TW: grief, loss of a parent

Today’s episode is a deeply personal one.

In this episode, I share how becoming a writer wasn’t born from a lifelong dream, but from a quiet nudge I'd felt after having my first daughter. But that nudge unfortunately collided with a moment that changed my family's lives. After the unexpected loss of my father-in-law, and alongside my best friend experiencing the same of heartbreak of having lost her own father, I found myself searching for words to explain grief to my children… before I had even processed it myself.

What I discovered was the power of shared grief. The way stories, connection, and creation can hold us when nothing else can.

This episode is about learning to create in the middle of chaos. About building something meaningful while navigating motherhood, healing, and learning to accept the uncertainty. About honoring the people we’ve lost by choosing to keep going, even when the path forward feels unclear.

It’s also the beginning of something new: the story behind The Quiet Bloom Press, a dream built in nap times, late nights, and in-between moments of real life.

If you’ve ever felt the pull to create but didn’t know where to begin…if you’re carrying grief and trying to find beauty inside it…or if you just need a reminder that you don’t have to have it all figured out to start…this one’s for you.

We’re in this together. 🤍

Show email: draftingmotherhoodpod@gmail.com

Now boarding a direct flight to your main character energy… please check all emotional baggage (and loose rocks??) at the gate.

For years, I was living like the supportive best friend in my own life; self-aware, giving great advice, and emotionally…unavailable to myself. lol. love that.

In this episode, I’m getting into how therapy, specifically EMDR and somatic work, helped me stop intellectualizing my feelings and actually feel them—aka step out of survival mode and into my own life.

We’re talking trauma, generational patterns, unpacking the baggage we’ve gotten way too comfortable carrying… and why “main character energy” isn’t about being self-absorbed or having it all together, it’s about finally showing up in your own life.

Because if we don’t deal with our stuff, we pass it down. Unintentionally. Inevitably.

So yeah, plot twist of this century: this is our life. We might as well play the lead.

Girls’ Night Out in your 20s: dancing on tables, bonding with strangers in the bathroom.

Girls’ Night Out as a mom: dry heaving after 2 glasses of wine, if you get home after 10 pm, expect to nurse a 24-hour headache the next day.

In this episode of Drafting Motherhood, I’m sharing my personal evolution of GNO, from chaotic nights out to savoring connection through conversations over shared desserts and espresso martinis.

But it’s not just laughs…we’re also getting into the science behind girls’ night and why spending time with friends has real psychological and physical health benefits. (Use this as your official doctor’s note to leave the house.)

But most importantly, this is not just “mom’s night out.” We were girls before we were moms, and we still need spaces where we can show up as ourselves, without anyone saying our name 700 times in a row.

My dream GNO these days looks like a good restaurant, cackling until our cheeks hurt, and being back home by 9:30 pm, with enough time to do my 10-step skincare routine.

At the end of the night, it doesn’t matter where we go or what we do; it’s about how full our cup feels after.

So if you’ve been putting off that girls’ night, consider this your sign. Call your friends. Make the reservation. You deserve it.

Let’s keep talking. 🫶🏼