The Love Project | Week Thirteen | The Final Chapter
Meeting Myself Again.
There is a version of me
I’ve always known,
the one who loves to cook,
who follows instinct over instruction,
who finds joy in feeding people she loves,
who loves a good adventure,
who is curious, courageous, passionate, patient, filled with love,
and takes risks without even considering them risky.
She is so damn likable and interesting.
But lately…
it feels like I’m meeting her for the first time.
Not because she’s new,
but because I’m finally here to see her.
There’s no urgency now
to turn passion into productivity,
no need to make something more
than what it already is.
Just the quiet pleasure
of a meal well made,
a home that holds me,
a week with my mother,
messy and meaningful all at once,
and the deep exhale of coming back to myself.
Everything, somehow,
feels… perfect.
Not polished.
Not permanent.
But deeply, unmistakably right.
I started writing this on a walk, as I often do.
Sunday afternoon, on the trail, marvelling at the beauty of the inlet, the trees, the quality of the light on the water…
words and awareness arriving in fragments between footsteps.
And then Monday morning,
I listened to this month’s message from Michael Neill.
He spoke about self-remembering.
And something in me hit the pause button.
Because that is exactly what this is.
I am not finding myself.
I am remembering.
Seeing myself as I am, and always have been,
but more clearly now,
more directly,
unfiltered by who I thought I needed to be.
In how I see myself.
In how I see my world.
Nothing needs to be different.
There is no right way to be.
There is simply how I process and receive what is.
There is simply the meaning I assign things.
And this includes the meaning I make-up about me.
About my past.
About my future.
About who I am.
And that changes everything.
While nothing has changed at all.
And as I think about what is different, this occurs to me.
I’m no longer trying to find myself
through the eyes of others.
For so many years, I didn’t even realize
that is what I was doing,
measuring, adjusting, shaping,
quietly asking, is this enough, am I enough?
As if the only way to know who I was
was to see myself reflected back
in someone else’s approval.
But now…
I look through my own eyes.
And as I look back at myself,
I find myself there.
Something unexpected happened
when I stopped looking outward.
I can finally hear
what others had been saying all along.
Not as judgment.
Not as something to live up to.
But as reflection.
And for the first time,
I could see her,
the woman they saw.
Capable.
Creative.
Strong.
Deeply alive.
A woman who has lived fully,
who has built a life,
who has kept going,
who has loved well.
This woman is me.
This is the woman I have always been.
I spent so many years
focused on what I wasn’t.
What still needed fixing.
What hadn’t yet been achieved.
Who I still needed to become.
I was always just ahead of myself,
reaching for the next thing,
believing that somewhere out there
was the version of me
who would finally feel whole.
And when I arrived,
at the goal, the milestone, the success,
I didn’t stay.
I didn’t celebrate.
I moved the line forward.
Again. And again.
But now…
I can finally celebrate her.
Not the future version.
Not the one I’m still becoming.
But the woman who is here.
Right now.
I see her.
I trust her.
I let her cook without needing it to be perfect.
I let her create without needing it to be received a certain way.
I let her love herself without shame or judgment, even when she shows up less than perfect.
And believe me, that happens a lot.
I still care.
That hasn’t changed.
But for today, I no longer shape myself,
or harshly judge myself,
around how it lands.
I only care that it feels true.
And in that,
everything has come full circle.
I don’t need the reflection
to know who I am.
But because I know who I am,
I can finally receive it.
And she is…
more beautiful,
more capable,
more whole
than I ever allowed myself to see.
If this is the final chapter
of this project,
then it doesn’t feel like an ending.
It feels like a remembering.
A quiet, grounded, steady return
to the woman who has been here all along.
Not waiting to be found.
Not waiting to be seen.
Not waiting.
Just being.
And that’s what love has been, all along.
Not something I needed to chase.
Not something I needed to earn.
But something that was always here,
in the way I live,
in the way I create,
in the way I come back
to myself.
In self-remembering,
I find love.
These 13 weeks have been powerful and inspiring.
I will carry love with me as I move into a new season.
A season of rebirth.
A season of new growth.
Welcome, Spring 2026.
What a beautiful time to be alive.
What a beautiful time to realize that I get to decide what all of this means.
For me.
From me.
Because of me.
In self-remembering, I find love.
And in that, everything begins again.