Parenting. Travel.

This summer I planned an entire trip to Europe for my family.

I'd been to Europe before, but I'd never actually been the adult responsible for getting everyone there. My first trip was in high school. My second was a school trip with my son where a tour company handled the infrastructure.

This time?

I was the adultier adult.

Which is frankly terrifying.

But I did it.

Adulthood isn't something you suddenly become qualified for.

But some of us are going back and installing the scaffolding that should have been there all along.

I DON'T WANNA BE BIG PEOPLE ANYMORE

My friend is constantly telling me I need a vacation.

Which is funny considering I just went to Europe.

But I know what he means.

I think I've been mentally checked out of adulting for a while, while simultaneously creating my own chaos through constant busyness.

Make that make sense.

There is a Rugrats meme of Chuckie saying something along the lines of, "I don't wanna be big people anymore."

Or, as the internet has so eloquently translated it:

I don't want sponserbilities.

Same, Chuckie.

Same.

When reality gets too heavy, I disappear.

Books.

Shows.

Fantasy.

Give me someone else's fictional apocalypse instead of my very real pile of paperwork and suddenly I'm thriving.

Or I swing the other way.

Projects.

Work.

Ideas.

Something for the boys.

Something for someone else.

Something to create.

Something to fix.

Something to research.

Anything that keeps me moving.

I've talked before about swinging to the opposite side of the pendulum when something becomes too much.

Apparently "do absolutely everything" and "mentally leave this dimension" can be different doors out of very similar rooms. See what I did there?

Because every once in a while, I can keep myself distracted enough not to feel how sad and alone I feel underneath all of it.

And that's harder to admit.

MAYBE I NEVER WANTED HAPPINESS

I've read the books.

I've learned the lessons.

I've done the therapy.

I've analyzed my attachment style.

I've dissected my reactions.

Sometimes I swear dating has become less romance and more field research.

Interesting. My attachment system appears to be doing something. Let's observe.

I've tried to take accountability for the people I've let into my life and the ones I allowed to stay longer than they should have.

I've tried to learn.

Grow.

Do better.

And for fuck's sake, I just wanted to be happy.

I wanted to steal back some of the things I missed because I grew up too fast.

But lately I've been wondering whether happiness was ever actually the thing I was chasing.

Maybe happiness always looked like safety.

Financial security.

A relationship.

A family.

A home.

People who stayed.

Enough money that one unexpected expense didn't send everything tumbling down.

The freedom to be my authentic self without worrying that authenticity would cost me any of those things.

Maybe I never wanted some glittery, permanent state of happiness.

Maybe I just wanted to fucking exhale.

People say that if you don't know peace, you'll create chaos because chaos is what feels familiar.

So what happens when you don't know safety?

Can you lock into stability when some part of you doesn't trust that stability exists?

Can you build a secure life if your internal blueprint has always assumed the building eventually burns down?

Hell, what kind of building is this even?!

I have the tools.

That's what makes this so frustrating.

I've talked about it in Routine Failure.

I've written an entire post called F*ck Finances that I haven't even published yet as I write this. Hopefully I get that one out before you read this.

I know what I'm supposed to do.

But maybe the missing piece hasn't been knowledge.

Maybe it's trust.

Trust that security can exist.

Trust that I can create it.

Trust that I can maintain it.

Trust that I can relax into something good without immediately becoming terrified of losing it.

Trust that if I do lose it, I don't have to lose myself.

THE FUTURE THAT WILL NEVER BE

I have had amazing experiences.

I have memories I wouldn't trade.

I've traveled. I've created things. I've raised incredible kids. I've met people who changed me. I've laughed until I couldn't breathe.

I know I have a lot to be grateful for.

I'm not ungrateful.

And yet...

I feel like I have had amazing experiences and memories, but at the same time life has passed me by.

Never fully relaxed or present.

High-masking happiness.

Holding on so tightly to a future that will never be and a past that never was for a present time that feels like a vortex.

When I was younger, I had the same vague picture I think a lot of us had.

I'd marry my best friend young.

We'd have a family.

A warm home.

Security.

Love.

Somehow we'd become adults together and everything would make sense.

Then there are the futures you build with individual people.

Sometimes the hardest thing to release isn't the person.

It's the future you created around them.

You can keep holding onto who someone could become long after they've shown you who they truly are.

You can keep trying to reconcile that future with a past that hindsight has made much clearer than it ever felt while you were living it.

And somewhere between mourning the past and negotiating with an imaginary future...

you lose the present.

Eckhart Tolle talks about this in The Power of Now, a book I read years ago and apparently need to pull off the shelf again.

So much of our suffering lives outside the moment we're actually standing in. We replay what already happened. We anticipate what might happen. We let the past explain the present while simultaneously asking the future to save us from it.

Which is a little inconvenient when the present is the only place I'm actually fucking living.

I know this.

I've read the book.

Apparently retaining the information and actually applying it are two wildly different subscription tiers.

No wonder happiness has always felt just slightly ahead of me.

THE STRAY CAT PROBLEM

A guy on a dating site once told me I was a stray cat.

I was offended.

Excuse you, sir.

But I've had a few years to mull it over and...

Fine.

He might have had a point.

I want connection.

I want community.

I would love someone beside me.

But I don't fully trust people with my safety.

Even my closest friends don't know everything about me.

That doesn't mean I've never let anyone close. I have.

I've handed people vulnerable pieces of myself.

I've trusted people with things I considered precious.

And some of them didn't value what I gave them.

So now I'm selective.

I've even worried that maybe I'm emotionally unavailable. And maybe, for a time, I was.

But I can be open without giving everyone access to every room in the house.

And Lauren without a relationship has done a lot of healing.

But I also know there are things I'll probably only recognize or heal while I'm in a relationship.

You can study your attachment style all day long.

It's a little different when another human being shows up and starts pushing buttons on the control panel.

Interesting. We appear to be activated.

Please stand by.

But I don't think healing means becoming so fiercely independent that I don't need anyone.

I've been accused of that.

But I don't want that.

I want to love people without giving them my power.

I want someone to be able to add to my safety without being my safety.

Because Little Lauren never felt safe alone.

So she held onto people too long.

Adult Lauren is learning something different.

If someone walks away, it can hurt.

I can grieve them.

I can miss them.

I can be disappointed.

But they don't get to take my safety with them.

They don't get to take the whole fucking house.

I LEFT THE DOOR OPEN

That's also where accountability gets complicated.

It used to be easier to focus on what other people had done to me.

And people have hurt me.

That part is real.

But eventually I had to ask why I kept opening the door.

There is a running joke online about women seeing a wild animal and immediately deciding:

I could domesticate that.

Unfortunately, I am also the kind of person who has looked into whether I could legally own a raccoon in Alabama, so this metaphor is fitting as fuck.

At some point I can't keep inviting metaphorical raccoons into my house and then acting personally betrayed when somebody pisses on the carpet.

The raccoon is responsible for being a raccoon.

I'm responsible for opening the fucking door.

Accountability doesn't mean the damage someone else caused was my fault.

It means understanding what part was mine.

Who did I let in?

Why?

What did I excuse?

Why did I stay?

What was I so afraid of losing that I abandoned myself to keep it?

Why did I keep looking for safety in people who repeatedly showed me they were unsafe?

And now that I don't let nearly as many people through the door, I've had to confront an even more annoying truth:

I'm fucking up well enough on my own.

Rude.

I can remove every villain from the story and still have patterns to unlearn.

Eventually you're alone in the house with the wiring.

And the wiring still needs work.

No one is holding my safety hostage, but I'm still paying the ransom because I don't know what that freedom looks like.

COOL. MY TURN?

One of the strangest things about becoming a parent is discovering how easy it can be to give your children the things you never knew how to give yourself.

When my son was struggling with everything involving his father, he couldn't understand why he wasn't enough for his father to do better.

And I knew what to tell him.

Therapy helped him understand it too.

Other people's actions don't determine your worth.

Someone else's inability to show up for you isn't proof that you weren't worth showing up for.

I know this.

I believe it.

I could probably make you a fucking PowerPoint about it.

FFS, I have a blog that keeps expressing these ideas to all five of my loyal readers!

And yet the wounded kid in me still takes rejection personally.

Adult me knows.

Little Lauren doesn't.

That's the weird thing about reparenting yourself.

I became the person I needed...

but forgot that I still needed that person.

I learned to give my boys space to become themselves.

I've talked about that in Paint the Walls Black.

I try to let them feel their feelings, develop their identities, explore things I may not understand, and know that my love isn't contingent on them becoming miniature versions of me.

But I'm realizing that giving my kids what I didn't have can't just mean material things.

Or experiences.

Or trips.

Or letting them paint the proverbial walls black.

It has to be a foundation.

I have always told people that I want to give my kids a childhood they don't have to heal from.

Which sounds lovely.

Also mildly delusional.

I'm going to fuck something up.

I'm their mother.

I'm sure one day they'll be sitting in therapy explaining some completely reasonable thing I did that their brain filed under Formative Childhood Trauma, while I'm somewhere yelling, "THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED."

I can't promise them a childhood they'll never have to heal from.

Life will happen to them.

I will make mistakes.

They'll interpret things through their own experiences in ways I couldn't possibly predict.

But maybe I can give them a foundation sturdy enough that whatever they eventually have to repair doesn't require demolishing the whole damn house.

I hope their rebuild isn't as costly as mine.

And sometimes I catch myself understanding exactly what I'm trying to protect.

My boys keep asking me for a sister.

I keep reminding them that I'm currently missing a fairly key component for that particular project.

T, being T, informed me that I could just buy that.

Which...

technically?

He's not wrong.

WTF, T.

I told him that was true, but I didn't want to do it alone.

His immediate response was that he would help.

And that hit me harder than he probably realized.

Because it was incredibly sweet.

I love the young man he's becoming. I appreciate every time he helps me with Nugs when I need backup.

And, to be fair, I've already raised two kids largely on my own.

But I never set out to do it alone.

More importantly, I don't want his willingness to help to quietly become a responsibility that was never supposed to be his.

I told him I don't want him to have to become a parent before he's supposed to.

I want him to be fifteen.

I want him to deal with fifteen-year-old problems.

I want him to be a big brother, not a backup parent.

I have to remind him of that sometimes even now.

He's not Jax's boss.

He's not responsible for raising him.

He's his brother.

Because helping isn't the same thing as being responsible.

And maybe that's a distinction I wish someone had made for me much earlier.

I want him to grow into adulthood.

Not be drafted into it.

I think a lot of us were drafted.

We were the mature ones.

The helpers.

The babysitters.

The peacekeepers.

The kids who "could handle it."

And somewhere along the way, capability became obligation.

Being responsible became part of how we earned our place.

We learned how to carry adult weight before we had the chance to develop the muscles for it.

Then everyone acted surprised when we grew into adults who were very good at handling crises and strangely unsure what to do with peace.

I don't want to hand that down to him as some kind of family heirloom.

"You can handle it" is a powerful thing to teach a child.

"You have to handle it" is something entirely different.

I want him to know he's capable without believing capability means obligation.

I want him to know he can help without believing everyone else's stability is somehow his responsibility.

I want both of my boys to have the time and space to actually develop into the adults they'll eventually become.

And part of that foundation is incredibly simple.

Someone to ask.

My boys ask me things all the time that I don't know.

Sometimes they're practical.

Sometimes they're philosophical.

Religion.

Relationships.

Bodies.

Life.

Sometimes they're questions that make me deeply regret creating an environment where my children feel comfortable asking me anything.

There are things about teenage boys I could happily go the rest of my natural life without knowing.

And yet...

I want them to ask.

If I know, I'll tell them.

If I don't, my answer has always been:

"I don't know, but we can figure it out together."

And if I'm not the person they need to have that conversation with, I can help them find the resources, tools, or person who is.

Maybe that's one of the biggest differences.

I've worked hard to create a network around my boys too. Men they can learn from, ask questions, and look to when I'm not the person with the answer. I talked about some of that in To the Good Men.

Safety isn't one person having all the answers. It's having a solid enough foundation that you know where to reach when you don't.

Sometimes that's me. Sometimes it's someone in their network. Eventually, more and more, it will be themselves.

Which, I suppose, makes it an actual safety net.

I'll see myself out.

But really, I want them to have a network they can draw from without making any one person responsible for holding them up.

I spent so much of my childhood figuring things out because I had to.

I want them to learn how to figure things out because they know they can.

Those aren't the same thing.

One is survival.

The other is confidence.

I don't have to be the all-knowing adultier adult.

I just have to be someone they feel safe coming to when they need one.

Which is both beautiful and absolutely fucking terrifying when I'm still trying to figure out how to be that person for myself.

I'm repairing my foundation while simultaneously trying to pour theirs.

No pressure.

I see so many people in my generation trying to do some version of this.

We give our kids what we didn't have.

Sometimes we overcorrect.

Sometimes we swing so far away from our parents that we create an entirely different obstacle.

Maybe that's part of parenting while you're still reparenting yourself.

Healing isn't necessarily doing the exact opposite of whatever hurt you.

The opposite side of the pendulum can still be another room.

Maybe the goal is the middle.

Feel your emotions without letting them drive the car.

Give your kids freedom without leaving them without guidance.

Let them become themselves while still being their parent.

Be someone they can come to without trying to control every road they take.

And meanwhile, Little Lauren has apparently been watching me work this hard to create that foundation for my kids, my friends, my family, my communities, and damn near anyone else who needs me.

Cool.

My turn?

Fuck.

Fair point.

OPA! THERE GOES ANOTHER PLATE

I tried learning tennis once.

My instructor told me my form was perfect right up until the last moment.

Then I would completely spaz.

Everything was there.

The setup.

The form.

The mechanics.

And then...

Follow-through.

System failure.

That might be the most accurate accidental assessment of my personality I've ever received.

I know how to prepare for success.

I'm less sure I know how to trust it.

Some part of my brain is always waiting for the good thing to end.

Because good things don't last.

And if it hasn't fallen apart yet?

Give it a minute.

So I brace.

I overthink.

I grip tighter.

I sabotage the follow-through because apparently my nervous system would rather be right about impending disaster than surprised by it.

Then I pray for redemption.

From myself.

From the universe.

From the Sky Daddies.

Anybody accepting applications for mulligans.

Because I know I can do it.

I just need to try harder.

Apply myself.

Take responsibility.

Get organized.

Make the plan.

Follow the plan.

Do all the things I've always done to piece my life back together like precious porcelain at the Greek wedding of life.

Every time I glue another plate back together, life screams OPA! and launches another one across the room.

At some point you start wondering how much of you is still porcelain and how much is glue.

But knowing I can do it apparently doesn't inherently mean trusting myself.

I'LL BE EXCITED WHEN I GET THERE

A few years ago, I was flying to Vegas for a girls' trip before we headed out to hike the Mighty 5.

People kept asking me if I was excited.

And I kept saying:

"I'm sure I'll be excited when I get there."

One of my friends finally questioned me about it.

Of course I wanted to go.

Of course I was looking forward to it.

But so many things could happen between Point A and Point B.

Flights get canceled.

Plans change.

Things happen.

Why let myself get completely excited about something that might not happen?

I'd be excited when I got there.

At the time, I thought I was just taking things as they came.

Now I hear that sentence differently.

I'll be excited when I get there.

Holy shit.

How conditioned for disappointment do you have to be before you need physical proof that something good is actually happening before you allow yourself to feel happy about it?

Maybe I wasn't protecting myself from a canceled flight.

I was protecting myself from disappointment.

Excitement requires anticipation.

Anticipation requires believing something good is coming.

And believing something good is coming requires trusting that you can survive the vulnerability of wanting it.

Apparently I needed boots on the fucking ground.

I couldn't relax into happiness while it was still something that could be taken away.

And that is high-masking happiness.

Not pretending I'm happy when I'm miserable.

Masking how afraid I am to be happy.

Keeping happiness contained.

Tempering excitement.

Managing expectations.

Don't get too comfortable.

Don't get too attached.

Don't celebrate yet.

Don't believe it until you're standing there.

And even when you're standing there, stay vigilant.

Don't trust it enough to relax.

Because if you don't fully let yourself want the thing, maybe losing it won't hurt as much.

Except I'm starting to wonder how many things I've finally arrived at only to discover I missed half the joy because I wouldn't let myself experience the anticipation.

How many good moments have I stood inside while some part of me was already calculating how long they could last?

How many beautiful things have I dismantled because I couldn't trust the beauty of what I'd created?

Picking them apart to prove they were unsafe before ever giving them the chance to be.

Self-sabotage, say what?!

I've spent so much time thinking happiness was somewhere ahead of me.

Maybe part of the problem is that when it arrived, I didn't always feel safe enough to let it stay.

WHAT DOES SAFE EVEN FEEL LIKE?

That's a good fucking question.

What does safety actually feel like?

Because I don't know that I could have answered that before.

I know what I thought it looked like.

Money.

Love.

Family.

A house.

A partner.

Stability.

Being wanted.

Being needed.

Being successful enough that nothing could be taken away from me.

Safety was an external thing built out of tangible things and other people.

Now?

I think safety looks quieter.

Peace of mind.

Everything nurtured, full, and thriving.

It still has some of the same core pieces, just with a twist.

Money in the bank.

A happy home.

Kids who are okay.

My cup filled enough that I actually have something left to pour into the people I love.

I might have a black thumb, but this is the kind of growth I think I can cultivate.

I'd still like someone beside me.

But safety looks less like something another person gives me and more like something I build that another person gets to share.

I spend so much time creating safe places for everyone else.

Safe for my kids to be themselves.

Safe for people to tell me things.

Safe to create.

Safe to speak.

Safe to say I Will Be Heard.

But where am I safe?

Safe to be myself.

Safe to speak my mind.

Safe to be creative.

Safe to succeed.

Safe to provide for myself.

Safe to rest.

Safe to fuck up without believing I've ruined everything.

Safe to let someone love me without immediately preparing for what happens when they stop.

Safe with them, not because of them.

Safe to get excited before I get there.

Safe to want something without needing a contingency plan for losing it.

Safe to believe something good can last.

Safe to be happy.

Maybe that's the mask I've actually been wearing.

Not happiness.

Fear.

Maybe I've spent years appearing happy while underneath it I've been gripping happiness so loosely that I could drop it before anyone had the chance to take it from me.

Maybe high-masking happiness isn't pretending everything is wonderful.

Maybe, for me, it's being genuinely happy and still being too afraid to put my full weight down inside it.

Because what happens if I get comfortable?

What happens if I trust it?

What happens if I finally believe:

This is mine. I'm safe here.

And then lose it?

Maybe safety isn't knowing I won't.

Maybe safety is finally knowing that if I do...

I won't lose myself with it.

Maybe my house being cluttered isn't some grand metaphor.

Maybe sometimes my house is cluttered because I have ADHD and too much shit.

But I can't ignore how much of my internal world seems to orbit the same question.

My relationship with money.

My relationships with people.

My constant busyness.

My need to escape into fantasy when reality gets too heavy.

My inability to completely relax into good things.

Even my body makes me wonder.

Fibromyalgia has made me think a lot about the relationship between the brain and the body. I've read books like The Body Keeps the Score. Then there is the spiritual language I use to understand myself too, and the fact that my worst pain settles into my hips, the area associated with the root chakra.

Grounding.

Stability.

Security.

Safety.

Science gives me one language.

Spirituality gives me another.

I'm not claiming to know exactly what any of it means.

I just find it interesting that I keep stumbling over the same fucking word.

Safety.

I AM THE DIY PROJECT

In Destroy to Become, I wrote about the things that break us apart and give us the opportunity to rebuild stronger.

But what if the foundation wasn't solid to begin with?

What if every room you've built has been standing on a foundation poured by a child who never felt safe?

That's where this gets uncomfortable.

Because I can't go back and become the child I would have been.

I can't retrieve some untouched version of myself from before all of this.

I'm more like a photograph that started developing and got interrupted halfway through.

Who would she have been if she'd felt safe?

If she'd been allowed to be a child?

If she hadn't learned to become whatever other people needed?

If she'd understood her brain earlier?

If she hadn't spent decades masking parts of herself?

I don't know.

And maybe I have to stop trying to know.

I have to release all those versions of myself.

The person I thought I'd become.

The person someone else wanted.

The person trauma created.

The person masking protected.

The person I thought someone would love.

The person who might have existed if everything had been different.

I'm happy with the person I'm becoming.

That's important.

But I'm also finally realizing that finding myself isn't really about uncovering someone who was there all along, perfectly preserved underneath everything.

I am still developing.

Still learning.

Still filling in the missing scaffolding.

Still teaching myself things I should probably already know.

Still asking people to teach me things I don't.

Still examining my reactions.

Still learning when I'm triggered and when I'm actually seeing something clearly.

Still trying to understand the difference between accountability and punishment.

Still learning how to hold Little Lauren's hand instead of expecting her to figure this shit out too.

I became the person I needed.

Maybe the next step isn't becoming someone else.

Maybe it's trusting the person I already became enough to actually experience her.

Without sabotaging the good thing before it has the chance to become real.

Without creating the worst-case scenario because some part of me would rather control the ending than be surprised by it.

There is a strange comfort in being right about disappointment.

If I expect it to fall apart and it does, at least I was prepared.

If I end it first, I don't have to be left.

If I don't get too excited, I can't be that disappointed.

If I assume the worst, nothing can catch me off guard.

Except that's not safety.

That's control dressed up as protection.

And maybe I don't need to control the ending before I've even allowed myself to experience the beginning.

Maybe I can trust the life I've created.

Maybe I can reach back and bring Little Lauren into the light instead of leaving her somewhere behind me, still bracing for everything to disappear.

There is a gap between us.

She had to grow up before she was ready, and I kept running forward from there.

Adult responsibility without adult development.

Uneven scaffolding.

A child building with whatever materials she could find and an adult who has spent years reinforcing the structure without always understanding why it felt so unstable.

Maybe the work now is bridging that gap.

Maybe.

Apparently maybe is my favorite word. Somebody buy this girl a thesaurus.

Or maybe...

Fuck.

Anyway.

The work now is bridging that gap.

Letting the woman I've become show the girl I was what we know now.

We can learn things we weren't taught.

We can ask for help without being incapable.

We can make mistakes without everything collapsing.

We can lose people without losing ourselves.

We can get excited before we get there.

We can build something good and actually trust ourselves enough to live inside it.

And maybe when neither of us knows what the fuck we're doing, I can offer her the same thing I've always offered my boys:

I don't know either. But we can figure it out together.

That's how I start cultivating the kind of safety I've spent my whole life looking for in other people.

Not because I don't need anyone else.

I do.

I want love.

I want community.

I want people beside me.

I want someone to build with.

But I don't want another person to have to be the foundation.

They can add rooms.

Knock down walls.

Hang weird shit on them.

Maybe leave their socks all over the floor.

They can make the house infinitely better because they're in it.

And if they leave, I will hurt.

I might grieve.

I might be angry.

I might sit on the metaphorical kitchen floor eating ice cream and questioning every decision I've made since 1997.

But the foundation stays.

Little Lauren doesn't get abandoned again.

Because we're both still here.

I think that's what reparenting actually looks like for me.

Not telling her to toughen up.

Not telling her everything happens for a reason.

Not another lesson about gratitude or accountability or trying harder.

Not telling her not to get too excited yet because something might go wrong.

Maybe I finally get to tell her:

You can be excited.

You can love this.

You can want it.

We can be happy here.

I've got you either way.

Who am I to tell anyone else who they're supposed to be or what the meaning of any of this is?

If you're reading The Building Life, you're basically just along for the journey while I unravel myself in real time.

Maybe something in my unraveling resonates with yours.

Maybe you're watching from a safe distance thinking, Girl, what the fuck? Because sometimes, same.

Both are valid.

The shift for me has been learning to stop focusing entirely on what life, other people, or even my own mind have done to me.

Yes, acknowledge it.

Yes, understand it.

Yes, hold people accountable.

Yes, hold myself accountable.

And then ask:

Okay. What am I going to do about it?

For years, I thought The Building Life was about all the things I was trying to build.

A career.

A home.

Businesses.

Projects.

Kids who have the space to become themselves.

A life I actually want to live.

But somewhere in all that building, I realized the biggest DIY project I've ever taken on has been there the whole time.

Me.

And it's not like I've neglected that project.

If anything, I've been working on it obsessively.

I've read the books.

Done the therapy.

Asked the questions.

Examined the patterns.

Taken accountability.

Learned the attachment styles and diagnoses and coping mechanisms and all the other language that helped me understand why the hell I do the things I do.

I've been renovating this whole time.

I'm not finding myself.

I'm finally getting the chance to build myself intentionally.

To shore up the foundation.

Replace some shitty wiring.

Stop painting over cracks and calling it healed.

Learn the skills nobody taught me.

But I don't want to spend the rest of my life under construction.

And I don't want "working on myself" to become another reason I don't fully live.

Another finish line.

Another version of:

I'll be excited when I get there.

I'll date when I'm healed enough.

I'll relax when the finances are perfect.

I'll enjoy the house when it's clean.

I'll feel successful when I reach the next goal.

I'll let someone really see me when I've finished fixing all the parts I'm afraid they'll judge.

Except there will always be another room that needs work.

There will always be something unfinished.

And if I wait until I'm a perfectly renovated human being before I let anyone all the way in, I'm going to die in a beautifully restored house no one was allowed to fucking visit.

There will always be something to fix.

Something to learn.

Some old wiring I'll discover behind a wall and think, Who the fuck installed this?

Probably me.

At twelve.

With no permit.

But at some point, you have to live in the house.

And maybe you have to let people in while there are still tools on the floor.

Not everyone.

We've already established that we're no longer operating an open-door policy for raccoons.

But the people who have earned access shouldn't need a completed renovation to come inside.

Maybe neither should I.

I've spent so much time trying to build a life that would finally feel secure that I've struggled to actually live inside the life I've already built.

To get excited before the plane lands.

To enjoy something without calculating how long it might last.

To love someone without simultaneously rehearsing how I'll survive losing them.

To appreciate where I am without immediately looking toward where I'm supposed to be next.

I've spent years believing that if I could just get everything into place, then I could relax.

Then I'd be happy.

Then I'd feel secure.

Then I'd exhale.

But life doesn't really work that way.

There will always be another repair.

Another bill.

Another heartbreak.

Another plan that goes sideways.

Another version of me that needs a little work.

The goal can't be building a life where nothing is ever taken from me.

That's impossible.

Maybe it's trusting that losing something doesn't always mean I've lost.

Sometimes it means there is finally room for something else.

I've written before about different doors leading out of similar rooms.

Maybe this is another door.

I can keep gripping everything I've managed to build because I'm terrified of ending up empty-handed again.

Or I can trust myself enough to loosen my grip.

Not because everything that leaves will automatically be replaced with something better.

I can't promise myself that.

But because sometimes what leaves creates room for something different.

Maybe something better.

And whatever comes next, I trust the person who will be standing there to meet it.

Me.

That's different.

I used to think security meant finally building something no one could take away.

Now I think it might mean knowing that even when life takes something, it doesn't get to take me with it.

Maybe the point isn't to finish myself.

Maybe it's to stop treating myself like a project that has to be completed before I'm allowed to enjoy the fucking house.

There are rooms here worth living in now.

There are people here worth loving now.

There are things growing here now.

I might have a black thumb, but apparently I'm getting better at this kind of cultivation.

So maybe when something good is coming, I don't have to wait until I get there to believe in it.

Maybe I can be excited at Point A.

Maybe when something beautiful is here, I can stop measuring the distance to the exit.

And when something ends, maybe I can trust that the empty room isn't proof that the whole house is falling down.

It's just space.

I don't know what will fill it yet.

I don't know what I'm going to build there.

But maybe I don't need to know yet.

I've spent enough of my life trying to predict the ending so I could protect myself from it.

For most of my life, an empty room would have terrified me.

Now?

Maybe I can stand in it without immediately trying to fill it.

Maybe I can look around at everything that's still standing, take Little Lauren by the hand, and remind both of us:

We don't have to know.

We'll figure it out together.

And in the meantime?

At some point, you have to live in the house.

Unpacking my shit. Might even trust it enough to stay awhile,
Lauren

Different Doors Out of Similar Rooms

A few days ago, someone sent me the news that Hayden Panettiere had died.

I remembered her mostly as a child star. Bring It On. Ice Princess. That familiar face that seemed to have always been somewhere on a screen. I vaguely remembered hearing about addiction somewhere along the way, one of those pieces of celebrity news that passes through your consciousness without ever becoming a whole person.

Then I started learning more about her.

The addiction. The depression. The postpartum depression, which immediately made me more sympathetic because I don't think people understand how serious postpartum mental illness can become. The unhealthy and abusive relationships. The custody headlines and the complicated reality underneath them.

Then I found an interview she'd given only three months before she died.

And somewhere in learning her story, I stopped thinking only about hers.

I started thinking about mine.

Not because our lives were the same. They weren't.

But I knew some of those rooms.

Substances. Depression. Loss. Abusive relationships. Trying to find yourself while making choices that seem almost incomprehensible from the safety of hindsight.

The more I learned about her, the more grateful I became for finding different doors out of similar rooms.

Sometimes you don't realize which trajectory you escaped until you see someone else's life continue down it.

Intoxication Was the Price of Belonging

I have spent most of my life saying that I don't have an addictive personality. I still don't think I do, at least not when it comes to substances.

But I've been thinking differently about what kept me from going farther down that road.

I started drinking and partying in middle school. Beaumont, Texas wasn't exactly overflowing with entertainment for teenagers, and the people I found liked to have a good time. By high school, partying was mostly a weekend thing. In college, weekends became multiple nights a week.

Classes became less important than going out.

Attendance slipped. Grades followed.

I knew I was fucking up, but consequences have a funny way of remaining theoretical when they arrive one small decision at a time.

Skip this class.

Go out tonight.

I'll catch up tomorrow.

Until eventually tomorrow has a GPA and the university calls it academic probation.

That got my attention.

So did my dad.

He had spent years being sick, and during those years I put enormous pressure on myself to hold things together. When his health improved, I think some part of me decided I didn't have to anymore. I just did whatever.

But I wasn't accustomed to my dad being disappointed in me. When he saw what I was doing with school, his reaction landed.

There were other warning signs too.

I got pulled over for speeding after a Guitar Center work party and had to perform a sobriety test. To this day, I don't know why that officer let me go. I was less than a mile from where I was staying, and he told me he would be watching and I wasn't to leave again until I sobered up.

A guy I'd recently been involved with went to jail after a drunken fight.

One night my roommates and I came home to my dog losing his mind and an apartment filled with smoke because someone had left ramen cooking on the stove.

There was always some drama.

Some ridiculous story.

Something that was funny because nobody died.

I knew alcoholics. My stepmother was one. Heavy drinking ran through parts of my mother's family too. I knew enough to recognize a version of adulthood I didn't want.

Alcohol had quietly become what everything centered around, and I didn't want it occupying that much space in my life.

So I buckled down.

It wasn't particularly difficult to stop drinking so much, which is part of why I have never identified with addiction to alcohol itself.

Looking backward, I think alcohol was secondary.

Intoxication was the price of belonging.

What I wanted was friendship. Community. Family. Acceptance.

I happened to find those things among people who liked to get fucked up.

There is an old question adults love asking kids: If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?

It's supposed to be rhetorical.

But it's not that simple.

How high is the bridge?

What's underneath it?

Are we all jumping?

And what happens to me if I don't?

When belonging feels scarce, standing alone on the bridge can feel more frightening than jumping with everyone else.

At thirteen, I knew we were doing stupid things.

That might be the strangest part.

I wasn't oblivious.

Once, we were partying in a garage or shed behind my friend Alicia's house. It was cold, and we had some kind of barrel fire going. Someone told me to pour gasoline onto it.

I was fucked up, but I remember the thought occurring to me in real time:

This is really fucking stupid. The flame can travel up the stream and ignite the container.

And then I poured it anyway.

The flame traveled up the stream and ignited the container.

My sleeve caught fire. I threw the gas, ran around flinging my arm until the fire went out, and somehow walked away with nothing worse than a ruined hoodie.

Everyone laughed.

I laughed.

Then I looked at my burned sleeve like, You dumb bitch.

That story might be a tiny model of an entire period of my life.

My logic was there.

My self-preservation was apparently somewhere else.

There were men who picked us up at a gas station and took us back to a place where one of their friends was on house arrest. They eventually discovered we were thirteen and dropped us off on a corner.

We smoked weed in kerosene warehouses.

There was a man everyone called Dad because he gave us free things. We knew he was a drug dealer. That wasn't the revelation.

The revelation came years later when I remembered him handing me ecstasy and asking me to take it to someone waiting on the corner.

At thirteen, that was just another thing somebody asked me to do.

At forty-something, I went:

Wait.

Was I a fucking drug runner?

Apparently, yes.

Which seems like an appropriate place to pause and apologize to my parents if either of you are learning any of this for the first time.

Sorry.

Also, to any of the kids who know me, look up to me, or somehow stumble across this someday: these are cautionary anecdotes, not suggestions. Do not get any ideas.

Just because I managed to make it through all of this without a criminal record does not mean I'm afraid to get one.

I'm kidding.

Mostly.

Please make good choices.

Or at minimum, better ones than these.

There were hotel parties and cops and me jumping curbs in my SUV trying to get away.

There was violence. Fights. A hundred-gallon fish tank. A girl and two guys jumping me. Me telling my mother I fell down the stairs because explaining the truth would have required explaining everything else.

There were sexual assaults.

There were so many moments when some part of my brain whispered:

We probably shouldn't be doing this.

And I went anyway.

For years I thought of that as recklessness.

Now I'm not sure that's the whole picture.

I think I didn't know how to care about myself outside of how other people felt about me.

I had learned that things had to be earned.

Approval had to be earned.

Love had to be earned.

Why wouldn't friendship work the same way?

Do what everyone else is doing and you get to belong.

My friends became family. They helped me forget reality until reality started bleeding into that world too.

Even after being raped, I struggled to call it rape.

What had I done?

Had I given someone the wrong impression?

Had I somehow made him think I wanted it?

I didn't want anyone getting in trouble. I didn't want fingers pointed at me. And I knew that if I threatened the fiercely loyal, cop-hating family I had built around myself, I could lose them too.

I know differently now.

Rape can happen under any conditions. I can acknowledge that some of the environments I entered were dangerous without accepting responsibility for what another person chose to do once I was there.

The circumstances belong to the story.

The choice to take mine away belongs to them.

Still, I don't experience those memories with the weight people sometimes expect.

My rape is a bad thing that happened to me.

My house burning down when I was five is a bad thing that happened to me.

Other things are bad things that happened to me.

Intellectually, I know they affected me differently. Emotionally, they often sit on the same strange shelf labeled Things That Happened.

Sometimes I tell a story and watch someone's face change.

That's usually when I remember that whatever I just casually said isn't normal.

I laugh.

I reassure them.

I've dealt with it.

I'm okay.

I've never wanted pity. I've never wanted to turn pain into a competition either. Everyone has bad parts in their story, and I have always felt uncomfortable deciding that mine deserve more weight because they happened to me.

So I usually look at the pieces.

I rarely stand back and look at the whole painting.

And if you've been reading this blog for a while, yeah, you probably know some of these pieces already.

That's the thing about having a history and then starting a blog about your life. We're going to touch the same rooms more than once. Hopefully I can at least keep finding new doors and keep it entertaining while we wander around in here.

And I know some people reading this may look at me differently afterward.

Maybe there's a little holy shit, Lauren happening right now.

Fair.

Sometimes I hear these stories come out of my own mouth and have the same reaction.

But I'm not telling them because I want anyone to see me as damaged, tragic, dangerous, or somehow more interesting because bad things happened to me. And I'm definitely not asking anyone to retroactively worry about me.

I'm telling them because the woman you know now didn't appear fully formed one morning with boundaries, perspective, two kids and a suspiciously extensive collection of coping mechanisms.

There was a trajectory.

Actually, there were a lot of them.

And this is the first time in a while I've stood far enough away to see just how many.

Love Shouldn't Be This Fucking Hard

I met T's dad years later.

The first three months were toxic as fuck.

Drinking. Partying. Fighting. His chaos. I wasn't accustomed to relationships involving constant arguments, but we had separate homes, which gave us space to retreat.

Three months into the relationship, I discovered I was three months pregnant.

We decided we were going to grow up.

I was going to move into his house.

Then I lost the baby.

I fell into a depression so deep that I planned to quit school and move home to Texas.

He told me not to.

Move in with me anyway.

At the time, I thought it was sweet. We had both lost this baby. We were hurting together. And I didn't want to tuck my tail between my legs and run home.

So I stayed.

Almost immediately, it was horrible.

When I returned from Texas, I discovered that instead of moving most of my belongings, he'd given many of them away. I didn't yet understand the extent of his drug use or the coke binges.

But I was depressed.

I was ashamed.

And I was too proud to admit I'd made a mistake.

Some part of me also believed this might be penance.

I hadn't known I was pregnant. I'd been drinking and smoking. I blamed myself for losing the baby.

Maybe this was simply my life now.

Maybe I deserved it.

I thought he understood the loss because it was his too, until one day I told him I hated driving past the hospital where I'd lost our baby.

He said he didn't understand why I couldn't just get over it.

Eventually I began planning to leave.

We had a family vacation approaching, and I intended to use it as my opportunity to get out. He and his family pressured me to go. Bring the dogs, they said, so the dogs couldn't become my excuse for staying behind.

He knew I wanted to leave.

He poked a hole in a condom.

A couple of weeks off Depo was all it took.

I became pregnant with T.

The relationship had been unhealthy for a long time. Objectively, I knew it. If I'd watched another woman living my life, I would have told her to run.

That's one of the cruelest things about abuse.

Knowing where the door is and believing you can walk through it are entirely different things.

I thought love meant tolerating someone at their worst.

People always said love wasn't easy.

Eventually I started answering them silently:

But it shouldn't be this fucking hard.

After T was born, people encouraged me to make the relationship work without knowing what "making it work" actually required.

They didn't know about the nights his dad drank until he passed out and wet the bed.

The night he passed out near my car and people thought I'd hit him, then challenged the responding police officer to a fight because the officer was wearing gloves.

The shattered windshield.

Being kicked out without my belongings and sleeping in my car.

Locking myself in the bathroom because I was afraid of him, only for him to call police and tell them I was suicidal.

Waking up with a black eye after one of his alcohol-fueled rages.

Coming home to find him passed out drunk with the front door wide open while our baby was inside.

By then alcohol didn't represent freedom or belonging anymore.

Mostly it represented something I had to manage in another person.

One day, his younger cousin was being treated badly by her boyfriend.

He was furious.

He wanted to kill the guy.

Then he became angry with me because I wasn't equally outraged.

I told him why.

You treat me like that. Worse, actually. Why are you so angry that someone is treating her the way you treat me?

Because she was his little cousin, he said.

It was different.

I laughed.

I am someone's cousin.

Someone's daughter.

Someone's sister.

A human being.

Still, he insisted.

Different.

Years later, I understand what hurt so much about that conversation.

He believed she deserved defending.

I didn't.

He didn't even see me as someone he “loved” enough to defend from himself.

And yes, please insert enormous fucking air quotes around loved.

Then one day T said:

Daddy is going to kill us.

There are sentences that rearrange a room.

I had tolerated things when they were happening to me that I could not tolerate becoming normal to my son.

I didn't want him learning that this was love.

I didn't want him becoming his father.

And I didn't want him someday “loving” someone the way his father had “loved” me.

Becoming a mother made me want to protect my child.

Protecting my child required protecting myself.

That changed the trajectory again.

I'd Been in That Room

That's another strange thing about abuse.

I could recognize it perfectly well when it belonged to somebody else.

If another woman had described my relationship to me, I would have told her to run.

If a friend had shown up with my stories, my bruises, my excuses, my fear, I would never have told her that love meant staying through someone's worst. I would never have told her she deserved it. I would never have asked what she'd done to make him angry.

But inside my own life, everything looked different.

Years later I watched Maid, and parts of it were almost unbearable.

Not because our stories were identical.

Because they weren't.

It was that eerie feeling from the Fugees' Killing Me Softly: someone had somehow found pieces of my letters and was reading them out loud.

The rationalizing.

The instability.

The financial control.

The exhausting logistics of trying to leave when leaving sounds incredibly simple to everyone standing safely outside the relationship.

The way your definition of bad enough keeps moving.

The way you can know something is wrong without believing you have somewhere else to go.

I remember watching and wanting her to just get away from him.

And somewhere underneath that frustration was the uncomfortable recognition that I already knew why she didn't.

I had been her.

Not literally.

But I'd been in that room.

Maybe Love Was

Years later, there would be another relationship with another man who drank too much.

And once again I found myself managing someone else's drinking more than enjoying my own.

By then I rarely drank heavily. Roller derby after-parties. A night out with friends once a month. After pregnancy and breastfeeding, the appeal had mostly disappeared.

Eventually that relationship ended too.

People told me:

It's them, not you.

I remember disagreeing.

No.

It's me too.

Not because I caused what they did.

Because I kept choosing people capable of doing it.

At some point I had to stop asking only why people treated me badly and start asking why the familiar kept feeling like home.

Maybe substances were never my addiction.

Maybe love was.

Not healthy love.

The desperate kind.

Being wanted. Needed. Chosen. Accepted.

Unhealthy, unreciprocated love became its own drug, and I would settle for increasingly terrible substitutes to get the next hit.

Like a junkie drinking mouthwash or huffing paint, I was slowly killing parts of myself and settling for scraps of the life I deserved from people who didn't deserve me.

Eventually I had to become accountable for the only person's choices I could actually control.

Mine.

I couldn't always control which rooms I entered.

Some doors were opened for me.

Some I kicked down myself.

Some slammed shut behind me.

Some I went back through more than once.

Maybe my real choice was simply learning not to walk back into the same room once I finally understood what was waiting inside.

The Roads That Continued Without Me

Now I can look at the lives of men I once prayed would love me differently.

I prayed they'd come to their senses.

That we'd work things out.

That they'd finally see my worth.

That they'd love me enough.

And then I look at where some of those roads continued without me.

Drugs.

Alcohol.

Mugshots.

Records.

Trailers and lives that rarely extend beyond the front door.

Protection orders.

Abuse allegations.

Friends lost to murder and addiction.

More chaos.

More dysfunction.

More generations absorbing it.

I don't say that from some perfect life on a hilltop.

My life has its own problems.

But they are vastly different problems.

Sometimes I look at those lives and have the strangest thought:

That could have been mine.

My boys could have been different.

I could have been different.

Not necessarily because I was smarter or stronger or morally superior.

Addiction doesn't care who it claims.

Abuse doesn't only happen to a certain kind of woman.

Trauma doesn't hand out maps.

Sometimes people change direction because they make a brave choice.

Sometimes because someone helps.

Sometimes because something terrible happens.

Sometimes because a door closes and refuses to reopen no matter how hard you pound on it.

And sometimes because you get unbelievably fucking lucky.

There are so many nights from my adolescence that look different to me now that I watch true crime documentaries.

Men picked up two thirteen-year-old girls from a gas station and actually dropped us back off.

The fire burned my hoodie instead of my body.

The officer let me go.

We got home before the apartment burned.

The person driving made it home.

The fight ended.

The drug was what someone said it was.

I woke up.

Again and again and again.

None of those endings were guaranteed.

I don't know what would have happened on the other trajectories.

That's the point.

I never lived them.

Detour Signs

I do believe everything happens for a reason.

I also think that's a much easier thing to say from the other side of something.

Most of the time, we can't see the reason while we're living it. Sometimes we never get to see it. And sometimes the thing that happened is so incredibly fucked up that we don't particularly want to hear about some grand cosmic purpose behind it.

I don't need to be grateful that I was raped.

I don't need to be grateful that I lost a baby.

I don't need to be grateful for abuse.

I can wish with everything in me that some things had never happened and still be grateful for the life that somehow grew around them.

I can believe there was meaning without pretending the suffering itself was beautiful.

I can recognize my choices without taking responsibility for other people's.

I can recognize luck without dismissing resilience.

I can recognize resilience without turning myself into some inspirational survivor character I don't recognize.

And I can look at things I once begged God to change, relationships I prayed would survive, people I desperately wanted to finally see me, choose me, love me differently, and recognize that sometimes an unanswered prayer was a detour sign I couldn't read yet.

Sometimes the road I was furious about losing was leading somewhere I no longer wanted to go.

Stand Far Enough Away

I've been thinking about my life lately as some deranged collaboration between Salvador Dalí, Jackson Pollock, Tool and Where's Waldo.

From inside it, I see individual things.

A miscarriage.

A party.

A black eye.

A burning sleeve.

A baby.

A graduation.

A breakup.

A friendship.

A mistake.

A door.

A hundred disconnected marks.

Stand far enough away and something else appears.

A hidden picture.

Not necessarily a lesson.

I'm not teaching one.

Mostly, I am standing outside this enormous, cluttered, beautifully dark, deeply unnerving painting thinking:

What the fuck am I looking at?

And then:

Wait.

That's me.

I can see beauty in the whole thing without needing to call every brushstroke beautiful.

I can wish some of them weren't there.

I can stare at others and wonder how the hell they didn't destroy the entire canvas.

And I can recognize that somehow all those tiny pieces of chaos became orchestrated into a life.

My life.

I don't think I'd go backward and change most of it.

Changing one thing changes another. Pull one thread and maybe my boys disappear with it. Maybe I don't become this version of myself. There is no way to know.

But if I could go back to one version of me, I know exactly where I'd go.

Before the drugs.

Before the drinking.

Before the men.

Before the assaults and pregnancies and losses and relationships.

I'd find the little girl.

I wouldn't warn her about what's coming.

I wouldn't hand her a map.

I'd hold her cheeks in my palms and look directly into her eyes.

I'd tell her she doesn't have to earn being loved by becoming anything other than herself.

I'd tell her not to let people make her small or take advantage of her heart.

I'd tell her she is worthy of love and a beautiful life simply because she exists.

I'd kiss her forehead.

And before I left, I'd tell her one more thing.

Even when you think you have no one, you have me.

I'm waiting for you.

And I love you.

Then I'd let her go.

Because somehow, through all that chaos, she's going to find the doors.

With love (and gratitude for the doors I didn’t walk through),

Your Builder,
Lauren

Different Doors Reading List

Different Doors Journal Prompts

Where is My Mind?

Where is my mind?

If my summer needed a soundtrack, apparently the Pixies have entered the chat.

It's been a minute.

Not because I stopped writing. I actually have several blog posts sitting on the sidelines, fully or partially dressed, waiting for me to remember that writing them and actually publishing them are two different steps.

Apparently, I forgot the second one.

In my defense, life has been...a lot.

There have been financial struggles. Car problems. Then more car problems. Then the realization that perhaps setting money on fire in the driveway would have been a more efficient relationship with my vehicle.

I wrote about that.

Didn't post it.

There was another post after that.

Also didn't post it.

So somewhere on my computer is a tiny backlog of The Building Life patiently waiting for me while I have been very busy building, breaking, repairing, traveling, parenting, worrying, recovering, and occasionally staring into the middle distance wondering what day it is.

Then we went to Europe.

I've been to Europe before.

I had NOT, however, planned and executed a multi-country European trip while responsible for two children and my father.

Which, mathematically, is two children and my father.

Operationally?

Three children.

Sorry, Dad.

You know I love you.

There was one night when T and I came back to our rented apartment and could hear the TV before we even got inside. Dad had it turned up so loud I was genuinely worried we were going to have the cops called on us.

So yes.

Three children.

I was planning around flights, ferries, trains, hotels, luggage, teenagers, a younger kid, everyone's needs, and my dad's itinerary and limitations while trying to remember that I, too, am technically a person who requires food and sleep.

And Europe apparently looked at my carefully constructed plans and said:

That's adorable.

There were delayed bags.

Canceled and delayed flights.

Damaged luggage.

Unexpected shopping trips because our belongings were somewhere having their own European vacation.

Rerouting.

Transportation puzzles.

A ferry.

Enough logistics to qualify me for some sort of honorary certification.

And through all of it, there was Estonia.

There was standing in a peat bog in a place that looked like it belonged somewhere between another planet and a fairy tale.

There was Pärnu, where we learned that the phrase “beach day” apparently has a very different interpretation in Estonia than it does on the Gulf Coast.

We went anyway.

There were markets in Latvia.

Tallinn.

Tartu.

Skateparks.

Food.

People.

History.

My kids getting to stand in places, hear languages, eat things and experience parts of the world that many people never get the opportunity to see.

There was chaos.

So much chaos.

And I am incredibly grateful for all of it.

Especially because so much of that opportunity exists because of my dad.

He's the real MVP of these adventures.

I don't think he could ever fully know what he means to me or how deeply loved and appreciated he is, even when the kids and I are cranky as hell after 54 hours of travel and none of us particularly likes each other anymore.

I see my dad almost every day when we're home. I talk to him even more than that. He is woven so completely into our everyday lives that I don't usually stop and observe him from the outside.

Travel made me do that.

Spending that much uninterrupted time together, navigating airports and ferries and unfamiliar streets and long days, made some things harder to ignore.

He's getting older.

I know that, obviously.

But knowing someone's age and seeing age catching up with someone you love are two very different things.

His health has changed. His stamina has changed. There were things I needed to think about for him while planning that I wouldn't have years ago. There were moments when I found myself watching him and realizing that time is doing what time does, regardless of whether I'm interested in cooperating.

I'm not.

For the record.

And I'm not particularly interested in turning that realization into some tidy lesson about appreciating your parents while they're here.

I already appreciate mine.

I already see him constantly.

I already know what he means to me.

Maybe that's why noticing the changes hit differently.

Because someday I will lose him, and when that happens, I know the world will become darker.

But I also know how much light he's already put into it.

It's in me.

It's in my boys.

It's in these ridiculous stories we'll tell about dragging Grandpa through Europe.

It's in photographs and inside jokes and places on a map that my children can point to someday and say, I went there with him.

I hope those memories keep reflecting his light long after he's gone.

Hopefully VERY long after.

Dad, if you're reading this, that was not permission to go anywhere.

Sit down.

We still have shit to do.

The trip also carried some emotional luggage that American Airlines couldn't lose for me.

It had been almost a decade since I'd attended an event with my stepmother.

There's history there.

A lot of it.

Enough that even now she still sends my father scathing emails about me and my “illegitimate children,” which is a fascinating commitment to a storyline after all these years.

So going into my brother's wedding, I had some mental gymnastics happening alongside the actual travel logistics.

My brother had to make accommodations to keep everyone on their respective sides of the wedding, something I hate that he had to think about at all.

For the most part, we were ships passing in the night.

And that was okay.

What I wasn't prepared for was seeing her family.

Not through social media.

Not through someone else's update.

Actually seeing them.

Hugging them.

Talking to them.

Connecting with people I hadn't genuinely connected with in years.

And discovering something I think part of me needed to experience in person:

They didn't hate me.

They were warm.

They were genuinely happy to see me.

They were warm to my boys.

Even my kids noticed it. They knew enough of the history to be surprised by how openly affectionate everyone was with them.

There are some things Facebook can't give you.

A real hug is one of them.

I don't need to dissect that experience right now. Maybe someday I will.

For this trip, it was enough that something I had carried into Estonia felt a little lighter when I left.

And more importantly, the wedding itself was beautiful.

My brother was happy.

I gained an amazing sister-in-law.

Our weird, complicated collection of humans managed to occupy the same beautiful event without the earth opening beneath Estonia and swallowing us whole.

Success.

Eventually we made it home.

I then required approximately two weeks to become a functioning human again.

Jet lag is one thing.

Jet lag after being responsible for an international traveling circus is another.

Unfortunately, life did not receive my PTO request.

I came home and immediately found myself helping my brother navigate some major life stuff.

Then there was the puppy who apparently decided keeping his snoot intact was an unreasonable expectation.

Because obviously.

There were Scouts.

Summer activities.

Appointments.

Work.

Family.

Paperwork.

Things that needed fixing.

Things that needed paying.

Things that needed forms signed.

Things I definitely remembered at the last possible moment.

And then somehow school arrived.

I swear summer looked me directly in the eyes, said we have plenty of time, and then raw-dogged us straight into the school year.

We didn't even get lube.

Rude.

So that's where I've been.

Not gone.

Not uninspired.

Not sitting somewhere waiting for something profound enough to write about.

Quite the opposite.

I've been living faster than I've been publishing.

And somewhere underneath the travel, financial stress, parenting, family history, car disasters, aging parents, growing children, puppies with self-destructive faces and the general administrative nightmare of being an adult, I've also been thinking.

A lot.

Maybe too much.

So while I haven't been posting, I have been writing.

There are a few pieces waiting on the sidelines.

Some are funny.

Some are frustrated.

At least one contains a significant amount of profanity directed toward finances.

And one I wasn't expecting to write at all came from learning about someone else's life and unexpectedly turning around to look at my own.

That one is coming next.

It's considerably heavier than this.

Apparently after disappearing for a while I thought the appropriate return strategy was:

Hi! Europe was beautiful. My car is an asshole. My family is complicated. My dad is aging and I'm emotionally unprepared for the passage of time.

Anyway, would you guys like to talk about trauma?

Welcome back to The Building Life.

I told you I've been writing.

I never said I had my shit together.

Rockville and the Reckoning

The Things You Learn Sharing Space

I won’t make excuses for my absence, but since we last talked I survived Rockville, both boys’ birthdays in May, redesigned a few clients’ online presence, launched a new division of Atticus, and somewhere in there still managed to keep everyone alive and moderately emotionally regulated.

At this point I would like to formally ask where my cape is since I have apparently reached superhero status.

But buckle up builders, it’s story time!

And before anyone starts sharpening pitchforks or preparing a “girl you should’ve known better” speech, let me save you some time. This is not a story about a monster. It’s also not a story about me being helpless or reckless.

It’s a story about proximity.

About mirrors.

About how shared spaces reveal truths that distance politely allows us to blur around the edges.

And maybe, if I’m being fully honest, it’s also a story about realizing just how far I’ve come in my own healing journey when life quietly places an old pattern in front of me wearing a different face.

Despite the behind-the-scenes chaos, rainy weather, and enough character development to last me through at least Q3, I genuinely had a great time at Rockville, and I’ll have a full recap over on The Frequency Pit soon.

But first… let’s dive in.

Shared Spaces Reveal Everything

Last September, I met someone through a festival Facebook group while preparing for Louder Than Life. We bonded over music, festival culture, random life conversations, shared interests, growth. Nothing romantic. In fact, he openly talked about other women sometimes and I genuinely viewed him as a festival friend.

Fast forward to Rockville.

My original lodging plans fell apart last minute because apparently the universe enjoys character development arcs more than stable itineraries. He already had a room but needed transportation from the airport and to the venue since he flew in.

After conversations with friends, sharing my location, establishing backup plans, clarifying boundaries, and creating enough contingency options to qualify for FEMA disaster response training, I agreed to split the room.

And despite being told there was a pullout sofa, I still brought my own air mattress.

That detail matters more than I realized at the time.

Because somewhere along the way, I learned to bring my own place to land.

My own space.
My own boundaries.
My own flashlight.

I didn’t realize until later that the air mattress would become symbolic of much more than sleeping arrangements.

And honestly, the arrangement itself was never the issue.

I’ve shared space with friends before. A few years ago, I hiked a 30-mile section of the Appalachian Trail with someone and learned the same lesson in hiking boots instead of Vans. When you spend extended periods of time with someone, especially without much room to retreat, the curated versions of ourselves begin to dissolve.

The same thing happens in relationships.

It’s why couples can date happily for years and suddenly fall apart six months after moving in together. Separate homes give us somewhere to retreat when we are overstimulated, irritated, anxious, messy, exhausted, depressed, avoidant, grieving, addicted, or simply human.

Shared space removes the escape hatch.

Eventually who we are leaks into the room whether we mean for it to or not.

And festivals accelerate that process. Four days of heat, exhaustion, overstimulation, little sleep, loud music, sweat, emotional chaos, and thousands of people screaming lyrics about survival into the night sky tend to strip people down to their rawest selves pretty quickly.

Then came the nightly liquor runs.

The first night, after the pre-party, we stopped at a gas station around midnight for alcohol.

Then again the next night.

Then a 1AM liquor store run through an area that immediately activated every true crime documentary I’ve ever consumed.

By the third and fourth nights, I started realizing the entire schedule revolved around alcohol.

How late we stayed.
Traffic leaving the venue.
Which stores were still open.
How fast we could get there.

At one point he asked how late we were staying at the festival because the liquor stores closed at two.

Not because he was tired.
Not because he wanted food.
Not because he wasn’t enjoying the show.

Because the liquor stores closed at two.

That was the moment the shape of the situation started changing for me.

Because addiction often reveals itself through logistics long before confession.

Orlando Heat and Biohazard Sheets

Now let me paint you a picture.

Four days.
Florida heat.
Crowds.
Sweat.
Dust.
Beer.
Little sleep.
Thousands of emotionally unstable people screaming cathartic lyrics with metal horns raised to the sky.

Which honestly sounds like the makings of a killer album or the Pantera home videos (if you know, you know) now that I type it out.

But what started bothering me wasn’t festival grime itself. Festivals are inherently disgusting. We all collectively agree to become raccoons with wristbands for several days in exchange for music-induced serotonin.

Coincidentally, somewhere during the weekend, while sitting with some festival-goers from Germany, I learned the only German word I apparently know is “raccoon,” which roughly translates to “tiny cleaning bear.”

Honestly? Accurate.

It was what happened around it.

Sleeping in dirty festival clothes night after night.
Showering and then putting the same sweat-soaked clothes back on.
Late-night parking lot drinking sessions alone.
Increasing irritability every morning.
The smell of alcohol literally seeping out through someone’s pores.
The snoring getting worse each night.
The hotel sheets slowly transforming into what can only be described as a biohazard crime scene.

And before someone inevitably says:
“Well, festivals are messy.”

Sure.

But there’s a difference between messy and deteriorating.

There’s a difference between partying and orbiting entirely around a substance.

There’s a difference between someone having fun and someone trying not to sit alone with themselves.

And once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.

The Mirror Felt Familiar

This is the part where I need to lay myself bare a little.

Because the reason this experience hit me so hard wasn’t because I was judging him.

It was because I recognized the atmosphere.

Not him specifically.
The environment.

The emotional texture of it.

The hypervigilance.
The accommodating.
The subtle management of moods.
The minimizing.
The “it’s fine” when it isn’t actually fine.

The feeling of slowly adjusting yourself around someone else’s instability so the experience remains manageable.

That felt familiar.

Painfully familiar.

His drinking triggered memories of people and environments I used to normalize. It felt like staring into an alternate timeline version of my own life. A glimpse of where I might still be emotionally if I hadn’t started choosing myself and my kids years ago.

Not necessarily this exact situation.
Not this exact person.

But the trajectory.

The normalization of dysfunction.
The emotional exhaustion.
The constant adaptation.
The caretaking disguised as compassion.
The shrinking yourself to avoid conflict.

At one point, he mentioned weed helped him drink less and I remember thinking:
You’re swapping one survival mechanism for another without touching the wound underneath any of it.

And if I’m being really honest, younger versions of me would have over-explained this entire experience away.

I would have minimized my discomfort.
Made excuses.
Questioned my own standards.
Prioritized protecting someone else’s feelings over acknowledging my own reality.

Because somewhere along the line many women are taught:
If someone is struggling, your job is to absorb more.

More discomfort.
More emotional labor.
More understanding.
More silence.
More accommodation.

Especially if you care about them.

And the deeper the attachment, the less authentic many of us become.

Ironically, my last blog post before this experience was called You Don’t Have to Stay.

Which feels almost aggressively on-the-nose now.

Life imitating art?
The universe handing me a pop quiz on my own healing journey?
A cosmic “practice what you preach” moment?

Insert the Tootsie Pop owl because honestly… the world may never know.

But there was something strangely confronting about writing an entire piece about boundaries, self-worth, and choosing yourself… only to immediately walk into a situation that challenged all of it in real time.

Not in some dramatic life-or-death way.

Just in the quiet, familiar way growth usually shows up.

In the small moments where you realize:

• you are uncomfortable,

• you are minimizing it,

• you are accommodating again,

• and you now have a choice about whether or not to abandon yourself in the process.

Because if I’m being honest, the more I cared about people in the past, the quieter I became.

Not because I was fake.
Because I was afraid.

Afraid of abandonment.
Afraid of hurting people.
Afraid of becoming “too much.”
Afraid honesty would cost me connection.

So I softened truths until I barely recognized my own voice.

And maybe that’s the part of healing people don’t talk about enough.

Not becoming harder.
Not becoming cruel.
Not becoming emotionally unavailable.
Not the “bitch lessons” my friends jokingly tell me I need.

Just becoming honest.

Honest about your discomfort.
Honest about your boundaries.
Honest about the fact that someone else’s reaction to your truth is not always your responsibility to manage.

Because I spent a lot of my life pussyfooting around other people’s feelings while quietly abandoning my own.

Softening truths.
Swallowing discomfort.
Making myself smaller so everyone else could stay comfortable.
The lump in your throat from suppressing your truth.

And the problem with that is eventually your silence starts feeling like self-betrayal.
A self-imposed strangulation of your own voice.

I cannot control how people react to me.
I cannot force self-awareness onto someone.
I cannot heal people by quietly absorbing the impact of their wounds.

But I can make sure I am heard.

I can make sure I do not suppress my own voice just to preserve someone else’s comfort.

And maybe that realization changed this experience more than anything else.

The Difference Between Compassion and Self-Abandonment

What I think surprised me most about this experience was not that I noticed the addiction.

It was that I actually said something.

Clearly.
Directly.
Honestly.

Without exploding.
Without attacking.
Without abandoning myself either.

And maybe that sounds small to some people, but for me it mattered.

Because growth is weird like that.

Nobody hands you a certificate saying:
“Congratulations! You no longer tolerate emotionally unhealthy environments!”

Sometimes healing only becomes visible when life presents you with an old dynamic and you realize you responded differently this time.

You held the boundary.
You trusted yourself sooner.
You spoke honestly.
You stopped confusing compassion with self-sacrifice.

And honestly? I don’t think enough people hold the people they care about accountable.

We either:

• enable,

• avoid,

• rescue,

• disappear,

• or explode.

But accountability delivered with compassion?

That’s harder.

That requires emotional maturity from both people.

The Part I Didn’t Expect

After the festival, we ended up having a deeper conversation about the experience.

At one point he sent me screenshots from ChatGPT asking whether sharing a room with a woman from the internet at a festival was a bad idea.

Which honestly felt hilarious considering the real issue was less:
“Can men and women share hotel rooms responsibly?”

And more:
“Can we survive four days of Orlando humidity, midnight liquor hunts, parking lot drinking, and biohazard sheets without someone spiritually leaving their body?”

But after we really talked, something shifted.

Instead of getting defensive, he admitted he was struggling.
Deeply struggling.

Not in a vague social media “working on myself” kind of way.

Therapy.
Rehab.
Doctors.
Actually confronting things.

And suddenly this stopped being a story about an annoying festival roommate.

It became a story about how terrifying and brave it is to finally admit:
“I need help.”

And I don’t think society creates enough space for people in that stage of healing.

We celebrate polished transformation.
The comeback.
The sobriety chip.
The one-year milestone photo.
The motivational quote version of recovery.

But the raw middle?
The shaking hands honesty of:
“I can’t keep living like this.”
“I don’t recognize myself anymore.”
“I don’t like who I’ve become.”

That part is brutal.

And brave.

It takes courage to ask for help.
It takes courage to admit addiction.
It takes courage to let someone see the parts of yourself you no longer recognize.

And maybe because of my own healing journey, I could recognize both truths at once:

Someone can deserve compassion and still require boundaries.
Someone can be trying to save themselves and still not be safe for closeness yet.

Someone can be drowning and still become a lead boot when you just learned to swim.

Bringing Your Own Flashlight

I think what changed most for me after all of this was realizing I no longer abandon myself inside someone else’s darkness.

That may sound dramatic, but if you’ve ever loved someone struggling with addiction, emotional instability, or unresolved pain, you probably understand exactly what I mean.

Sometimes we become so focused on helping, understanding, fixing, soothing, rescuing, or accommodating that we slowly disappear ourselves.

This time I didn’t.

I stayed compassionate without becoming responsible.
Honest without becoming cruel.
Empathetic without becoming self-sacrificing.

A few months ago I wrote about Hatebreed’s “I Will Be Heard” feeling like a call to arms for me. And somewhere while writing this, I realized something:

I think younger versions of me said those words like a plea.
Please hear me.
Please understand me.
Please don’t make me soften myself into silence just to keep the peace.

Now it feels different.

Now it feels like an affirmation.

I will be heard.

Not because I need to control how people react to me.
Not because I need everyone to agree with me.
But because I no longer want to abandon my own voice just to preserve someone else’s comfort.

More importantly, I no longer want to minimize unhealthy behavior or quietly accommodate things that are actively hurting someone, including addiction.

And maybe that changes every relationship we have moving forward.

Because not every person who enters our life is meant to stay forever.

Sometimes people arrive as blessings.
Sometimes lessons.
Sometimes mirrors.
And sometimes, unexpectedly, both people walk away changed.

I don’t know what the future of that friendship looks like and honestly I don’t think it needs a dramatic answer right now.

Friendship, like relationships, shouldn’t be built on potential alone.

We honor people where they are.
We hold space for their humanity.
We set boundaries accordingly.

And maybe that’s the real lesson here.

Not that people are bad.
Not that addiction makes someone unworthy.
Not that shared spaces are dangerous.

But that proximity reveals truth.

And healing is realizing you can witness someone else’s darkness without forgetting to bring your own flashlight.

Maybe that’s why the air mattress matters so much to me now.

I thought I brought it because I was being cautious.

But looking back, I think it was something deeper than that.

It was my own little island.
My own small bubble of space.
Less of an air mattress and more of a tiny emotional life raft in hindsight.

A quiet act of showing up for myself before I even realized how badly I needed to.

Just in the small moments where you finally stop abandoning yourself.

A physical manifestation of a boundary being heard in the subtle squeak of an air mattress as I turned over in my sleep.

It may not be the kind of SOS or cry for help that earns applause the way addiction recovery should, but I think we all deserve some credit for breaking the patterns that once kept us chained.

Hoping you find your light in the dark,
Lauren

If you or someone you love is battling addiction, struggling with mental health, or quietly losing themselves, please reach out for help. Sometimes the bravest thing a person can say is: “I can’t keep living like this.”

Also, before anyone panics, yes, permission was given before I spilled the beans, and the person referenced here read the piece before it was published. Some identifying details were changed for privacy, but the humanity behind the story remains.

I’m Fine…Just Buffering

When Everything Hits at Once

When I launched this blog, I had a million things I wanted to talk about.

And most weeks, I can pull something together that sounds like a decent message. Something reflective. Something hopeful. Something that makes it feel like I’ve got at least some level of understanding.

But today?

I’ve got nothing.

Or maybe… I’ve got everything. It’s just all shoved in a junk drawer right now.

The Pile-Up

I feel the overwhelm of life.

Bills.
Obligations.
Priorities.
Work.

Not just the struggles of a single mom—which are plenty—but the kind that come with just… existing as a human right now.

It’s almost like some bad*ss blog writer already covered how heavy the world feels.

And it’s not even one big thing.

It’s all the small things.
Stacked.
Layered.
Looping.

The spiraling descent into maddening adulthood… (insert unhinged cackle here) but I digress.

When the Lessons Meet Reality

It’s funny, because we’ve talked about all of this before.

Not taking things personally… that definitely feel personal.
It’s okay to not be okay.
Saying no for your sanity.
Trying to build routines that don’t immediately fall apart.

And all of that sounds great.

Until it all shows up at once.

Every couple of months, I feel like I finally get my sh*t together and land in a good place… just in time for Murphy’s Law to roll in like, “That’s cute.”

And there’s always that quiet thought in the back of my head like, “Cool, cool… so what fresh hell are we unlocking next?”

On the flip side, all the manifestation and mindset advice has me in a whole different spiral like, “Oh great… I’m thinking the wrong thoughts—now I’m about to f*ck around and manifest more problems.”

So now it’s not just life happening—it’s me side-eyeing my own brain like it’s part of the problem.

Which, honestly… feels like a scam.
Also, probably why my eye is twitching.

The “I’m Fine, Just… Buffering” Phase

I don’t feel depressed.

I don’t feel hopeless.

I just feel… incredibly human.

A little overwhelmed.
A little disconnected.
A little like my brain has 37 tabs open and I can’t find where the music is coming from.

Which, honestly—if you’ve ever seen my computer—you know 37 tabs might be an understatement. There are multiple windows involved.

I might have a problem… 🤔

But it’s not even a breakdown.

It’s more like a quiet retreat.

Pulling back just enough to breathe.
To recalibrate.
To not react to everything all at once.

Not Doom & Gloom—Just Real Life

This probably sounds different from my usual tone.

I’m normally optimistic. I look for meaning. I find the lesson. I tie it all together with a nice little bow.

This isn’t that.

This isn’t pessimism either.

This is just… reality.

The part of being human where things pile up, and you don’t need to fix it, solve it, or turn it into a life lesson immediately.

You just need to sit in it for a minute.
Give yourself time to digest all the things life is forcing you to swallow.

A Different Kind of Progress

Maybe this is what progress actually looks like sometimes.

Not pushing through.
Not powering up.
Not finding the silver lining.

But recognizing: “I need a second.”

And actually taking it. (With a side of Tums.)

If You’re Here Too

If you’re feeling this—like everything is just a little too much, but not enough to completely fall apart…

Same.

You’re not behind.
You’re not failing.
You’re just in a moment.

And moments pass.

Even the ones that feel like they’ve overstayed their welcome…
or worse—stuck on repeat. An earworm on loop.

Cue The Song That Never Ends.

Fitting, for a spiral soundtrack.

This Isn’t a Wrap-Up

Fresh out of bows this week. Management has been notified—unfortunately, that’s still me.

So no big breakthrough.
No life-changing realization.

Just this:

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do…
is absolutely nothing for a minute.

(And maybe close a few of those mental tabs… if you can find them. Unless the song’s a banger.)

With love (and a loading symbol over my head),
Your Builder,
Lauren

It Wasn’t Personal. But It Was.

When The Work You Love, Stops Loving You Back

You ever have something take the wind out of your sails so thoroughly it rocks everything you thought was steady?

That happened to me.

I felt like I was finally in a rhythm. I loved the work I was doing. I believed in it. I was building something meaningful. I was helping shape opportunity for a younger generation while also rebuilding parts of myself outside of work. It felt aligned.

And then — it shifted.

No dramatic firing.
No public fallout.
Just a quiet removal of purpose.

Same title. Same pay. Different reality.

It wasn’t personal.

But it was.

When You Realize the Relationship Wasn’t Equal

I’ve worked for the same company for 15 years. Long enough to feel invested. Long enough to feel loyal. Long enough to care about the mission and the people attached to it.

I was recruited into a role that didn’t exist before. I built it. I grew it. I delivered measurable results. I did what I was hired to do — maybe even better than expected.

And then one day, the duties were gone.

Not because I failed.
Not because I underperformed.
But because the goal had been met.

And suddenly, I was reminded of something uncomfortable:

Institutions protect themselves first.

We don’t realize we’re in a toxic relationship with work until it stops loving us back.

The Pizza Party Economy

I look around and I see so many of my coworkers and friends exhausted.

Overworked.
Underutilized.
Underappreciated.

They hit the goal. They crush the metric. They sacrifice weekends. They miss vacations. They push through burnout.

And in return?

A congratulatory email.
Maybe a pizza party.
Then immediately — onto the next demand.

No pause.
No sustainable structure.
No real investment in their growth.

Just expectation.

That culture is so normalized that we don’t question it anymore. Extra hours are assumed. Personal plans are flexible. Family time is negotiable.

Because that’s what loyalty looks like, right?

Except loyalty used to mean something different.

Loyalty Isn’t What It Used To Be

There was a time when you stayed at a company for decades and it rewarded you. Stability. Pension. Advancement. Protection. Community.

Now?

Turnover is high. Retention is fragile. People switch jobs every few years. And increasingly, people are willing to take pay cuts to work somewhere that aligns with their values.

I was once asked to look into retention trends.

What I found surprised some people.

Compensation matters — of course it does. But culture matters more than leadership wants to admit. People will trade salary for respect. They will trade title for growth. They will trade comfort for alignment.

When I explained that, I realized not everyone even knew what “company culture” meant.

And that told me more than I needed to know.

Women Who Overperform and Under-Claim

There’s another layer here.

I see talented, educated, capable women in shadow roles. Underutilized. Under-positioned. Doing the heavy lifting while someone else holds the title.

We overdeliver.
We overprove.
We assume our work will speak for itself.

And sometimes it does.

Until it doesn’t.

There are still leadership models shaped in a different era — built on hierarchy, legacy, familiarity, and who fits the mold. Not always consciously malicious. But certainly not always equitable.

And if you’re effective? If you build something too well?

You can become inconvenient.

When Passion Turns Procedural

The hardest part wasn’t losing responsibility.

It was losing meaning.

I wasn’t angry because I lost a title.
I was grieving the purpose.

For weeks, I went through the motions. I did my job. I met expectations. I operated by my own moral standard because that’s who I am.

But the passion?

Gone.

And that’s when I had to sit with a harder truth.

I realized how much of my identity is tied to being effective.

Busy is better.
Productive equals valuable.
If I’m moving, I matter.

When the movement stopped, my nervous system didn’t know what to do.

It’s Just Business (Except It’s Not)

We’re told not to take work personally.

“It’s just business.”

But we’re not machines.

We pour energy into what we build. We care about the people we serve. We believe in the mission. We attach meaning to our contribution.

When that contribution is sidelined, it doesn’t just hit your calendar.

It hits your confidence.
Your loyalty.
Your trust.

And yes — sometimes your worth.

Not because you aren’t valuable.

But because you were valuable only as long as it served the system.

The Grief. The Anger. The Clarity.

When it first happened, I was hurt. Deeply.

I wanted to quit on the spot.

But I didn’t.

I processed.
I evaluated.
I came back to center.

And what surfaced wasn’t rage.

It was clarity.

I will not shrink my competence to make it more comfortable.
I will not dim my output, so it feels less threatening.
I will not sell pieces of myself for a seat at a table that benches me when convenient.

Sometimes the wind leaves your sails so you realize you’ve been rowing someone else’s boat.

Reflection

This isn’t a resignation letter.

It’s a reckoning.

If you’re reading this and something in you feels heavy — ask yourself why.

Are you staying somewhere out of loyalty that isn’t reciprocated?

Are you overperforming in a system that sees you as a resource instead of a human?

Are you compartmentalizing parts of yourself just to survive Monday?

We don’t have to hate our jobs.
We don’t have to burn bridges.
But we also don’t have to stay where we are tolerated instead of valued.

You are not a cog.

You are a contributor.
A builder.
A thinker.
A human.

And if the place you’re in has stopped loving you back — that’s information.

What you do with it is yours.

And as for me?

If you’ve wondered where I’ve been the last few months — this is part of it.

Sometimes life lifes. Hard. And when the wind leaves your sails in one area, you have to sit still long enough to remember how to steer again.

I needed time to process. To feel the grief. To sort the anger from the clarity. To make sure I wasn’t reacting, but responding.

The blog paused because I paused.

But here’s what I know now: when one space sidelines you, you don’t shrink — you build elsewhere.

So I’m getting back on track here. With intention. With perspective. With a little more edge and a lot more clarity.

Grace for the detours.
Grace for the processing.
Grace for the seasons when we go quiet.

Life be life-ing. But we keep building.

Together.

Love always, your Builder,

Lauren

It Wasn’t Personal Reading List

It Wasn’t Personal Journal Prompts

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay (And Break Stuff)

Some weeks are just… a lot.

We don’t always realize we’re spiraling until we’re knee-deep in unanswered texts, unopened mail, or a pile of dishes we’ve been “meaning” to get to. Sometimes our social calendars stay blank because we just don’t have the bandwidth to “people.” Other times, we snap at someone we love and only then realize—oh yeah, we’re overstimulated as hell. Before we even know we’re in a spiral, we are reenacting opening scenes of Alice in Wonderland.

We live in a world that promotes toxic positivity—the idea that you should always “stay grateful” or “look on the bright side.” A world obsessed with #GoodVibesOnly and hustle culture, it’s easy to feel guilty for not being on your A-game all the time. And while yes, gratitude matters, so does honesty. Here’s the truth:

Healing isn’t linear.

And thank goodness, because if it were, I’d definitely be failing the course.

The Beautiful, Messy Chaos of Now

I love what I’m building here with the blog. It’s become such a powerful creative outlet. I’m in awe of my son’s drive—starting a company and charity at his age? Incredible.

But between life, work drama, car trouble, skyrocketing costs of just surviving, and the general unraveling of society… yeah. It’s a lot.

There’s no telling what’ll be the last straw. One day you’re riding the high of a great week, the next you’re mentally smashing plates in a rage room while smiling politely as your kid tells you about their Grow-a-Garden in Roblox.

Queue Limp Bizkit’s “Break Stuff.”

I try to stay positive. But I’m not positive all the time. That would make me a robot. Or worse—a liar.

Tools in the Toolbox: Grounding, Not Guilt

When your vibration feels low (yes, that’s a thing), there are ways to recalibrate:

• Grounding: Think of it as returning to center. Walk barefoot in the grass, hold something earthy like a stone or tree, or just sit still and breathe. Earthing is a physical form of this—connecting with the actual ground to stabilize your nervous system.

• Guided Meditation: Especially helpful if your brain (like mine) hosts an endless squirrel rave. I need someone telling me what to do every second or poof—I’m thinking about laundry and lizard people.

• Frequency music: Sound vibrations can literally affect our energy. Playlists designed to balance brain waves, chakra tones, or healing frequencies can actually help ground you.

But sometimes? None of that helps until you feel the damn thing.

Embrace the Suck

Sometimes, the best thing you can do is sit in the suck.

Not because it’s fun. Not because it’s wise. Just because it’s honest.

There’s a time for growth and a time to just be. And sometimes what we’re being is pissed off, overwhelmed, or completely done.

This is why rage rooms were invented—because throwing a chair through a window is still frowned upon in most friend groups or work.

I heard someone say once, “Embrace the suck.” And yeah. Sometimes the only meaning in a crappy situation is that it’s crappy. And that’s okay. Let the grief, the frustration, the hurt pass through you.

Progress? I Made It to the Couch.

Here’s the truth: Climbing out of a dark space doesn’t mean you’ll summit a mountain the next day.

Sometimes “healing” looks like brushing your teeth and finally replying to that one text. Sometimes it’s making it to the couch instead of staying in bed. That’s progress. That’s something.

When you’re in the thick of it, give yourself the grace to move slowly. Rest is part of the climb. You don’t have to bounce back instantly.

Let your recovery be messy. Let it be human. Don’t expect miracles overnight—expect small, quiet steps in the direction of the light.

Laughing Through the Chaos (Yes, Really)

Storytime: My Personal Descent into Travel Hell

Let me take you back to a recent “everything is broken” moment: I was flying home from Galveston after a work trip.

Everything was smooth… until the way home and everything went wrong. Bad weather delayed my flight. Then I sat on the plane for an hour. Missed my connection in Dallas. Got stuck overnight. The airline only offered a discount for a hotel because weather = not their problem.

Fine. Whatever. I Uber to the hotel.

They don’t have my reservation.

Turns out—because of course—there are two hotels with the exact same name, one North, one South. I get rerouted. Get to the right one. Finally sleep.

Then the next morning, the shuttle driver goes MIA. My flight gets delayed again, gate changes again. By the end of the trip, I’m laughing like a lunatic. Because seriously—what else can you do?

Ironically, I had been reading The Power of Now on that trip. I think the universe was having a good chuckle. The absurdity of it all hit me like a sitcom montage. Was it frustrating? Absolutely. But I could either spiral or shift my mindset. That was the choice.

And no, this isn’t toxic positivity. This isn’t “just manifest a better day.” It’s about allowing yourself to feel the feelings—and then choosing what to do next. Choosing when and how to rise or to just laugh through it.

Positivity vs. Processing

I’m a firm believer in therapy, medication, support systems—the whole toolkit. Healing isn’t something you “think” your way into. But mindset? It’s a powerful piece.

I believe in mindset shifts. I believe in meditation and manifestation.

But I don’t believe in bypassing our pain.

You have to feel your feelings to heal them.

You don’t need to immediately hunt for the “lesson” or force yourself to move on. You’re allowed to grieve, scream into a pillow, hide in a blanket burrito, or mentally bench yourself for a few days.

Just promise me this: Process it.

Because unprocessed emotions? They don’t disappear. They just leak into places they don’t belong, like rage-snapping at your barista or crying over expired cottage cheese.

Healing Is Not a Straight Line—It’s a Spiral Staircase

Some days you’ll take two steps forward, then fall down the entire metaphorical escalator.

That’s okay.

Just like the mindset shift I had when I stopped asking, “Why is this happening to me?” and started asking, “Why am I letting these people/situations stay in my life?”

We all know that friend who wallows in misery and rejects every lifeline. We can offer help, but at the end of the day—we all make choices.

• To feel our feelings without shame

• To change what we tolerate

• To rebuild after a breakdown

• To decide what version of ourselves rises from the ashes

The Long Game of Healing

Healing isn’t a checklist.

It’s nonlinear. It’s chaotic. It’s messy and frustrating and often hard to explain.

But the way we alchemize our hardest moments—the way we turn pain into power—is what builds the life we’re working toward.

So no, I’m not always okay. But I’m always trying. And that counts for something.

Final Thoughts

So go ahead—embrace the suck when it hits.

Cry it out. Rage it out. Then laugh at the absurdity when you’re ready. And when you are? Reclaim your power. Rise like the resilient, sweatpants wearing, frequency-vibing phoenix that you are.

You don’t have to climb a mountain today. You just have to make it to the couch.

We’re not healing to be perfect.

We’re healing to be whole.

With love (and a little chaos),
Lauren

P.S. I’ll be sharing a poem (or maybe two) later this week tied to this theme—I’m just indecisive because I’ve written several that hit a little too close to home. Stay tuned and we can spiral poetically together.

You’re Not Lost—You’re Living

When Lightning Strikes (or Why I'm Writing at 2:30AM)

I’ve never been great at using the word acquaintance—so forgive me if I call everyone my friend. If we’ve crossed paths, shared a moment, or exchanged stories, you’re in my circle.

A few days ago, one of those friends shared a vulnerable post about a hard season he's going through. I meant to reach out, but—life. You know how it is. Still, what I wanted to say stuck with me like an earworm, looping in my brain until it finally demanded to be written.

At 1AM last night, I woke up. I tried to roll over and go back to sleep, but the words kept tumbling in my head, asking to be polished. Like I said in The Frequency Pit - lightning strikes when it wants to. So here I am at 2:30AM, drafting a blog post.

Survival, Struggle, and the Question of Purpose

About six months ago, my friend was in a horrific accident—one of those where doctors and first responders are left saying, “We don’t know how you’re still alive.” And while he survived, he didn’t come away unscathed. He’s relearning to walk. Recovering every day. Healing. Processing.

His story isn’t mine to tell, and I wouldn’t do it justice even if I tried. But in a recent post, he shared something raw and real:

He was struggling to find the purpose in his survival.
“Why was I spared?”
“What am I meant to do with this life now?”

He even wondered if maybe it was survivor’s guilt talking. And while that may be true, I think it is something more universal.

The Myth of Monumental Purpose

We are taught that our purpose must be massive.
World-changing. Revolutionary. Life-altering.
Something that lands in headlines or history books. Like we must cure cancer, invent teleportation, or achieve world peace to be worthy.

With such standards, we all struggle to find our purpose.

But sometimes, our purpose shows up in whispers, not roars.

I once read something (and forgive me for forgetting where—if I find it, I’ll give credit) that said:

‘Sometimes, your purpose is found in the tiniest act.’

That one kind gesture. That smile. That story you shared that made someone feel less alone.

The Ripple Effect (and Why the Little Things Matter)

There was a commercial once—a ripple-effect chain reaction. One act of kindness inspired another. A stranger held the door. Someone smiled. A child watched. A seed was planted. That energy passed on, unseen but powerful.

It reminds me of the butterfly effect—a concept from chaos theory that suggests something as small as the flap of a butterfly’s wings can cause a tornado on the other side of the world. It's a poetic way of saying:

Small actions can create massive, unforeseen outcomes.

You may never know how your words, your presence, or your help shifted the course of someone else’s day—or even their life.

Maybe you compliment someone’s earrings without knowing they made them and were ready to give up on their art. Maybe you listen when someone needs to talk.
Maybe you hold the door open for someone who’s been invisible all day.
Maybe you survive—and in doing so, show someone else it’s possible. Maybe you write a blog at 2:30AM because a friend’s vulnerability reminded you that words matter.

Maybe… your purpose is simply to live.

The Forgotten Impact of Everyday Moments

I remember once in high school, I spent an entire class period doing a friend’s hair for a dance. She wasn’t going to go—but the confidence boost got her there. I don’t remember the style. I probably forgot by the next day. But years later, she told me that moment stuck with her.

We don’t always recognize the impact we have. We never know how we ripple. We don't see them. But they’re there.

And in a world that constantly pressures us to do more, be more, achieve more, it’s easy to forget that existing with intention—living with kindness, authenticity, and heart—is enough.

When the Little Things Are the Big Things

Yes, chase the big dreams if they call to you. Walk toward your “higher purpose” if you feel it in your bones. If you feel called to something greater, pursue it. Build it. Run toward it with open arms.

But don’t discount the sacredness of the small things. The smiles. The shares. The showing up. Don’t think that just because you aren’t moving mountains every day that your life isn’t purposeful.

Heck, this blog? I joke I’m writing for all two of my readers (hi Dad). But it’s not about numbers. It’s that quiet voice, that nudge in my gut that says: Write this. Someone needs it. Maybe even just you.

You might be that person for someone else.
You might be the reason someone gets out of bed tomorrow.
You might never know the full story—but that doesn’t make it any less powerful.

Living in Purpose, Not Chasing It

The people we often revere in history—revolutionaries, leaders, artists, healers—didn’t always set out to become icons. They weren’t necessarily chasing fame or legacy. Most were simply following what felt right. They leaned into conviction, pursued justice, or gave voice to something buried in their soul.

They didn’t find their purpose as much as they lived in it. They followed the spark placed in their heart and let it guide their actions. By existing authentically in that truth—by standing up, speaking out, or creating something honest—they became the people who changed the world.

The Cosmic Joke, the Sacred Number

In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a supercomputer calculates the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. That answer? 42. A number, offered with no context—hilarious, absurd, and oddly profound.

But maybe it isn’t random at all.

In angel numbers, 42 is seen as a divine nudge—a reminder to seek balance, cooperation, and alignment with your soul’s purpose. It encourages you to grow spiritually while tending to both material and emotional needs. (Angel numbers are repeating or significant sequences, believed by many to be messages from the Universe or spiritual guides, since numbers are the universal language.)

In sacred geometry, 42 is connected to the Seed of Life, the geometric foundation of all creation. In Buddhism, it’s the age at which one can reach nirvana, full spiritual enlightenment. In Kabbalah, it’s the number of divine acts by which God created the Universe.

So maybe that number is the answer.

Maybe the real joke is that we keep looking for a single grand meaning, when in reality, purpose reveals itself in sacred patterns, small moments, and the choice to live each day in alignment with what speaks to our soul.

Your Life Is Enough

So to my friend—and to anyone reading this:

Don’t feel pressured to find your purpose.
Just live with purpose.

Life is fragile. Life is miraculous. And life is meaningful—especially when we collect it one small, intentional moment at a time.

You don’t have to move mountains. You just have to move honestly—with courage, kindness, and truth. That’s how revolutions start. That’s how healing begins. That’s how history remembers.

Be here. Be honest. Be you.

How you live is your purpose. And it might just be the thing that saves someone.
Even if that someone… is yourself.

But check back with me on my purpose when I turn 42—apparently that’s when the Universe drops the answer.

With love (and too little sleep),
Lauren

P.S. This blog was brought to you by emotion, insomnia, and the word “Ripple” stuck in my head to the tune of “Sexy and I Know It.” Sorry if it’s in yours now (not really—suffer with me).

You’re Not Lost - You’re Living Journal Prompts

You’re Not Lost - You’re Living Readling List

Paint the Wall Black: Reflections on Self, Space, and Showing Up Fully

One of the original intentions behind The Building Life was to document the literal building—of my home, my spaces, and my life. I haven’t written much about the renovations lately, but that’s about to change.

Because life, in all its concert-going, charity-organizing, cofounding chaos, recently gave me a new project: my sons decided to swap bedrooms.

From Mural Walls to Black Ceilings

It started with simple intentions: move some furniture, repaint a wall or two. But one change spiraled into many—painting over a Mario mural I’d once done for my younger son, redoing furniture, purging toys, reorganizing chaos.

And then came the request.

“Mom, I want to paint my room black.”

My first reaction? Absolutely not. You can’t live in a dungeon.

But then I caught myself.

I remembered being that age—wanting a dark purple room and covering my walls with posters and collages. My mom compromised, maybe against her taste, but she gave me a space that felt like mine.

This request from my son sparked something deeper. Why was I resisting the same self-expression I had once craved?

When Style Becomes a Mirror

Over the years, I’ve decorated apartments and homes in ways that made sense at the time. But if I’m being honest, a lot of those choices were about what I thought others wanted to see—what looked Pinterest-worthy or socially acceptable.

I forgot that once, my room was a sanctuary. A place to be me.

Now, years later, I find myself painting my own living room with a black accent wall. But I hesitated when my son asked for the same?

It made me realize: somewhere along the way, I stopped decorating for myself.

But lately—whether it’s age or healing or just exhaustion—I care less about my home being a showroom and more about it being a haven. For me. For my kids. For the love we live in every day.

My walls are sometimes scratched, my furniture is always being repainted, and my house is rarely minimalist or curated. But the artwork speaks to me. The colors calm my nervous system. The chaos reflects the creative soul that lives here.

So yes, I compromised on dark grey for a few walls—but I also let my son paint his ceiling. And I don’t regret it for a second.

We Were Never “Too Much”

I’ve seen the quote a few different ways, but the idea sticks:

“Eventually, we return to the person we were before the world told us who to be.”

I know I’ve spent years trying to fit into molds—watered-down versions of myself I thought were easier to love, safer to show. But I tell my kids all the time: Be yourself, and the right people will love you for it.

And I’m finally trying to live that truth, too.

What’s wild is how this self-return shows up in the most unexpected places—like a paintbrush, a thrifted dresser, or a room transformation I didn’t plan.

Because our homes tell a story. And for many of us, they reflect either who we are—or who we think we’re supposed to be.

So, I ask you:

Does your home feel like a sanctuary… or just another chore?
Is it a reflection of your soul… or a curated version meant to impress?

Now, I’m not saying you should end up on an episode of Hoarders, and yes—I’ve seen houses that could’ve dialed back the personality just a bit before hitting the market (and if you haven’t fallen down that particular video rabbit hole… you’re welcome).

But we’re allowed to take up space, to have rooms that feel like us. Even if that means painting the walls black.

Clutter, Chaos, and Creativity

Yes, I envy the pristine homes I see online—the clutter-free zones and perfect lighting. But I know myself. I know my brain. I live with AuDHD. With trauma. With passion. With love.

And I know this: if I had to maintain a perfectly curated home every day, I would fracture.

Actually—I have. Just maybe not with a dramatic furniture-smashing scene from a movie (though I’ve definitely painted over the same dresser seven times, so… close enough).

I’ve come to accept that the clutter and chaos are part of me. Part of the ever-evolving metamorphosis that is healing, parenting, and being human.

So if you're like me—constantly tweaking, rearranging, repainting—maybe it’s not a flaw. Maybe it’s just evidence of growth. Of movement. Of becoming.

Masks, Minimalism, and the Middle

I get why some people reserve one “sacred” room to be themselves in—a man cave, a craft space, a moody bedroom. But what happens when the rest of our house still caters to other people’s opinions?

Where does the concern for being “too much” end, if not behind our own walls?
And if we don’t feel free in our homes, how can we feel free in our lives? Our minds?

Some people hide behind face paint and wild outfits (absolutely reflected in our recent music festivities.) Others hide behind beige walls and throw pillows. Some of us hide behind constant people-pleasing and clean counters.

But hiding is hiding—whether it’s glitter or gray.

And maybe it’s not that we’re judging others for how they express themselves.
Maybe we’re projecting our own fear of doing the same.

Teach Them Freedom

I don’t want my kids to grow up and have to unlearn things because of my conditioning.

I want them to feel safe being themselves—to be bold, to ask questions, to wear what speaks to them, and yes, to paint the wall black.

Even if you don’t have kids, I hope you know this:

You deserve to show up as the version of you that brings joy.
Not the curated version. Not the watered-down version.
The real one. The colorful one. The loud one.
The one you were before the world told you not to be.

And if that version of you lives in a cluttered, colorful, paint-splattered house?
Even better.

Because that house holds your magic. (Pun intended)

And magic was never meant to be minimalist.

Keep building life, one imperfect, beautifully authentic room at a time.

With love from my little black heart,

Lauren

P.S. Soundtrack of this post? Black No. 1 by Type O Negative. Obviously. Paint It Black by The Stones is a good runner up.

Paint the Wall Black Journal Prompts

Paint the Wall Black Reading List

More Than Music: Sharing Sound, Shaping Souls

I’m switching things up a little this week—but if you’ve followed the blog, you know everything circles back eventually.

My older son and I are heading to a four-day music festival. Since he was 10, we’ve celebrated his birthday by going to concerts in May. This festival is new for us, but it gives me a chance to talk about something close to my heart: music.

Now yes, I’m a metalhead. But don’t worry—this post isn’t just about the genre. It’s about the power of music as a language, a memory keeper, and a tool for healing.

A Childhood Memory, A Seed Planted

I remember a school field trip in California. I ended up in the car with my crush and his mom, and she had the Beastie Boys blasting—No Sleep Till Brooklyn. I was young, impressionable, and thinking: this mom is really cool.

That memory stuck. Music has a way of doing that.

My family didn’t really listen to rock or metal. My dad dabbled in classic rock, but the genre really came alive for me through friendships. Over time, I fell in love with all kinds of music. It became my language. Music is poetry you can move to. It says what we often struggle to express. It reveals something raw inside of us.

Music as a Thread Through Life

In high school, I helped organize local shows. In college, my thesis film was a documentary on Baltimore musicians. I've been backstage at Ozzfest. I've met artists, attended countless concerts, and raised my kids on sound.

But one moment stands out.

In 2021, we were at a festival watching Sevendust. I've followed the band for over 20 years. They were meaningful to me—especially as a mixed woman at a time when Black musicians in metal were rare.

As my son stood watching them, he turned to me, eyes lit up, and said, “These guys are awesome. Why didn’t you tell me about them?”

In that moment, I realized something powerful: he was connecting with the same music I had found at his age. I didn’t push him into the music. He was discovering it on his own, through my love of it —but creating a relationship of his own.

This is the moment.

Sometimes we share our passions to express ourselves. But when someone we love finds joy in them too? That’s sacred.

When they reflect that passion back to us—when they truly see a part of us, we’ve shared—it’s humbling. It’s like hearing, “Thank you for letting me love a piece of you.”

Therapy, Frequencies, and Feeling Seen

My son struggles with social anxiety, but even his therapist shared that her partner — much like my son — comes alive in a concert setting. There’s something powerful about being in a crowd of strangers, united by the same lyrics, the same beat, the same emotional release. In that shared space, the masks drop. The heart opens. The anxiety quiets.

Lately, I’ve been diving deeper into how frequencies affect the body. Sound creates literal patterns—visible in cymatics, the study of sound wave interactions with matter. Frequencies can alter mood, regulate our nervous systems, and open portals to healing.

They aren’t just heard — they’re felt.

Science tells us that music activates multiple areas of the brain. Certain tones can actually lower stress, regulate the nervous system, or even help with focus and memory. Studies show that specific vibrations affect our cells, our energy centers, and our emotional state.

But beyond science, there’s ancient wisdom here too. Many indigenous and ancient cultures believed sound was sacred. Drumming rituals, chanting, singing bowls, and vibrational ceremonies were (and still are) used to connect with spirit, release trauma, and realign the body’s energy. Churches use hymns. Temples use bells.

This belief isn’t new — it’s just something modern medicine is finally beginning to understand. Music, at its core, is healing. It’s movement. It’s memory. It’s medicine.

But music is also expression. It’s not just something we receive — it’s something someone, somewhere, gave. Each lyric, each note, is a release of feeling, a fragment of someone’s story pressed into sound. I believe music feeds the soul because it comes from the soul — it is the soul’s offering to others.

When I connect with a song, it’s not just because it resonates with me — it’s because I can feel the emotion the artist was trying to organize. The joy, the ache, the chaos, the clarity. That offering, that vulnerability, becomes a bridge between two strangers. And sometimes, that bridge is the very thing that helps us heal.

If numbers are the universal language, then music is where math and meaning converge—rhythm speaking directly to the soul. It offers nourishment to even our darkest depths, in a beautiful, primal dance of connection.

Pebbling, ADHD, and Love Languages

In neurodivergent communities, there’s a term called “pebbling.”

It comes from the way penguins court one another by offering pebbles. In human relationships, pebbling is how we show love—sharing songs, memes, facts, or moments that made us think of someone.

I pebble with music. Constantly. Songs that move me. Make me laugh. Stir something deep. Or simply remind me of someone I love. Music is the medium I use to say things I can’t always articulate.

When I send a song, I’m not just sharing a link—I’m offering a frequency that touched something in me, lyrics that reached my soul, in hopes that it touches something in you too.

Passing Down the Playlist

Music isn’t just what we stream or save to playlists — it’s the lullabies we were rocked to sleep with, the hymns that echoed through our childhood churches, the jingles our grandparents hummed in the kitchen. It’s the silly little rhymes passed down through generations, echoing with nostalgia and love.

I still remember my dad singing Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral or The Old Rugged Cross, and the playful nonsense of Mairzy Doats or A Bicycle Built for Two. They weren’t just songs — they were comfort. Connection. A thread tying me to something bigger than myself.

Cruising the California highways with my Mom, sunroof open, singing Sheryl Crow’s All I Wanna Do at the top of our lungs like a call to freedom. It may have only been a moment, but the music turned it into a memory.

Now, as a mom, I pass those songs on — but I’ve added my own. I make up ridiculous tunes for everything. Cleaning the house, brushing teeth, cooking dinner. We dance around the kitchen to songs with made-up lyrics and inside jokes. We laugh. We repeat them like rituals.

And while part of me wonders if my kids will remember these as quirky “mom moments,” my deepest hope is that these melodies stay with them — tucked into their memory like soft blankets. That someday, long after I’m gone, they’ll hear a tune or a phrase and smile, remembering the joy and love wrapped in every off-key note.

Because music isn't just passed down — it’s lived. In the quiet, in the chaos, in the laughter, in the legacy.

Why It All Matters

This blog post may seem like a detour—but it's not. It’s a loop. Because building life includes music. Includes memory. Includes connection. Includes the art of sharing pieces of ourselves and letting them echo through someone else.

Sometimes, the loudest breakthroughs come in the form of music. And if you’re lucky, they come while standing next to someone you love—singing, swaying, or screaming the lyrics to a song that says everything you’ve never known how to say.

And if you ever find yourself lost in a song, moved by a lyric, or standing in a crowd feeling the bass shake your bones — I hope you know, in that moment, you’re not alone.

We are frequency. We are rhythm. We are story. And music… well, music is the thread that ties it all together.

That’s its magic.

See you in the pit,

Lauren

P.S. If this post spoke to you, check out this week’s poem, “In the Key of You” It’s a love note to the moments, memories, and music we share—and how they shape the ones we love.

Resources

More Than Music Reading List

More Than Music Journal Prompts

Cracked Open: Why I’m Rebuilding, One Brick at a Time

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve shared a lot about the people who make up my circle—the sisters, friends, and soul-family who lift me up. But today, I want to turn the focus inward and share a little more of my story—the story behind your host, the woman behind this blog, and the journey that led me here.

We often let our past define us. But our past? It’s just a chapter. A necessary one, sure—but not the whole book.

A Quick Backstory

I was a child of divorce. I still remember the book my parents used to break the news: Dinosaur Divorce. If I remember the title decades later, it tells you something.

Before that, I remember arguments. Finances. Distance. My mother, overwhelmed by her own unhealed trauma. My dad, across the country, later battling a disease that drained the life from him and led to a transplant during my college years. There was also an "evil stepmother"—which, by Disney logic, technically makes me a princess, right?

By the time I was 13, I had already experienced sexual assault. Twice.
Then came the years of partying, welcoming the wrong people in, staying too long, and failing to set boundaries because I didn’t think I was allowed to have any.

There were abusive relationships. Codependency. Confusion. Shame. And, eventually, growth.

Owning My Role in My Own Story

It was a friend who finally said the words that cracked something open:
"It’s them, not you."
I appreciated it—but I also knew it wasn’t just them.

There was something in me—some wound, some belief, some pattern—that was allowing certain people in and worse, letting them stay. Low self-worth. Generational guilt. Trauma. A complete lack of boundaries. It wasn’t just happening to me—I was playing a role in it.

And if I was the main character in my life (which I am), then I had to take some responsibility for the script.

Wounded people wound others. But we get to choose whether or not we continue the cycle. We get to choose to heal.

We get to squelch the bleed before we spill on those we love.

No One’s Coming to Save You (And That’s OK)

Every fairytale I was raised on had a hero who swooped in to save the princess. Some people are lucky enough to find that hero.
But for most of us?
We have to choose to save ourselves.

You rarely realize you're the victim of a villain until it’s too late. Abuse can creep in like fog—slow, quiet, disorienting. For me, it was fear that kept me stuck. But my son? He was my catalyst. I didn’t want him to think love looked like that. I didn’t want him to treat women that way, or worse—think it was normal for a woman to be treated like that.

Looking back, I can see how much I did for others. For my kids. For love.
But I wasn’t doing those things for me.
I didn’t believe I was worthy of saving just because I existed.

I didn’t think I mattered unless I was doing something for someone else.

But here's the truth I came to understand:
You don’t need an external reason to make the hard decisions.
You are reason enough.

Staying Soft in a World That Tries to Harden You

People often say I’m “too nice.” One friend even joked about signing me up for B*tch Lessons.
And sure, part of me envied people who could build walls fast and cut people off like a guillotine.
But I didn’t want to become jaded.
I wanted to stay soft—but protected. Kind—but boundaried. Loving—but wise.

I didn’t want the people who tried to destroy my softness to win.
I didn’t want to become the same monster they had become.
So I made a choice: to let my tenderness be my superpower, not my weakness.

Healing is Brutal—but Worth It

Let me be real: Healing is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
You have to crack yourself open. See what’s really there.
You have to look at the mess, not with judgment, but with compassion.

It’s not about blaming others. It’s about accountability.
It’s about learning to love yourself with the same fire you use to protect your kids or hype your friends.
It’s about choosing to stay in integrity with yourself—even when it hurts.

For a long time, I told others:
You are worthy just because you exist. You don’t have to earn it.
But somewhere along the line, I stopped believing that for myself.

That’s what I’m unlearning now.

Even starting this blog, I thought:
What could I possibly offer? Who would want to hear my story?
But I’m learning to silence that imposter voice.
Because I do have value.
Because I am worthy.
And because we all are.

There’s a quote I love:

“A bottle of water is worth $1 at the grocery store and $5 at the airport. Same bottle—different setting.”
So if you don’t feel valued, maybe it’s time to change the setting.
And if you can’t do that yet, maybe it’s time to change the mindset.

The right people will see your worth, even when you’re struggling to see it yourself.

Why We're Here

This blog exists to build—together.
Through healing. Through truth. Through community.

I don’t have it all figured out. I’m not here to preach.
But I am here—one brick at a time—constructing something worthy of the woman I am becoming.
The mother. The friend. The human.
And in that process, I’ve cracked myself wide open—and I offer that vulnerability to you, not as weakness, but as a reminder that there is strength in being seen.

May it give you the courage to do the same.

Poetry was part of The Building Life from the beginning.
So later this week, I’ll be sharing the first new poem since the relaunch:
"You Did Something to Me."

Until then, thank you for being here.
For building with me.

With love and cracked-open grace,
Lauren

Resources

Cracked Open Reading List

Cracked Open Journal Prompts

To the Good Men: Thank You

The long-awaited post, as mentioned in my guest appearance on Porch Talk with Spade (Episode 8).

So I’ve made it a point to shout out the incredible women in my life — my sisters, soulmates, healers, business queens, and co-warriors. And rightfully so. But today, I want to flip the script for a minute and give some long-overdue love to a group we don’t always talk about when it comes to healing, strength, and support…

The good men.

Over the years, friendships have come and gone, and life has shown me again and again that people come into our lives exactly when they’re meant to. Sometimes it’s a blessing. Sometimes it’s a lesson. And sometimes, it’s both.

Recently, I reminded a friend — who was grieving the end of a relationship simply for setting a boundary — that sometimes the Universe (God, Spirit, whatever name you prefer) removes people we wouldn’t have removed ourselves. That gentle nudge helped her shift perspective. And it reminded me how sacred it is when the right people stay. Or show up exactly when we need them most.

I’ve heard people say, “Men and women can’t be just friends.” And I don’t buy it. I think it’s absolutely possible — with respect, boundaries, and clarity. Some of the most meaningful, grounding, and honest relationships in my life have been with men who never asked anything of me other than to just be myself.

These are men who let me vent, cry, cuss, and be “one of the guys” when I needed that space. But also showed me emotional depth, vulnerability, and truth that broke stereotypes and healed my heart in ways I didn’t know I needed.

And more importantly — they showed up for my kids.

As some of you know, and others will find out, my boys don’t have active or healthy fathers in their lives. And while that’s a story for another day (or a podcast), what I want to say is this: when my oldest was struggling this past year, I had the honor of calling on some truly remarkable men who stepped up. Who gave their time, their presence, their wisdom, and their love — with no strings attached.

Men who checked in, showed up, and stood tall.
Men who reminded my son that he matters, and that being a man includes being kind, vulnerable, strong, and soft.
Men who reminded me that I’m a badass mom even when I felt like I was barely holding it together.

These are men breaking generational cycles. Men becoming what they never had. Men raising children who aren’t biologically theirs, loving them as their own. Men grieving devastating losses. Navigating toxic co-parenting dynamics. Fighting addiction. Battling mental health in silence. Doing the same emotional work we talk about with women — but without the same community or encouragement.

And still, they show up.

One friend of mine — who has supported me and my boys countless times — recently confided that he was in a dark mental space. And it hit me like a wave. Because I don’t know what our lives would look like without him in it. But he spoke up. And that, to me, is a superpower. In a world where men are told to “man up” instead of speak out, that kind of vulnerability is revolutionary.

So today, this one’s for the men who don’t always get the thanks they deserve.

To the ones who stand beside women, not in front of or behind them.
To the ones who break cycles and build bridges.
To the ones who are healing too — even if the world rarely makes space for your tears.
To the ones who treat friendship as sacred, not transactional.
To the ones raising good humans, with or without a blueprint.

Thank you.

For the strength you show.
For the strength you hide.
For reminding us all that goodness still exists.

We may talk a lot about women’s healing on this blog — and we will continue to — because we talk about what we live. But make no mistake: your healing matters too.

So here’s to the good men. The ones who help build the life we dream of. One friendship, one conversation, one act of love at a time.

With a safe space and a hug,
Lauren

P.S. You should know who you are, but just in case:
Brian (Imperial Photography), Dylan, Taylor, Casey, Christian, Brandon, Kevin, Gerret, Worth, Jim… thank you.

Resources

Reading List for Men

Reading List for Women

Journal Prompts for Men

Journal Prompts for Women

Fixing Each Other’s Crowns

A Tribute to Friendship, Growth, and Grace

This is my page, so let me shamelessly promote my friend’s business: TiffyKakes — creative genius, confectionary artist, and one of the fiercest women I’ve ever had the honor of doing life with.

But business accolades aside, let me tell you about my friend Tiffany — a woman who continues to inspire me more with each passing year.

We met through our significant others shortly after both relocating to Alabama — me from Baltimore, her from Houston. We were both tall Texas girls, but that’s where the similarities seemed to end... at least at first glance.

Our first meeting was at a flea market (which, to this day, she had no business being at — she was a vision of elegance while I was chasing a toddler in a hoodie, covered in queso). I never imagined we’d become the kind of friends that hold each other’s legs in delivery rooms — but here we are, years and two god-babies later, woven into each other’s stories forever.

When she became devastatingly ill with lupus a little over a year after giving birth, I watched her strength take on a new shape. Tiffany has never been one to sit still, but lupus forced her to reshape her life. From that pain, TiffyKakes was born — a business that gave her creative outlet, freedom, and fire, even on days when it hurt to move. She says I planted the seed. Maybe I did. But she built the garden.

Since I first wrote this post years ago, so much has changed — for both of us. I've now come to accept my own diagnosis with fibromyalgia, and it’s been a journey filled with pain, clarity, surrender, and healing. Our stories, though different, mirror each other in the ways we’ve had to rebuild.

Even more beautifully — both of our children are now starting their own businesses. Watching her daughter grow into a mini powerhouse is just chef's kiss. Seeing her lead by example and continue to thrive, not just survive, is awe-inspiring.

And the best update of all? After years of unrelenting pain, Tiffany is finally in remission.

She still doesn’t always see what we all do — the powerhouse of a woman, mother, creator, and friend she is. But if she forgets, I’ll be here to fix her crown. Because she’s done the same for me — time and time again.

On Friendship and Finding Your People

As we get older, making genuine friends becomes harder. We move, we raise families, we work nonstop, we heal, we hide. Life makes us cautious, tired, guarded. And sometimes, we feel too broken or too busy to connect.

When I moved to Alabama, I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t have a village here, or any clue how to build one. But then, two things happened that changed that: I found a community of bold, vibrant women in Mobile’s Divas, and I strapped on skates with the Mobile Derby Darlings.

Let me tell you, nothing builds fast trust like bruises and laps and laughter shared with women who refuse to let you fall alone — on or off the track.

Those early friendships, like the one I have with Tiffany, were lifelines. They reminded me that connection is worth the effort — that there are women out there who will clap for you when you win and hold you when you don't. That it's never too late to find your people.

If I had let insecurities or snap judgments define our first meeting, I would’ve missed out on one of the most important friendships in my life. Tiffany is not only a role model to my kids and an anchor in my chaos, but she’s also proof of what happens when women support each other instead of compete.

So, to all of you reading this:

May you have friends who see your crown even when it slips.
May you be the kind of person who reminds others of their light.
And may you never underestimate the power of building life with women who lift as they climb.

And to the true friends I’ve found along the way—the incredible women who’ve become more like family—thank you. Life is richer, softer, and more meaningful with you in it. Your presence has been one of my greatest blessings.

Love you always, Queens,

Lauren

Resources

Fixing Each Other’s Crowns Journal Prompts

Fixing Each Other’s Crowns Reading List

The Weight I Didn’t Know I Was Carrying

Fibromyalgia, Energy Healing, and Finally Listening to My Body

In January of 2014, I was finishing my master’s degree, working full-time, raising my then 3-year-old son as a single mom, and trying to push through the exhaustion with willpower and bad coffee. I had never liked coffee—honestly, the smell alone repulsed me—but I trained myself to tolerate it, like slowly introducing poison, just to keep going.

I knew something was off.
But I told myself I was just tired. Just overworked.
Pain? That was just part of life… right?

When I was first diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I rejected it completely. My mother had the same diagnosis—after years of being told it was lupus. I watched her suffer, struggle to function, and be shuffled through medications that never seemed to help. I couldn’t accept that was my path too.

So, I didn’t.
I ignored it.
I powered through the pain—roller derby injuries, gym workouts, broken tailbones, chipped bones—walking it off like a champ and chalking it up to being tough.

But I wasn’t just tough.
I was disconnected from my body.

Relearning Pain, Relearning Myself

Through pregnancy, injuries, and countless misdiagnoses—ADHD, depression, hypersomnia, insomnia—I told myself this was normal. It wasn’t until 2024, a full decade later, that I met a P.A. who finally connected the dots and looked me in the eye and said, “It’s time to take this seriously.”

He explained fibromyalgia as a neurological disorder, often tied to trauma and PTSD. He wasn’t dismissive or vague. He made it clear: This is real. This is in your body. And it deserves your attention.

That moment flipped a switch.
I dove into research like my life depended on it—because, in many ways, it did.
Suddenly, everything made sense.
The misfires. The exhaustion. The stubborn weight. The pain.
All the symptoms I had tried to manage separately… were deeply connected.

Healing Isn’t Just Clinical

With the right medication, a supportive new primary care doctor, and actual rest, my life started to shift. I lost 30 pounds. I had more energy. My mood lifted. My brain fog cleared. And I even got off some of the medications I’d been taking for years (under supervision, of course).

But that’s only part of the story.

The Wisdom of Ancient Healing

As I began learning about energy healing, I found myself looking backward as much as forward. Long before fibromyalgia had a clinical name, countless ancient tribes and healing traditions around the world already understood what many of us are just rediscovering—that illness isn’t just physical. It’s emotional. It’s spiritual.

In many cultures—from Indigenous tribes across the Americas to Chinese, Indian, and African traditions—pain was seen as a sign of imbalance in the energy body. Trauma was not simply a psychological event, but a soul injury, often treated with ceremony, energy work, bodywork, herbs, or ritual.

Practices like Reiki, cupping, acupuncture, and breathwork were rooted in the idea that healing must happen across all levels—physical, emotional, energetic, and spiritual. There was no shame in seeking healing. There was wisdom in it.

Enter Kodo—And The Session That Shifted Everything

Last month, an old friend from Maryland reached out. Jade, who had also been diagnosed years ago, had taken a more spiritual path and co-founded a holistic healing practice called The WooWrX. She invited me to try something I’d long been curious about: Reiki and intuitive energy healing.

What followed was a distance session guided by both Jade and her husband, combining elements of Reiki, chakra alignment, and deep energetic insight. It was something I didn’t realize how much I needed until it was happening.

They identified pain rooted in my root chakra—the exact place I carry physical pain in my hips and legs. They spoke truth into the silence I had lived with. They helped me release a weight I didn’t even realize I was still carrying.

After the session, my pain didn’t vanish, but it changed. My energy felt lighter. My breath, freer. I wasn’t just managing fibromyalgia—I was finally meeting it with presence.

Chakras, Science & The Grey Area

Since that session, life has done what life does—work trips, missed meds, everyday chaos—but something is different. The pain hasn’t returned in the same intensity. And the wild part? I noticed the shift before I even read their session notes.

Coincidence? Placebo? Maybe.
But healing isn’t black and white.

This is the grey space—where ancient knowledge and modern medicine don’t contradict each other… they complete each other.

We are more than bodies. We are energy. We are story.
And we are worthy of healing from all directions.

What I Want You to Take Away

If you're living with fibromyalgia or chronic illness—or even just unexplained exhaustion and disconnection—please, please be your own advocate. Doctors are knowledgeable, but they’re not omniscient. If your diagnosis doesn’t feel complete, keep digging. If your treatment isn’t helping, explore the spaces between.

Lean into your curiosity. Lean into the discomfort.
And when your body whispers—listen.

It might be telling you everything you need to know.

What’s Helped Me (So Far):

• A supportive primary care provider who listens

• A balanced medication and supplement routine

• Researching the neurological & trauma links behind fibromyalgia

• Reiki + energy healing (like Kodo through The WooWrX)

• Letting go of shame and guilt for needing care

• Honoring ancient healing practices with an open heart

This post isn’t medical advice. It’s my story.
It’s a reminder that we are not just pain.
We are not just labels.
We are not broken.

We are building—slowly, gently, beautifully.

With love & healing,
Lauren

Resources

Reclaiming Your Energy & Listening to Your Body Reading List

Reclaiming Your Energy & Listening to Your Body Journal Prompts

The Power of Saying No (Without Guilt)

A couple of weeks ago, I co-hosted our monthly event for my women’s group.
First—let me brag about this group and its founder. She’s an incredible woman and mama who created something really special: a space for women from all walks of life to come together once a month—to connect, laugh, learn, or just breathe.

Not being originally from here, and after I stepped away from roller derby (which deserves its own post, and trust me, we’ll get there), it’s been hard to make adult female friendships. But I’ve been part of this group for about six years now, and it’s something I genuinely look forward to.

Last month’s event? A wellness night and acupuncture clinic.

Huge shoutout to Ivy Garden of Wellness and my amazing friends Jess and Tacy—link below because, yes, I am absolutely plugging women who pour into other women.

As women filtered in for treatment, I created a list of mindfulness questions for them to sit with while they waited. Nothing too heavy—just little prompts to nudge them back toward themselves.
But something surprising (and kinda heavy) happened:

Many of us couldn’t answer them.
We literally had to pause and think hard… about things like:

"What do I need more of?"
"When was the last time I did something just for myself?"
"What emotion have I been avoiding?"

These aren’t trick questions. But they’re hard when you’ve spent so much time taking care of everyone else.
Hard when you always say yes.
Hard when you’ve been handing out parts of yourself on autopilot for years.

Burnout Isn’t a Buzzword—It’s a Silent Epidemic

So many of us—especially women—have been taught that saying yes is noble. That being needed is our value. That if we say no, we’re letting someone down.

And listen, nurturing is in our bones. Caregiving is instinctual for many of us. But what happens when we’ve given away so much care that we forget to care for ourselves?

We burn out.
And not just in the "I'm tired" way.
We feel guilty when we rest.
We feel selfish for needing space.
We feel uncomfortable not helping, even when we have nothing left to give.

We turn ourselves into emotional overdraft accounts, constantly handing out more than we’ve replenished.

You Can’t Pour from an Empty Cup—And You Shouldn’t Have To

If your body, mind, and spirit were a bank account, would you be in the negative right now?
Think about it.

Every time you get a little deposit—an hour alone, a compliment, a nap, a podcast that stirs your soul—you immediately give it away.
You don’t let your balance build.
You don’t give yourself permission to keep the good stuff for yourself first.

And then… the metaphorical flat tire hits.
The emotional emergency.
The unexpected bill.

And you realize: You’ve got nothing left to cover it.

Saying “No” Isn’t Selfish. It’s Sacred.

Saying no isn’t a rejection of others. It’s a reclamation of self.
It’s setting a boundary that says:

“I am worthy of rest.”
“I need time to replenish.”
“I am not abandoning you—I am choosing me.”

We’re not just fighting people-pleasing habits.
We’re unlearning ancestral patterns, too. Generations of women before us didn’t always have the permission or privilege to say no.
They survived by putting everyone else first.
And now, we carry that guilt like it’s inherited.

But it stops with us.
Not because we don’t care.
But because we care so much—we know we can’t keep living this way.

How to Break the Yes Cycle and Heal From Burnout

Here are a few ways to start gently honoring your own capacity:

1. Practice Saying “Let Me Get Back to You”

You don’t owe an immediate yes. Give yourself space to check in with your energy before committing.

2. Check Your Capacity, Not Just Your Calendar

Just because your schedule is open doesn’t mean your nervous system is. Energy matters more than availability.

3. Start With Small “No’s”

Decline an extra task. Skip an event. Say no to guilt-tripping yourself into overextending.

4. Create a “Replenishment List”

Write down 5 things that refill your cup (even if it’s silence, a nap, or watching water boil in peace). Do one weekly.

5. Ask: Who or What Pours Into Me?

Your giving shouldn't be one-sided. Relationships should be reciprocal. If no one’s pouring into you—you’re allowed to pause, refill, and protect your peace.

This Is the Work of Rebuilding

This blog—The Building Life—isn’t just about furniture flips, home projects, or poetic reflections.
It’s about rebuilding from the inside out.
Tearing down beliefs that no longer serve us.
Saying yes to ourselves with the same energy we give to everyone else.

So here’s your permission slip (in case no one’s handed you one lately):
You can say no and still be kind.
You can rest and still be worthy.
You can be full of love without being emptied out.

And when you forget—come back here.
We’re building something better.

With a boundary and a hug,
Lauren 🤎

Shoutout to Ivy Garden of Wellness, Jess & Tacy – thank you for holding space for women to come home to themselves.

Resources

Saying No, Boundaries & Burnout Reading List

Saying No, Boundaries & Burnout Journal Prompts

Welcome (Back) to The Building Life

Originally dreamed up in 2020, reborn now—with spirit, grace, and a much bigger toolbox.

Hey friend,

Thank you for showing up—and welcome (or welcome back) to The Building Life.

This blog and podcast have lived in my heart for years. The idea first sparked in 2020, in the middle of a wildly uncertain time, when I was craving more purpose, clarity, and connection. Like many of you, I was navigating the chaos of life, trying to make sense of it all while raising my boys, holding down work, and still remembering who I was underneath it all.

I’ve tried to launch this space more than once, but life has a way of… well, life-ing. Being a single mom means time is never your own. Add in work, relationships, house projects, unexpected turns, and just trying to stay sane—and it’s easy to see how some dreams get pushed to the back burner.

But here's the truth: this dream never really left. It just needed to grow with me.

What’s Changing (and What’s Not)

The Building Life is still about the same things that inspired me from the beginning:

• Navigating real-life struggles with honesty and humor

• Creating a meaningful life through intention, creativity, and chaos

• Finding healing through home, heart, and hustle

But now, we’re coming back with fresh eyes, deeper perspective, and a whole lot more stories to tell.

We’ll revisit some early content and conversations—this time with new tools, new wisdom, and maybe a little more wine. And we’ll be diving into some beautiful new territory too: healing, creativity, self-love, spirituality, DIY life hacks, and what it really means to rebuild from the inside out.

About the Podcast

Yes, the podcast is coming too! Think kitchen-table conversations about:

• Being a mom while trying not to lose yourself

• Learning to set boundaries and build again after heartbreak

• Talking to experts, friends, and people who’ve been through it

• The messy, magical work of building a life that feels like yours

Who This Is For

This space is for the dreamers, the doers, the tired mamas, the recovering people-pleasers, the creatives, the ones healing while hustling, and anyone who’s ever said:

"I want more, but I’m exhausted."

Same.

Let’s talk about it. Let’s build some sh*t. Let’s figure it out together.

Want to Be Part of It?

I’d love to hear from you—what do you want to talk about? What are you building in your life right now?

Drop a comment, subscribe to the newsletter, or follow along on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube.

We’re just getting started.

With love and a hammer,

Lauren
The Building Life