Defiant, Actually

January 7, 2026

I grew up learning how to be quiet.

The good girl.

The one without needs.

Don’t disturb.

Don’t ask.

Don’t embarrass the family.

I learned to fawn.

To people-please.

To live in the shadow of legacy and expectation.

For a long time, that’s the story I told about myself.

But it isn’t the whole truth.

Because alongside all of that compliance,

there was something else living in me—

something I didn’t have language for yet.

Defiance.

At eighteen, I chose not to go to college.

Not because I didn’t understand the consequences—

but because I did.

I knew it would cost me belonging.

I knew I would be judged, diminished, quietly written off.

I chose myself anyway.

In my early twenties,

I refused the narrative that I was broken or fundamentally flawed.

I didn’t accept my patterns as destiny.

I didn’t excuse my behavior as “just who I am.”

I pushed back against it—hard—until it changed.

That wasn’t ease.

That was will.

In business, I refused inevitability.

I rejected my dad's story that we were “the old store,”

that decline was unavoidable,

that losing customers was just how things go.

I fought for relevance.

For excellence. For pride.

And then the landslide hit.

Overnight, we were left with $2.5 million in liabilities and $70,000 in cash.

For six weeks, the insurance company’s determination was that our loss was not covered.

For six weeks, my dad lived in fear—

believing we would go bankrupt,

believing he had failed,

carrying the weight of generations on his back.

For six weeks, I did something else.

I went into defiance mode.

While he sat in fear, I sat in possibility.

I ran scenarios.

I chased ideas that felt impossible and then chased better ones.

I built contingency plans on contingency plans.

I refused to let bankruptcy be the only ending available to us.

I had a plan for how we would survive if the insurance company never paid.

Thankfully, they did.

But what matters is this:

I didn’t wait to see if we would be saved.

I prepared to save us.

I was told no one would want me because I didn’t have a degree.

So I built my own credibility.

My own expertise.

My own consulting business.

And I've made thousands of dollars in a single day teaching others how to lead.

I actively disrupted generational patterns while raising my children—

not perfectly, but consciously.

Intentionally. With eyes open.

I refused to hand them the same wounds wrapped in different paper.

And when the man I loved asked me—

implicitly and explicitly—

to protect his image at the expense of my reality, I refused that too.

I chose clarity over comfort.

Truth over harmony.

My own integration over his storyline.

I sought understanding.

I learned more than I ever thought possible.

I metabolized what happened instead of swallowing it or passing it on.

I walked away to protect myself—

even when I knew it would be inconvenient,

confronting, or deeply uncomfortable for him.

I did not let concern for how my actions would affect him stop me from doing what I needed to do to stay whole.

So yes—I am warm.

I am kind.

I am soft, affectionate, loving.

And I am defiant in all the right ways.

Not loud defiance.

Not reckless defiance.

Principled defiance.

Creative defiance.

The kind that quietly refuses false narratives

and builds something better in their place.

I am not a people-pleaser who learned how to be strong.

I am a defiant woman who learned how to survive in softness.

And now—I get to choose both.