Protector.

On reclaiming narrative, power, and legacy

2025 was one of my best years.

It was the year I reclaimed my story and stopped participating in other people’s narratives. It was the year I said “enough,” and finally gave my nervous system a chance to regulate and actually be unbothered.

Recently, I have found a peace I could not have imagined two years ago. At the same time, the residue of the storms I endured, when my boundaries were flimsy and my attention unfocused, still surfaces. Not as pain, but as clarity. A reminder that I am no longer the young woman I was a decade ago.

I knew early on that I would need to protect my family. I simply did not yet know that protection does not always look like a fight.

I did not realize that in finally exiting a longstanding struggle in my life, my analytical and inwardly reflective mind would begin wrestling with a deeper question. How my past self ended up playing a primary role in the long game of a dysfunctional family dynamic that was never truly mine to begin with.

2025 was the year I reauthored my life and my legacy. I decided that my perspective, my version of events, and my story are just as important, truthful, and real as anyone else’s.

We are not meant to be background characters.

These days, you hear “I’m the main character” messaging everywhere. It’s sassy. It’s current and Gen Z adjacent. But are we not all meant to be the main character in our own story?

Do you know that you have one, or are you living inside someone else’s?

Living in a role you were cast in.
Living in the shadow of other people’s narratives about who you are.
Only surfacing to defend yourself, even when you already know that most storytellers do not change course once they have rehearsed their lines.

It takes courage, gall, and leadership to reclaim your story when your identity and character have been misinterpreted. A part of my story includes living inside someone else’s narrative of who I was and feeling misunderstood and misjudged for years. People often assume that reactions are driven by isolated events, when in reality there are systems designed to bait you, fueled by your response.

Starve someone of the attention they are asking for and watch how far they will go to provoke a reaction.

It takes leadership to say, I will disengage from drama even if my silence is perceived as weakness. To say, I direct how my life goes. To be okay with how you are perceived, trusting that over time who you are will speak for itself without explanation.

The lessons we were taught as children still hold true. You cannot control anyone but yourself.

In 2025, as I stepped more fully into leadership in institutional settings, anchored partnership at home, and rejected systems that required the erasure of my feelings, I also began slowly stepping into my power.

I remember speaking with an older Black woman and deferring to her suggestion on something that was ultimately my decision. She looked at me, shook her head, and plainly said, “You haven’t learned to walk in your power yet.” That moment still replays in my mind, and inspires me daily.

It helped me name the tension I had been feeling in 2025. Growth can be disorienting and uncomfortable While it is happening, you do not always understand what is unfolding, and I felt my body bracing for uncertainty.

Becoming.

Becoming the version of yourself that only God’s penmanship and your own self-direction could create.

In 2025, I showed up for myself, my mental health, my business pursuits, my faith, and my music. In returning to myself, I showed up whole for my children, my husband, and my household.

One lesson I learned in reclaiming my story is that my identity as a woman is deeply shaped by my devotion to protecting my home and what I have built. Claiming my story meant being intentional about writing the legacy of my family and refusing to let my home become collateral in someone else’s storyline.

Motherhood ignited the most primal, spiritual, and strategic parts of my being. It shows up in my day-to-day life, and it is why I no longer participate in narratives that dishonor, minimize, or disrespect my home.

In 2025, I was given many titles. I received awards. I was acknowledged for many things.

But in reclaiming my story, which remains my proudest feat, I recognized something fundamental.

I am a protector.