ORIGIN STORY.

This blog is one of my 1,000 rejections.

I have a hard time putting myself out there. I always have.

For years, that looked like a thousand small no’s I gave myself before anyone else got the chance. Applications I never submitted. Emails drafted and quietly deleted. Ideas that lived permanently in my Notes app because they felt a little too unrealistic, a little too much like wanting something out loud.

None of those ever felt like rejection at the time. No one had actually said no to me. I’d just decided the answer would be no first.

So I made a spreadsheet. I called it “1,000 Rejections.” The rule was simple: every time I applied for something with a real chance of someone telling me no, it went on the list. Not to collect achievements. Just to collect attempts.

The spreadsheet had other plans for me. Alongside the rejections, people also started saying yes — a scholarship I never expected, a nervous email that became a real connection, a gala invitation I never saw coming. None of it was part of any plan. All of it showed up because I asked anyway.

I started calling these side quests.

Here’s the part I haven’t said out loud as much: underneath all of this, I’m also trying to figure out who I am outside the roles that have defined me for a long time — a federal career, being a mom, being a military spouse. Those are real parts of me. They’re not all of me.

It would be easier to keep these thoughts private. But somewhere past row 30, I learned the “no” was never really the scary part. Not asking was.

So this is me asking. Adding “start a blog” to the list. I don’t know if anyone will read it.

I’m doing it anyway. Welcome — pull up a chair.