A Life Built on Strategy. A Year That Changed the Blueprint.

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, ...

This is part 5 of 5. Read Part one here  |  Read Part two here | Read Part three here | Read Part four here

This year taught me something I wish I had understood much earlier:

Identity isn’t who we build, it’s who we already are.

It’s the stories we tell ourselves… until we finally learn to hear the truth beneath them.

For decades, I shaped my identity around what the world reflected to me:
Titles.
Roles.
Achievements.
The circles I kept.
The validation that came from being dependable, capable, and strong.

And yet, I was often misunderstood.

People saw me as intense, direct, and even intimidating at times.
But underneath all of that was something softer:

A deeply sensitive, empathetic woman who feels the world more acutely than most.

That sensitivity has always been my gift,  the way I see patterns, truth, and possibility long before they fully emerge.

But for most of my life, I was told I was too sensitive. It became an insecurity instead of the strength it truly ...

This is part 4 of 5. Read Part one here  |  Read Part two here | Read Part three here

It’s been a heavy week.

Australia.
Brown University.
A home in California was terrorized for placing a menorah in the window.

And the senseless murder of Michelle and Rob Reiner. People I knew during those early parenting years, when everything felt innocent and possible.

Some weeks, the world presses down so hard that moving through it feels like wading through water. This week, my body has felt it all: low energy, a quiet mind, and everything in slow motion.

And still, tonight is the fifth night of Hanukkah.

We are closing out the month of Kislev, the month that holds the tension between darkness and light. Hanukkah teaches us that a single flame can push back a vast night. But if I’m honest, there are moments when holding that flame feels almost impossible.

Yet Kislev rolls into Tevet on December 21, and Tevet is a month of resilience.

Not loud resilience.
Not performati...

 This is part 3 of 5. Read Part one here  |  Read Part two here

After last week's blog, "What the Fire Actually Took," my inbox filled in ways I hadn't expected. Messages poured in: tender, brave, mirrored back to me from strangers and friends alike. And what I realized, sitting inside all that reflection, is this:

Vulnerability doesn't isolate us. It gathers us.

In the stillness of my quiet room, where I begin most mornings with intention and listening, something else came into focus with startling clarity:

My trauma had been writing my drama.

For much of my life, I didn't think of myself as "traumatized." I thought I was resilient. Capable. High-functioning. The one who handled things. It wasn't until November of 2021, when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, metastasized from my original cancer in 2016, that the word trauma stopped being theoretical.

From diagnosis to surgery: 23 days.

Tests. Bloodwork. Experimental radiation. Putting my house in order....

 This is part 2 of 5. Read Part one here

About eleven months ago, our lives looked very different.  If I’m being honest, it was already cracking.

Our home was beautiful, but our foundation wasn’t. The space between family members had grown wide and brittle. And the only way I knew how to cope was by closing doors,  emotional ones, mostly, and staying busy enough not to feel the ache underneath.

Then the fire came.

It took everything I thought was mine; every object, photograph, and memory, gone in a single night.  But what I’ve learned since is that the fire didn’t just take things.
It took illusion.

In the ashes, I found truth.

Truth about my family, my past, my patterns, and about who I’ve always been underneath all of it.

For decades, I tried to find that truth through therapy, travel, meditation, building a business, Torah study, ketamine journeys, workshops, mentors, teachers, all of it. But none of it cracked me open the way the fire did.

Loss has a ...

I haven't written publicly in over a year. Not because I had nothing to say, but because I was living through something I couldn't yet put into words. This is the first of five pieces about what happened when everything burned down, and what I'm building from the ashes.

It's been a while since I've written.

Not because I didn't have something to say, but because life rerouted me. The kind of rerouting that changes your view before you even realize you've turned a corner.

When we last connected, everything I was building felt aligned. Every experience, every lesson, every pivot had brought me to exactly where I thought I was supposed to be.

Then, in the summer of 2023, I was chosen to lead in a new way. An opportunity that felt both validating and sacred. It reconnected me to the proud Jewish woman I've always been and allowed me to build and nurture community in ways that felt beautifully aligned with my soul's purpose.

That season gave me something I didn't kn...