Fear shot through me when my team sent the list.
How the hell did his email slip through?

We’re on the edge of something big – launching a new website. It’s been a labor of love, months of planning and building, weaving together everything I’ve been pouring myself into. It’s almost ready, just in time to line up with the release of my book. After that, I had this fantasy of taking a much-needed vacation. (Who am I kidding? I’ve got no money left to take a vacation – but a girl can dream, right?)

As we were going over the final details, my marketing manager pointed out a name I never expected to see.
His name.

She recognized it instantly because months ago, we sat in a booth at Carlyle’s Restaurant while I tried to explain my current professional situation. How I’d been removed from a speaking engagement I’d been beyond excited for. How blindsided I felt.

As I’ve shared before, he went for the throat with that one – and all I could do was stand there and bleed.

There’s nothing more humbling than having to explain why you stayed too long, believed too much, and why I still love too hard. Yet, like many before her (and many after), she responded with compassion and grace. She gave me a shelter in a world where I’m fighting every day to be more than what was done to me.

Seeing his name again made my stomach drop. Fear rose like a tide I couldn’t stop. Tears formed before I even realized what was happening. It was April’s discoveries all over again. Rinse. Repeat.

My excitement, passion, and joy – poured onto the page for people I believed wanted to be there for me – only to realize one of them stood in the shadows. Using my own words against me. Cutting me not once, but a hundred times over.

I am not okay. This is not okay.

I don’t know what’s safe. I don’t know who is safe.

People say, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
Honestly? I’m good. That’s not a tactic, not a game, I ever want to play.

Enemies – you do you. You almost made me lose faith in the power of love. You broke me in ways I never imagined possible.

But here’s the thing: I made it back.

With the help of deep, abiding love, I’ve leaned on the people who continue to show up. Who protect me in rooms I can’t be in. Who encourage, love, and support me when I’m scared. Who hold my head up when I’m drowning.

Would I love to show you how “happy” I am, how “free” I am, how “indifferent” I am? Sure. I could put on those masks. But I refuse to be fake.

I was shattered. Not just broken, but absolutely shattered. Putting myself back together has been a long, hard road.

I am fragile. I am timid. I am still hiding. I will need 100+ reasons to even try to “show up” in the way my stupid broken heart still wants to.

So the best thing my team and I could do was hit unsubscribe.

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I wasn’t prepared for how hard it would be. I thought it would be all middle fingers up, you suck, rage and all of that nonsense.

But honestly, it probably hurt me more to do it than it ever did for him to receive it. For all I know, he might not have even realized he was on the list at all – spam filters could have caught the emails before they ever reached him. I may never know.

In fact, my stupid fragile heart wanted to say “it’s okay that you’re here, I hold no ill-will for you. I still believe in you. I still love you.”

But given all that I learned in April, I couldn’t bear to risk being shattered in the same way again.
Still, some quiet part of me clung to hope – believing, maybe, just maybe, he would finally see me in a different light than the one he had painted.
Then the memory of everything he wrote about me comes rushing back, and that fragile hope collapses, leaving me feeling hopeless for ever having believed otherwise.

So I did what I never imagined I would, I closed the door.

And you know what?
It hurt more than I expected it to.

That’s the honest truth – this heart never wanted to let go.
But sometimes, the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.

So I closed it… gently, with love, and with hope that what’s ahead will finally feel like peace. 🕊️

with all my love, xoxo

J