From Ashes to Intimacy

Today marks one year since the fire erupted.

January 7, 2025. Three hundred sixty-five days since everything familiar- the home, the history, the illusions- went up in flames.

As this anniversary approached, I found myself thinking less about what was lost and more about what it has taken to heal, not just individually, but also in partnership.

For months after the fire, I didn’t have the words for what I was feeling.

The grief was too big. The losses are too layered. The shock is too deep.
I kept moving; doing, managing, surviving because stopping felt dangerous.

It wasn’t until I started writing that something finally softened.

Writing became the place where my nervous system exhaled.
Where truth could surface without interruption.
Where I could name what hurt, what was lost, what was changing, and what was quietly being rebuilt.

And unexpectedly, writing became the bridge back to myself and to Mitch.

As I put words to what I had been carrying, the fear, the trauma, the loneliness threaded through the chaos, something shifted between us. We began to see not just the facts of what happened, but the emotional landscape I had been navigating long before the flames.

This isn’t the first time we’ve had to find our way back to each other. There were earlier fractures, Berkeley, the relentless years of building a business while raising children, moments when survival took precedence over tenderness. But this time was different. This time, we didn’t bypass the truth to keep moving.

Each piece I wrote opened a new conversation.
Each reflection allowed us to meet in a new place.
Each truth I named helped a little more of the pain evaporate.

We often talk about rebuilding a home. But this past year, we rebuilt something even more fragile: the space between us.

Slowly. Gently. Bravely.

And in that steadiness, something else emerged…

…clarity.

The pause gave me the ability to see what I had once rushed past, and to trust what my body and intuition were finally naming.

The closer we’ve grown, the more I’ve come to understand how intertwined our healing really is and how much of our future depends on the honesty we’re willing to hold now.

Writing didn’t just help me process the fire.

It helped me see my sibling for what he never was, and my mother for who she has always been.
It helped us reconnect with each other.
It helped him understand the depth of my pain.
It helped me see the depth of his.
And it reminded us that partnership can be resilient when it’s built not on pretending, but on truth.

As I step into this second year, the year after the fire, I feel something new taking shape.

Not a return to who we were.
Not a repeat of what was lost.

But a life, and a partnership, built with more honesty, more intention, and more room for what is truly aligned.

This year isn’t about what burned.
It’s about what’s being written now.

With love and gratitude,

Susan 

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