BLOG 2026

I look around the hallways of our senior apartment building and see something remarkable—something I don't think younger generations quite understand yet. We are all survivors here. Times have changed in ways my younger self never could have imagined. People are living longer now, decades longer than our grandparents did. But here's the truth that doesn't make it into the glossy retirement brochures: most of us aren't in the best of shape. We've survived serious illnesses—can

Welcome to The Joy of Surviving — the next chapter in living with mental illness. For years, life was measured in survival: one more hour, one more night, one more wave of darkness. Simply continuing was victory enough — fierce, quiet courage in the face of everything screaming to give up. This chapter isn’t about barely staying alive anymore. It’s about what happens when the fog begins to lift, color returns, and endurance becomes living again. I packed away the old self — s

There’s a peculiar kind of freedom that comes with boarding a one-way flight, knowing you’re leaving behind everything familiar for something uncertain but necessary. That’s how my new chapter began: a plane ride out of California, landing in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Queen City along the Ohio River. I’d visited Cincinnati before—family ties had brought me here intermittently—but this time was different. This was permanent. Or at least, that was the hope. I arrived exhausted, the