Chap­ter 45 marked a new begin­ning, one where I active­ly worked to reclaim my sense of iden­ti­ty. I turned to social media not for fame, but to remind people—and myself—that I was still human. Shar­ing pieces of my every­day life, espe­cial­ly fash­ion and music, became a heal­ing process. Dress­ing up and tak­ing pho­tos felt empow­er­ing, not per­for­ma­tive. It gave me back con­trol in a world where so much had been tak­en from me. While some fol­low­ers found it odd, I rel­ished the free­dom of final­ly choos­ing how I was seen.

Inspired by visu­al artists online, I began redis­cov­er­ing my cre­ative instincts. One video in particular—a pink tiger walk­ing across a baby-pink background—unlocked some­thing play­ful inside me. I start­ed exper­i­ment­ing with music, even adding the sound of a baby laugh­ing at the begin­ning of a track. Although I lat­er removed it after a sug­ges­tion from Hesam, I still regret­ted it. When some­one else post­ed some­thing sim­i­lar, jeal­ousy tugged at me. That laugh could’ve been my sig­na­ture. Artists can be quirky like that, and I real­ized there’s a cer­tain mag­ic in trust­ing your strange ideas. It’s not about being accepted—it’s about being real.

Through­out this peri­od, I real­ized just how mis­un­der­stood I had been by the pub­lic and even by peo­ple with­in the indus­try. Many assumed I was unsta­ble sim­ply because I chose to cre­ate in uncon­ven­tion­al ways. But I’d much rather be seen as “odd” and be able to express myself than be polite and silenced. Insta­gram became my out­let not just for fash­ion, but for humor, ideas, and emo­tion­al release. Peo­ple could final­ly see the me that exist­ed beyond the head­lines. There was strength in show­ing up authentically—even if it con­fused oth­ers.

Laugh­ter became anoth­er tool I used to stay sane. Come­di­ans like Jo Koy and Kevin Hart helped me laugh on days when every­thing else felt heavy. Humor remind­ed me that pain doesn’t have to con­sume every­thing. I admired how these per­form­ers used their voice and per­spec­tive to spark con­nec­tion. They spoke bold­ly, and that inspired me to do the same—whether in a post cap­tion or a dance clip. Their con­fi­dence helped me embrace my own.

Peo­ple some­times laugh at my posts for dif­fer­ent rea­sons. Maybe they see inno­cence, or maybe they’re sur­prised by how raw I can get. Either way, I’m okay with that now. This could even be my own ver­sion of a fem­i­nist awak­en­ing. There’s pow­er in refus­ing to be pack­aged or defined. I’ve come to see that the uncer­tain­ty sur­round­ing who I tru­ly am gives me a qui­et kind of lever­age. As long as they don’t know every­thing, I get to keep some­thing for myself.

My kids, of course, see through all of that. They laugh at me too some­times, but their laugh­ter is different—it’s warm, famil­iar, and lov­ing. Watch­ing them grow into cre­ative, intel­li­gent young men has brought me end­less joy. Sean Preston’s bril­liance in school amazes me, while Jayden’s musi­cal gift, espe­cial­ly on the piano, moves me deeply. They both have such strong char­ac­ters and bright spir­its. They’ve always seen the world from unique angles, and that has shaped how I see things, too.

Before the pan­dem­ic, they were reg­u­lars at our din­ner table, bring­ing life and excite­ment into my home. Every vis­it was filled with laugh­ter, thought­ful con­ver­sa­tions, and lit­tle mas­ter­pieces they were eager to show me. They’d hold up a paint­ing or a draw­ing and chal­lenge me to view it dif­fer­ent­ly. And I always did. Their cre­ativ­i­ty unlocked a kind of vision in me that I didn’t know I need­ed. I loved hear­ing about what lit them up—their inter­ests, their insights, their way of inter­pret­ing the world.

As the decade shift­ed, it final­ly felt like life was com­ing into focus again. I was recon­nect­ing with myself, with my chil­dren, with my inner voice. Then COVID arrived and brought every­thing to a sud­den pause. Lock­down was espe­cial­ly tough in the begin­ning. I found myself iso­lat­ing even more than usu­al, sit­ting in my room for hours at a time. Some days, I made jew­el­ry just to stay busy; oth­er days, I let the silence wrap around me like a fog.

I start­ed lean­ing heav­i­ly into audio­books, espe­cial­ly self-help ones, in a search for clar­i­ty and com­fort. Once I had lis­tened to dozens of those, I moved toward fic­tion and imag­i­na­tion-dri­ven sto­ries. British nar­ra­tors became my favorite—there was some­thing sooth­ing in their cadence. Sto­ries helped me drift out of the still­ness, even when I felt stuck in place. Through books, I redis­cov­ered how imag­i­na­tion could be a life­line. It became a qui­et com­pan­ion dur­ing those long, uncer­tain days.

The iso­la­tion remind­ed me of ear­li­er years when I wasn’t allowed to express myself freely. But this time, I had tools—creativity, humor, motherhood—that kept me ground­ed. Even when the world shut down, a small part of me stayed lit from with­in. The qui­et forced me to sit with myself, to reex­am­ine what mat­tered. And what mat­tered, more than any­thing, was the free­dom to be me—online, offline, every­where in between.