As we move from the hustle of Christmas toward the new year, there is a quiet pause between the moments—a space that invites reflection and stillness. This post explores the beauty of slowing down, embracing the silence, and finding peace in the in-between. It is in these quiet moments that we reconnect with ourselves, honoring the lessons of the past year and preparing our hearts for the year ahead.

As we prepare to step into 2025, let us embrace the beauty of transition—the space between what was and what will be. This post reflects on the lessons of 2024, the importance of setting intentions over resolutions, and the power of letting go to make room for new growth. As we navigate uncertainty and change, let’s move forward with gratitude and the intention to become the best versions of ourselves in the year ahead.

November arrives every year like an old friend with a bittersweet presence—a month that carries with it a weight I can’t quite shake off. It’s the time of year when daylight dwindles and the chill in the air cuts through the warmth we’ve grown used to. As the days grow shorter, there’s a quiet sadness that settles in. The holidays seem far away, yet the pressure to prepare for them looms. It’s a month of transition, where the past year feels both distant and immediate, and we find ourselves on the edge of something new, unsure if we’re ready to embrace it or not. But even in this quiet discomfort, there is an invitation to pause and reflect, to notice what November asks of us—both in the world and in our hearts.

Dear Muse,
You find me again—this time near the food court, where the air hums thick with fried sweetness and voices clash like windblown leaves. You have no preference for silence. Instead, you arrive when the world is loud, when the neon lights pulse like heartbeats, when mothers hush babies, and the cashier’s scanner beeps its rhythm. Amidst the noise, I find clarity. You make me see the world through a different lens—the man with two bags of onions, the teenager in black boots, the woman whose hands tell more stories than her face. It’s here, in the chaos, where I lose myself and, paradoxically, find everything.

As a child, I couldn’t grasp the complexities of trauma or why it settled in my young heart like a heavy fog. I just knew I felt out of place, carrying a sadness that words couldn’t capture. The adults around me, though filled with love, were navigating their own struggles, leaving me to wrestle with emotions I couldn’t name. It wasn’t until years later that I began to see the puzzle of our family more clearly—the way each of us carried pieces of resilience and unspoken pain. Through it all, Mama Jean’s typewriter became my silent confidant, the one place I could pour out my tangled thoughts and begin to make sense of my world.

In Amarillo, nothing felt familiar—not the suburban streets, not the orderly rows of houses, and certainly not the buildings stacked atop each other like bales of hay in the city’s heart. I had come from a place where life sprawled outward—fields stretching to the horizon, barefoot days spent chasing fireflies, and people who spoke in the rhythm of cicadas. Here, everything rose up, as if the world were trying to press me into the ground.

I didn’t fit. My clothes, my accent, even my wiry frame marked me as different. I was the redneck farm girl who didn’t understand why sidewalks replaced dirt paths or why the sky seemed smaller here. At night, the shadows cast by streetlights through the canopy bed’s frilly lace convinced me that monsters lay in wait. By day, those same monsters followed me into classrooms where my sharp mind didn’t help me make friends, only made me more of an outsider.

The typewriter became my sanctuary. Its keys were solid and predictable, a grounding rhythm I could control in a world that felt like a storm. When I pressed down, the letters landed on paper in neat, orderly lines, as if it were possible to make sense of things after all.

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