Through The Death Zone

December 3, 2025

Today, I realized something I never thought I’d get to say out loud:

I am through the death zone.

For months, it felt like my emotional Everest was stripping me down to bone and breath. Every step was a negotiation. Every hour was a climb. I lived in a place where the air was too thin to think clearly, too thin to hope, too thin to carry anything but the next exact moment.

But today—

the air is different.

There is oxygen in my lungs again.

There is color in the world again.

There is me again.

I am standing on the other side of the impossible, looking back at the mountain I thought might take me. And for the first time, I’m not overwhelmed by how brutal the climb was.

I’m awed that I’m still here.

Not just alive—

but awake.

Clear.

Steady.

Energized and excited.

And now that I can finally breathe again, I can feel it:

There is so much life ahead of me.

So much possibility.

So much I haven’t even begun to touch.

The mountain didn’t break me.

It forged me.

And I am ready for what comes next.