The Oldest
& Only

I am the only daughter, surrounded by brothers, and if you know that particular kind of alone, you already know what it does to a person.

Somewhere along the way I became hyper independent. Not because anyone told me to be, but because it felt like the only way to keep things from falling apart. I found myself taking on far more than I was ever asked to do, and then adding even more on top of that, because doing enough never quite felt like enough.

For a long time I believed love meant being in service to the people around me, and there is nothing wrong with that instinct. But being the only daughter turned that instinct into something else. It stopped being a choice I got to make and became an expectation I never actually agreed to.

It shows up in the smallest moments. I will be excited about something I chose to do just for myself, and someone will say, wait, what about this, why didn't you do it this way too, why didn't you make room for them as well. And suddenly the thing I did for me stops feeling like enough, as if choosing myself needs an explanation.

I carried that same sense of responsibility into the relationships I chose as an adult, long before I understood what it was costing me.

I have had to work through the idea that I cannot pour out endlessly without eventually running dry. Healing that has not meant becoming less loving or less devoted. It has meant learning that I get to pour into the people I love without emptying myself completely, and that choosing myself is allowed to be enough on its own.

That is why I built The Oldest & Only. Fifteen years in this field, and I am still working through this in my own life, right alongside you.