Rebuilding: Then vs. Now (Or, How My Fairy Tale Turned Into a Dumpster Fire and I Learned to Roast Marshmallows Anyway)

When I first started "rebuilding," I was 17, armed with nothing but teenage angst, a perfectly curated list of dreams, and just enough rebellion to blow up a small town. I didn’t think of it as rebuilding back then — no, back then, I was escaping. Escaping a house where love came with conditions, expectations came with impossible standards, and the view of the world was filtered through the kind of lens that couldn’t even pick up color.

I was going to create a life on my own terms.

The Dream? Easy.
Leave the judgmental, suffocating confines of my parents’ home, where ambition was encouraged but never applauded — not unless you brought home a Nobel Prize and cured cancer in the same week. I was going to chase success so undeniable that even my eternally unimpressed teen mom would have to say, “Well damn, I guess she’s not a complete disappointment.”

I’d travel, probably become wildly successful doing something creative (because despite being raised in a town where art was considered a hobby and dreams were politely asked to shut the hell up, I had fire), and I’d fall madly in love with a man who thought the sun rose and set between my cheekbones. We’d be a power couple. We’d build an empire. We’d have kids who never felt small or silenced.

And how was I going to do all this?
Scholarship. Degree. Passion project turned career. Romance with an angsty, poetic soul who understood me on a cellular level. Cue the credits.

What actually happened?
I met a 21-year-old party boy with a drug habit and exactly the kind of red flags I’d been warned about. Naturally, I was obsessed. It was like rebellion and trauma bonding had a baby, and I was raising it. Moved in with him the literal day I turned 18 (senior year, no less), kissed rules goodbye, and got very busy living my version of freedom — which mostly looked like cheap vodka, missed classes, and thinking I could fix someone who didn’t want to be fixed.

Somehow still managed to snag a track scholarship. Got pregnant. Lost scholarship. But hey — at least I was checking boxes:
✔ Degree
✔ Job
✔ Toxic relationship
✔ Baby before diploma
✔ Emotional whiplash

I convinced myself I could earn love. That if I just worked hard enough — raised the baby, got the degree, smiled through the mess — I’d finally get my fairy tale ending. Spoiler: I got the marriage license. I got the infertility treatments. I even got the second baby.

What I didn’t get was the partner who saw me. Who cherished me. Who even liked me when he wasn’t high or cheating. But I kept performing. Kept building. Because I was going to win at this life if it killed me.

And then, at 23 — in the middle of diapers and depression — I built a damn empire. A daycare center. Sixty kids. Fifteen employees. Through COVID. Through chaos. Through every tear and tantrum (some mine). I climbed to the top. On paper, I had it all — money, prestige, a Pinterest-worthy aesthetic, friends who cheered me on… and still no fairy tale.

So, I made my exit plan. Finally. Quietly. Strategically. Got my ducks in a row — and then? Pregnant. Again. Before our second even turned one. I was devastated. Tried again, harder this time. Built more. Hoped more.

Eventually, I left. For real. Took the leap. Built a new version of “freedom.” And for a second, it felt like the dream again.

Then it all crumbled.

The business? Sabotaged.
The friendships? Ghosted.
The man who once swore he loved me? Lawsuits, lies, and high-conflict hell.
And me? Where am I now... that is the part of my story we are all here to figure out. 

So what does rebuilding mean now?

Back then, it meant ambition, fire, and proving myself.

Now? It means survival. Sanity. Choosing myself. Choosing peace. Rebuilding no longer looks like chasing a dream in heels and hustle. It looks like crawling out of bed, brushing my teeth while a toddler screams, managing legal hell while heating up mac and cheese, falling in love again while still bleeding from the last round — and somehow still finding joy in all of it.

It’s not pretty. It’s not filtered. But it’s mine. And it’s honest. And that’s something I never had before.

This time, I’m not building for applause.
I’m rebuilding for freedom.
For truth.
For love that doesn’t hurt.
And for the woman I lost somewhere between the fairy tale and the fallout.

Welcome to The Rebuild Project.
Where the story didn’t end.
It just got real.