I’m no stranger to gossip.

Stories.
Rumors.
Exaggerations.
Half-truths wrapped in assumptions.

At this point in my life, I’ve learned that most of it washes off.

People will create versions of you based on their own experiences, insecurities, biases, and agendas. Sometimes those stories have a grain of truth. Sometimes they are complete fabrications.

Either way, I’ve learned not to carry them.

I’m also incredibly grateful for the people who protect my name in rooms I will never enter.

The friends who shut down the gossip. The people who say, “That’s not what happened.” The ones who know my character well enough to challenge the narrative when I’m not there to defend myself.

Those people are gifts!

But recently, something happened that felt different.

It wasn’t gossip.

It was exposure.

And somehow, that hurt more.

A conversation took place that I didn’t know was happening.

My past.

My pain.

The struggles.

More vulnerabilities.

Pieces of my story were discussed and interpreted through someone else’s lens, and suddenly I felt completely exposed.

Not because those things are secrets.

They aren’t.

I’ve never been someone who hides from my past.

In fact, I’m probably more open than most people.

I have shared the beautiful parts of my story and the ugly parts.

The victories and the failures.

The heartbreak and the healing.

I am not afraid of being judged.

Judgment says more about the person doing the judging than the person being judged.

And I’m not afraid of losing people who decide they don’t like my story.

The people who belong in my life stay.

The people who don’t, leave.

That’s life.

What bothered me wasn’t that my past was discussed.

It was that my voice wasn’t part of the conversation.

Because there is a difference between telling your story and having your story told for you.

I want people to hear my experiences from me.

Not because I need to control the narrative.

But because I want them to understand something important:

I am not ashamed of where I’ve been.

I have healed from it.

My past does not define me.

It shaped me.

It taught me.

It humbled me.

It strengthened me.

But it does not own me.

And if I share those stories, I share them from a place of growth, not victimhood.

I want people to hear the healing, not just the hurt.

The lessons, not just the wounds.

The person I became, not just the things I survived.

The truth is, the conversation itself probably wasn’t one I would have chosen to have.

If he genuinely wanted to understand my past, he could have asked me.

A year ago. When he sought to make me the scapegoat.

Understanding me was never the objective.

Using my past was!

And there is a difference.

People who weaponize your history are rarely interested in accuracy.

Accuracy isn’t the point. The point is finding information that supports a conclusion they’ve already reached. Once someone decides who you are, they often stop looking for evidence that they’re wrong. They simply collect evidence that confirms what they already believe.

One of my favorite lines from Sweet Home Alabama has always stayed with me:

“Let her think what she wants, Clinton. She made up her mind about me a long time ago.”

The older I get, the more I understand that line.

Some people don’t know you.

They know the version of you they’ve created in their head.

And no amount of explaining, defending, clarifying, or proving yourself will change that.

Because the issue was never lack of information.

It was lack of curiosity!

So where does that leave me?

Honestly?

A little exposed.

again, misunderstood.

Just exposed.

Because when someone takes your vulnerability and places it into a conversation you didn’t consent to, it can feel like standing in a room without armor.

Not heard.

Not seen.

Not understood.

Just opened up for examination.

And perhaps that’s the part that hurts the most.

Not that someone discussed my story.

But that the discussion created one more opportunity for someone to misunderstand it.

But here’s what I know today:

My story still belongs to me.

Not to the people who retell it.

Not to the people who distort it.

Not to the people who use it as evidence against me.

Me.

And while I cannot control what people say in rooms I’m not in, I can control how I carry myself when I walk into the next room.

I can continue to speak openly.

I can continue to heal publicly.

I can continue to own every chapter of my story without shame.

Because the people who matter won’t judge me for my past.

They’ll respect me for surviving it.

And the people determined to misunderstand me were never listening in the first place.

My past is not evidence against me.

It is evidence of what I’ve survived, what I’ve learned, and who I’ve become.

The people who only see the wound will never understand the healing.

And that’s okay.

Because I didn’t walk through everything I walked through to spend the rest of my life explaining myself to people who have already decided who I am.

I walked through it so I could become someone who helps others believe their story doesn’t end at their WORST chapter.

With all my love, xoxo J