Raspberry Iced M

On this journey to self-discovery, the following question seems to appear more often than any other:

Who am I when no one needs anything from me?

And the answer is far too deep to simply break ice or rush past. Probably because the answer is always changing.

Because I’m always changing.

Because that’s what growth actually is.

But if you asked me that question today…and if that question required that I leave out titles like “mom” or “wife” or “paralegal,” this is what I would tell you:

Raspberry is a woman who feels deeply, thinks deeply, loves deeply, and occasionally thinks herself into an entirely different zip code. She is creative, curious, sensitive, introspective, and happiest in the ordinary comforts of home – with her family, her dogs, something to write or doodle, and a good book, while still thinking ahead to a road trip on the horizon and coffee.

She values honesty, compassion, faith, peace, growth, and meaningful connection. She loves words and ideas, asks a million questions, notices the small things, and believes there is something to learn in every season of life.

She has made choices she regrets and has learned that neither hiding from them nor allowing them to define her produces change. She wants to live differently – not to convince everyone she has changed, but because she wants her private choices to agree with the person she wants to be. Her faith has taught her to leave room for grace without using grace to avoid responsibility, and she is learning that growth happens through small, repeated choices far more often than dramatic transformations. She is learning to rest without shame, love without controlling, serve without keeping score, feel without immediately reaching, tell the truth without trying to manage the outcome, and let other people hold stories about her that she cannot rewrite.

At her core, Raspberry wants a life that is honest, peaceful, useful, creative, faithful, and soft. She doesn’t need to become flawless to build that life. She just needs to keep showing up for it. She is a work in progress who has finally stopped treating “in progress” like an insult.

She is learning what belongs in her hands, what belongs in someone else’s, and what belongs in God’s – and she intends to take care of what she has been given.

Raspberry is not finished. And for once, she realizes she doesn’t need to be.