21/01/2026
2016 didn’t look dramatic from the outside.
There was no announcement. No leaving. No rupture.
Just a girl quietly gathering herself.
This was the year of micro-awakenings.
The year my nervous system started noticing what felt alive and what felt dead.
The year I tasted agency before I knew what to do with it.
The year I learned that wanting wasn’t dangerous. It was informative.
In the Stages of Change, 2016 wasn’t action. It was contemplation and preparation.
It was my body learning the truth before my mind could tolerate it.
So when everything did explode at the end of 2017, when I finally asked my husband to move out, it wasn’t sudden.
It was preceded by a thousand quiet moments of becoming.
I couldn’t have survived the rupture without the year before.
And I couldn’t be who I am now, a s*xuality educator and relationship coach who is deeply alive and thriving, without honoring that invisible season.
If you’re in a year that feels confusing, restrained, or not enough, please know this:
Nothing is wasted.
The roots are growing.
The year before matters.