I woke up in the dark. Not the kind of dark that comes with nightfall, but the kind that feels heavy—like it’s pressing against your skin, swallowing every sound. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was. My hands reached out, searching for something familiar, but there was nothing. Just silence. Just me.
Alone again.
It’s strange how the mind works in moments like that. How it pulls you backward, dragging you through years you thought you’d left behind. I couldn’t stop thinking about the dream I had the night before—a dream that wasn’t really a dream, but a memory dressed in shadows. I was four years old again, back in Willow Creek, the neighborhood where I thought my adventures would begin. Back when life seemed simple, before the cracks started to show.
I can still see Brian Berg’s face, hear the laughter as we pushed his dead Power Wheels up the hill, determined to make it fly without a battery. Two kids chasing speed and freedom, not knowing that scars—like the one still etched on my leg—don’t just come from concrete lips and hard falls. Some scars come from promises broken, from voices raised in anger, from nights spent waiting for someone who never shows up.
That’s what this story is about. The years that were missing. The pieces of me scattered across houses, apartments, and streets. The moments of joy that burned bright and vanished too soon. The mistakes that taught me lessons I didn’t want to learn. And the faith that somehow kept me alive when everything else fell apart.
If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to grow up chasing love you can’t hold, searching for belonging in places that never felt like home—this is my truth. It’s messy. It’s raw. But it’s mine.

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” — Isaiah 41:10

Proverbs 3:5-6 — “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
Jeremiah 29:11 — “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”