Tag: life
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I’m Still Here…Just Processing
Things have not gone according to plan, or at least the plan I created in my head. I wanted to file on my birthday and serve in the days following. However, that was the same week I went back to work. My nervous system became overwhelmed. I couldn’t file. I couldn’t even think about having…
Jessica Blake
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Slow is Still Forward
I was certain I was going to file. I had reached that place — the place where your mind feels resolved, your heart feels quiet, and you think, this is it. I’m ready. And then my birthday came. And the waves came with it. More than anything in the days prior, I had been steady.…
Jessica Blake
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Pathological People Pleaser
(Yes, I do speak in Taylor Swift lyrics…don’t judge me) There is a quiet moment that comes before a life changes. It doesn’t look dramatic.It doesn’t announce itself.It doesn’t come with fireworks or certainty. It comes in small realizations. In questions you don’t ask out loud.In pauses that feel heavier than words.In the ache of…
Jessica Blake
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Slowness is Healing
There are very few people in my life who truly know what I am walking through. Oddly enough, I like it that way. There is a reason for this season of quiet. I am healing — not just from my marriage, not just from the constant tension my body has lived inside of — but…
Jessica Blake
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Building Flowers in a Burning Room.

My kitchen table is covered in tiny plastic petals.Yellow, blush, ivory, sage.My hands are snapping together LEGO flowers while my life feels like it’s quietly imploding in the background. The world I live inside right now is loud.Emotionally unpredictable.Heavy with tension.Full of things that make my nervous system brace itself even when nothing is “happening.”…
Jessica Blake
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Small Voices, Big Reminders

I was organizing the house for Christmas — the quiet, in-between kind of organizing where nothing is actually finished, but everything feels like it’s slowly finding its place again. Half-sorted toys sat in wild piles that became more chaotic as the boys dug through them. The boys were doing their usual parallel play, where they…
Jessica Blake
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Without Apology

I deserve the world. I am not too much— not too loud, not too demanding, not too opinionated. I think with my heart. I live in color. I want to be free. I want to use my voice. I exist— without apology, without shrinking, without asking permission. I am not too much.
Jessica Blake
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Watching a Narcissist Spiral (author’s post)
I talked to my first attorney today. It was not the relief I thought I’d feel. In fact, afterward, I started feeling physically ill. Like sore throat, body aches, the whole nine. I was fine before the phone call, but my entire body just gave in afterward. I have moments where I ask myself if…
Jessica Blake
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I deserve a life that doesn’t hurt (author’s post)

I have been using ChatGPT a lot to plan my future. Finances, finding attorneys, creating scripts for bad situations my husband puts myself or kids in. Even analyzing text messages or what he says or does to ground me in reality. It’s been insanely helpful. This morning I almost felt guilty for all this planning.…
Jessica Blake
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Life is funny sometimes (author post)

I climbed on my Peloton treadmill tonight (yes, I know that’s the whitest mom shit I’ve ever said but it’s who I am. I own that). My name on there is Fittestbyforty. I turn 38 in January… I giggled to myself because now my goal is #divorcedbyforty. I guess the goals could be one in…
Jessica Blake
