I almost stopped writing on here altogether last year. Not because I had nothing to say — but because everything I thought I knew about myself fell apart at once…
When everything fell apart
I lost myself at the end of last year… again.
Not all at once — but slowly, quietly, in ways that took me a while to recognise.
I didn’t recognise my life anymore.
I went through an identity crisis.
I lost my sense of purpose.
My marriage was quietly failing in ways that felt confusing and painful.
And my body — the one thing I’d always relied on — stopped cooperating.
I went into a severe flare of ulcerative colitis.
Ulcerative colitis is a chronic, autoimmune disease that causes inflammation and ulceration of the colon. It isn’t just a digestive issue — it’s systemic. It affects energy, immunity, hormones, sleep, mood, and your ability to function day to day. When it’s controlled, it can sit quietly in the background. When it flares, it takes over everything.
This flare was severe.
It wasn’t just discomfort or inconvenience — it was exhaustion that seeped into my bones, pain that was constant, and a level of physical vulnerability I wasn’t prepared for. My body felt unreliable in a way that was frightening. Planning anything became difficult. Leaving the house required calculation. Rest wasn’t restorative. Even thinking clearly took effort.
But more than the physical symptoms, it was the psychological impact that unravelled me.
When your body stops doing what it’s supposed to do, it erodes your sense of safety. You lose trust in yourself. Your world shrinks. The things that once grounded you — routine, movement, ambition, certainty — start to fall away. I wasn’t just managing illness; I was grieving the version of myself who felt capable and in control.
That kind of illness strips you back.
Physically, emotionally, mentally.
And when your health collapses like that, hope doesn’t disappear in one dramatic moment.
It erodes. Slowly.
Until one day you realise you’re just trying to get through the day, rather than believing in the future at all.
I didn’t stop showing up because I had nothing to say.
I stopped because I didn’t know who I was anymore — and I didn’t trust myself to tell the truth without falling apart.
So I went quiet.
Not to heal properly.
But to survive.
The moment things began to shift
Then we went to Australia.
Australia had always been a dream for me. I’d wanted to go for as long as I could remember, but somewhere along the way I convinced myself it would never actually happen. It felt too far away, too impractical, too indulgent — something other people did, not me.
In the run-up to the trip, we nearly didn’t go at all.
Illness. Money worries. Family stress. Life getting in the way, again and again. There were so many reasons to cancel — so many moments where it would have been easier to stay home and tell myself “maybe one day.”
But one night, I had a vivid dream.
Not a vague one. Not symbolic.
Just clear.
In it, I was told to go.
I woke up with a determination I hadn’t felt in a long time. And instead of looking for reasons why we couldn’t make the trip happen, I decided we would.
While I was there, I felt like I was living inside a dream. Not because everything was perfect — but because something inside me finally felt awake again.
Being there made me realise something simple and powerful:
dreams can come true.
Not by magic.
But by choosing not to abandon them the moment life gets difficult.
Australia gave me space — physical and emotional — to hear myself again. To stop living according to who I thought I should be, and start acknowledging what I actually wanted from my life.
With that came clarity.
And with clarity came purpose.
Coming home with intention
I came home different.
Not because life was suddenly easy — but because it finally felt aligned.
My health stabilised.
Slowly, with treatment, rest, and a renewed respect for my limits, my body began to feel like a place I could trust again.
My marriage began to heal — not perfectly, but honestly. Whilst we were in Australia for three weeks, away from all the noise of everyday life, we managed to reconnect more than we had in a long time. This gave me hope for our future. Our marriage issues weren’t just because of us — they were also because of everything constantly being thrown at us.
With the space and time I had while away, I set clear goals instead of vague hopes.
And for the first time in a long while, I felt forward-facing again.
Hope came back — not as blind optimism, but as something steadier. Something earned.
That’s why I’m here again.
Not because everything is resolved.
But because I finally understand that waiting to feel “ready” is just another way of staying stuck.
I’m in midlife now – I turn 46 this month – and instead of seeing that as a limitation, I’m starting to see it as an advantage.
Living with a chronic illness in midlife forces a reckoning. It strips away the illusion that you can endlessly push, ignore, or override your body without consequence. But it also offers something unexpected — clarity. It asks harder questions about how you want to live, what actually matters, and who you are when certainty disappears. In many ways, the experience of losing my health forced me to meet myself more honestly than ever before.
I know myself better.
I’m less afraid of disappointing people.
And I’m no longer willing to live quietly just to keep the peace.
I have goals again. Real ones.
Not vague hopes or someday ideas — but intentions I’m actively moving towards.
I want to build a life that feels aligned, not just acceptable.
I want to be strong and healthy in my body, not at war with it.
I want to pursue ambition without guilt, and healing without hiding.
I want to write, to train, to create, to dream — and to actually act on those dreams instead of filing them away as “too late” or “not for me.”
Because I don’t believe that anymore.
I’ve learned that it’s never too late to change direction.
Never too late to want more.
Never too late to tell the truth and choose yourself — even if it means doing things differently than before.
This next chapter isn’t about proving anything.
It’s about living deliberately.
I don’t have everything figured out.
But I know where I’m going — and for the first time in a long time, I’m not afraid to say it out loud.
What I’m building now — and why I’m sharing it
And part of finding my way back to myself has meant being honest about what I’m building now.
One of the most grounding things I’ve done is return to writing — this time in the form of my memoir. I’m around 55,000 words in, and the process has surprised me. I expected the writing to be emotional, maybe even painful at times, but what I didn’t expect was the sense of peace it’s brought. There is something incredibly clarifying about putting your life into words — about revisiting moments you once rushed past, misunderstood, or carried quietly, and finally seeing them with compassion rather than judgement.
Writing has allowed me to lay things down that I didn’t realise I was still holding. Old versions of myself. Old narratives. Old guilt. In telling the truth on the page, I’ve found a kind of spaciousness — a feeling that I no longer need to keep running from my past or proving anything about it. The story doesn’t own me anymore; I’m choosing how to hold it. The memoir has become less about documenting what happened and more about understanding who I am beneath it all. And in that understanding, I’ve found steadiness, clarity, and a sense of coming home to myself that I didn’t know I was missing.
And somewhere in that understanding, a longer-held truth has become impossible to ignore: my ultimate goal is to move to Australia. Not as an escape, but as a continuation — a life shaped by clarity, health, purpose, and the courage to live where I feel most myself.
Alongside that, I’m now training as a bikini athlete. Weight lifting has always been part of my life — something I’ve loved instinctively — but for years I carried a quiet sense of being an imposter. That’s changed. I’m training with intention now, with purpose and serious ambition.
And I’m opening a wellness business. That part is terrifying — there’s no pretending otherwise. But it also feels unmistakably right. It feels like an expression of everything I value: healing, recovery, strength, and community.
Sharing these goals isn’t about performance or pressure. It’s about connection. If you’re writing something meaningful, training with intent, or building something from the heart in the wellness space, I’d love to connect — because choosing yourself is easier when you realise you’re not the only one doing it.
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Beginning again
This is me, finding my way back.
With clarity. With purpose. With hope.
And this time, I’m not abandoning myself.
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