the year that almost broke me

December 7. 2025 [1:07 a.m.]

I can’t sleep. I don’t know if it’s the date or the memories or the way my brain refuses to let some things settle. Today was brutal. Today is one year since the studio fire, and it feels like my whole body has been remembering it all day, even when I tried to stay busy.

Everything feels louder at night. Grief especially.

I keep thinking about that day—the smell, the smoke, the way my stomach dropped when I realized it was really happening. I didn’t cry right away. I remember that clearly. It’s strange what you remember. I just stood there, frozen, watching something I created with my own hands disappear in front of me. I had no idea what would come after. I had no idea how much more I would lose.

I didn’t know that a few months later I would be standing in a hospital room saying goodbye to my granddaughter. Holding my baby while the pain of losing her baby tore her to shreds. I didn’t know how that kind of pain would rearrange every single part of me. I didn’t know that the fire was just the beginning of a year that would break me open in ways I still don’t know how to talk about.

It’s hard to admit this, even to myself, but the fire doesn’t hurt the same way anymore. It still stings, but compared to losing Scarlet… it feels small. It feels like a crack I thought was the whole earthquake.

She changed everything.

Everything.

Sometimes I’m scared to even write about her because it makes the loss feel so real. Other times, like tonight, after one of the hardest days I’ve had since her loss, writing feels like the only way to breathe.

I keep thinking of the version of me one year ago. She had no idea. None. She didn’t know she’d have to learn how to live with a kind of grief that sits in her chest every day. She didn’t know she’d miss a laugh she never got to hear. She didn't know that she’d feel the most helpless kind of pain of not being able to heal her daughter’s shattered heart. She didn’t know she’d be talking to the ceiling at 1 a.m. asking the universe why it took so much.

God, I miss her.

I miss who I was before.

I miss the simplicity of being devastated by a fire.

I miss the warmth and peace and joy that Scarlet brought to our family.

I miss the way life used to feel survivable.

And yet… somehow I’m still here.

Sometimes I don’t know how. Sometimes I’m proud of myself. Sometimes I feel numb. Sometimes I laugh—really laugh—and then feel guilty about it. Sometimes I talk to her out loud in the car. Sometimes I stare at the rebuilt studio and feel strong and proud. Other times I look at the same room and feel like I’m pretending to be someone who has her life together.

The truth is… rebuilding the studio was easier than rebuilding myself.

Walls can be replaced.

Stuff can be bought again.

Flooring, furniture, cameras, props—they all have price tags.

But grief doesn’t.

There is no receipt.

No manual.

No timeline.

No “okay, you’re better now.”

There’s just living with this hole in my heart and still trying to show up for the people I love.

I think about Scarlet every single day.

Every day.

Sometimes like a whisper. Sometimes like a scream.

And I carry her in everything I do now—especially the things that require bravery.

Maybe that’s what this year was…

A year of learning how to live in the aftermath of things I didn’t think I could survive.

And maybe tomorrow, when the sun comes up, it won’t feel as heavy.

Maybe it will.

But right now, at 1 a.m., this is the truest version of what’s inside me.

I miss her.

I miss myself.

I’m still trying.

And that has to be enough for tonight.