someone looked at me recently and said, “this is the most you i’ve ever seen you.”we were in the middle of a writing camp in 30A. some of the most inspired, locked-in, in-my-body days i’ve ever had making music. i’ve known her for five years. we’ve written some of my favorite songs together. so hearing that from her… it meant something. it’s one thing to feel a change in yourself. it’s another when someone who’s known so many versions of you says it out loud without being asked.

this is the most me i’ve ever been. i felt it first in my mind. then in my body. then in my relationship. then in my friendships. and now in the way i show up when i write. in the way i talk to people. even strangers. it’s everywhere.

i used to meet people and wonder what it was about them. why they felt magnetic. it was never loud or performative…nothing you could point to on the surface. i understand now that it was alignment. you can feel it when someone is fully themselves. it’s radiant. 

i released black sheep about two weeks ago, and putting it out into the world felt like giving myself permission to embody everything that song taught me. i’m done apologizing for the parts of me people don’t understand. i’m done shrinking to stay comfortable in spaces that were never meant for me. and in the wake of that, i’m experiencing, for the first time, a kind of happiness that isn’t tied to anyone else’s emotions. and looking back… i don’t know how i lived so long without it. it’s almost scary to think i could’ve missed it. that i might’ve never known the difference. lately i’ve had this urge to look at people and say “don’t rob yourself of the joy of being who you are. there’s more for you than you think there is. ask life for it.”

just in the past month, i’ve turned a corner on this journey. one i didn’t know i’d ever get to. it feels like i crossed from healing… into living. and it’s wild how quickly everything else started moving with it. i announced my sophomore album. i announced my uk headline tour. and there’s so much more coming.

i keep thinking about the timing of it all. i’m really grateful to God for not giving me this season earlier. i wouldn’t have known how to hold it.

i wouldn’t have shown up like this. and this way is better than i ever imagined.