if you’re in the middle of it, this is for you.
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two years ago, i was sitting cross-legged on the bed in a dark hotel room in LA, in the middle of touring, coming off the most validating year of my life. from the outside everything was working, and yet, when the noise settled, i felt… off. lonely. disconnected. like i didn't fully recognize myself. i realized the life i felt pulled toward looked really different from the one i was taught to want growing up.

that night, i opened the notes app on my phone and started typing what would become the chorus of a song that opened the door to one of the most transformative seasons of my life. i started asking questions i had spent most of my life avoiding. why can't i fall in love and feel safe? why do i feel so broken? why can't i cry?

i was raised in an environment where curiosity wasn't really celebrated. questions meant doubt, and doubt was dangerous. but once i started writing freely, honestly, things came up whether i was ready for them or not. patterns, fears, ways i had learned to cope that were showing up in every part of my life. in my relationships, in my body, in my silence… even when i looked confident on the outside, i felt disconnected and empty on the inside.

people close to me started saying, "i don't recognize you anymore" and "we miss the old you.”
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i couldn't go back. i had seen too much of my real self to unsee it.
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around that time, i started therapy, and in my first session my therapist said something i've carried with me ever since:
‍what if you stopped carrying what doesn't belong to you?‍
so i started trying. i noticed i was showing up places hollowed out, giving everything away, performing okayness, going quiet when i should have spoken. i started telling the truth a little sooner. it was uncomfortable, messy, and sometimes it made things harder before it made them better. but it was honest.
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my sophomore album, I HOPE THIS HELPS, is my diary of that journey in music form. it became the workshop where i felt my way through all of it. not to fix myself, but to understand myself. i learned that being strong isn't the same as being numb. i learned that the right people don't leave when you're honest. they stay. and i started to see that i could build a life that actually felt like mine, not just one that looks acceptable from the outside.
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if you're somewhere in the middle of your own version of this… if you feel lost, or disconnected, or like you don't fully recognize yourself right now… i just want you to know a few things i wish someone had told me sooner:

you're not broken for feeling this way. you're not behind because you're still figuring it out. and you're not wrong for wanting more for your life than what you were handed.

you can trust that quiet voice in you that keeps nudging you toward something deeper, even if it doesn't make sense yet. you're allowed to outgrow versions of yourself that
once kept you safe.
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and if you stay with it, even when it's uncomfortable, even when it's unclear, it does get easier. and it will be worth it.

you're not alone in this. not even close.

whichever part of the journey you're in… i hope this helps.