Rooted in Ash

Because no one else told it right.

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  • The Wolf in the Hen House: Trust, Betrayal, and Protecting My Granddaughter

    There was a kind of peace I hadn’t felt in years.

    Not the loud, celebratory kind—but a quiet exhale, a slow return to softness. I had fought hard to get there. Through betrayal, through heartbreak, through my own guardedness. I had done the work. I had tried to become the version of myself who could believe again—not just in love, but in the idea that love could be safe.

    When Maya was born, it was like the world cracked open in a different way. I loved her instantly—fully, fiercely. She wasn’t just my granddaughter; she was a reason. A reason to hope. A reason to stay open. A reason to keep building something solid and beautiful out of all the rubble.

    Nick had encouraged me to build a relationship with April—not just for my son’s sake, but to stay close to Maya. He said it would be good for all of us, and I believed him. I wanted to believe that we were a team. That we were building something stable for Maya.

    So I met April for lunch. It was a Wednesday.

    She told me she was scared of me. I wasn’t expecting that. I tried to put her at ease, to show her I wasn’t her enemy. She said she didn’t want me to be mad at her for things she had done to my son—but I didn’t know what those things were at the time. I just thought it was young relationship drama. A mother’s protective instinct was there, of course, but I wanted to be someone she could feel safe around. For Maya’s sake.

    After that lunch, things unraveled fast. She and my son fought, and she said he kicked her out of the house.

    Her situation was complicated. Her parents’ home was overcrowded, and she told me she wasn’t even allowed to stay at her grandparents’ house because they didn’t trust her. There weren’t many safe places left for her and Maya. I didn’t want my granddaughter floating through instability. I didn’t want her growing up surrounded by chaos.

    So I talked to Nick. We both agreed to open our home—for a little while. Just until things settled. Just until they figured it out.

    When I offered April a place to stay, it wasn’t just an act of kindness—it was an act of faith. I was choosing love. Choosing trust. Choosing to believe that the life Nick and I were building could include forgiveness, redemption, and second chances. I wanted to believe he was the man I thought he was. I wanted to believe I could be the woman who finally felt safe in her own story.

    I had spent so long surviving. Guarding. Waiting for the next storm. But this felt like sunlight after years of cold. It felt like maybe, finally, I could rest.

    Looking back, it all seemed so reasonable. So kind. So hopeful. But I didn’t know I was inviting betrayal into my home.

    My son was upset when he found out she had moved in. He didn’t explain—he just said, “You let the wolf in the hen house.”

    I didn’t understand what he meant then.

    But I do now.

  • The Door I Chose to Open

    It took everything in me to trust again.

    I had lived so long in a state of guard—shoulders tense, heart behind glass—that choosing softness felt like a kind of rebellion. I wanted this life to work. I wanted to believe that love could be safe. That he could be safe. That I could be the kind of woman who forgave the past and stepped fully into the now.

    So when I said yes to her moving in, it wasn’t just an offer of space—it was a quiet declaration: I am choosing love. I am choosing trust. I am choosing us.

    I go over those days in my mind again and again, trying to pinpoint the moment the ground began to crack. Sometimes I still forget for a second what happened, and when I remember, it hits me like a second betrayal. My mind might understand it now—but my chest still tightens. My breath still catches. My heart still doesn’t believe it.

    I don’t remember exactly how the conversation started. Maybe she hinted at being overwhelmed. Maybe I asked, wanting to help. Or maybe I just saw too much of myself in her—the young mother, trying to hold everything together with duct tape and exhaustion.

    What I do remember is the feeling. That pull inside me—the one that says: be the bigger person, do the right thing, prove you’re not hard anymore.

    I wanted to show I could be different. That I could forgive. That I could offer stability. That I wasn’t just someone who remembered every betrayal like a scar.

    I told her she and the baby could stay with us for a while. Just until she and my son could work through some issues. It wasn’t a grand gesture. It was quiet, practical, compassionate. And I meant it.

    I wanted to help her, yes. I thought that by opening the door to her, I was also healing something in myself—and in Nick. Like I could make our family bond stronger.

    He didn’t say much at first. Just nodded, shrugged—maybe said something like, “If that’s what you want.” I thought that was him deferring to me. Respecting my choice. Trusting me to manage it.

    Now I wonder if that silence was something else

  • I Am Not the Woman You Think I Am.

    You’ve heard a version of me.

    You might even think you know me.

    The angry one.

    The difficult one.

    The woman who “won’t let it go.”

    The one they whisper about when they think I can’t hear.

    Too loud. Too emotional. Too sensitive. Too much.

    But let me be clear about something:

    I am not the woman you think I am.

    I am the woman who stayed long after she should have walked.

    I am the one who held the house together while it cracked beneath her.

    I am the one who didn’t break the silence because she hoped—hoped—that love would come back.

    I am the woman who’s been rewritten in other people’s stories—cast as the villain in someone else’s guilt.

    Not because I was wrong.

    But because I remembered.

    Because I felt.

    Because I spoke.

    And when I did, I became the mirror no one wanted to look into.

    This blog isn’t for defending myself. I’m not here to beg to be seen anymore.

    I’m here to tell the truth.

    Mine.

    If you’ve ever been rewritten, erased, or reshaped by someone else’s shame—

    If you’ve ever carried the weight of someone else’s betrayal in your body like a bruise you can’t explain—

    If you’ve ever felt invisible while being called “too much”—

    Then this space is for you, too.

    Rooted in Ash isn’t a brand.

    It’s a reclamation.

    I’m not here to rise and sparkle. I’m here to grow, tangled and real, from the burn.

    And I’m not writing for attention.

    I’m writing because no one else could carry this story the way I can.

    I am not the woman you think I am.

    I am the woman I know I am.

    And this is where I begin again.