Your One Precious Life

What will you do with your one precious life?

It’s a question often asked at the beginning—

at the starting line,

at the edge of possibility.

But I am answering it from the middle.

From after.

From a life already lived in technicolor.

Because the truth is:

I have already done so much with my one precious life.

I lived my childhood dreams—

acting on stages, performing in front of cameras,

hosting radio and television shows that let me connect with people

the way I always knew I could.

I met New Kids on the Block in my thirties—

and Donnie Wahlberg kissed me,

the kind of moment my 11-year-old self would have sworn was impossible.

I’ve traveled internationally.

I’ve stood in places most people only read about—

villages and communities where I helped build generational change

and supported families rising out of poverty.

I’ve raised three beautiful, healthy, grounded children—

young adults who know, deeply and instinctively,

that they are loved in their bones.

I have hiked mountains,

fished the deep seas,

swum with wild manatees,

and slipped into ancient Mayan caves that felt like entering the earth’s memory.

I’ve won national business awards.

I’ve loved deeply, learned fully, broken open, and healed honestly.

I have faced myself—

every shadow, every wound—

and rebuilt a life greater than anything my younger self could have imagined.

And when I look back even further,

I remember the little girl I once was—

frozen by perfectionism,

alone and scared,

quietly carrying an anxious heart that felt too big for her small body.

She didn’t yet know she would one day grow into a life and world of her own making.

And still, I remember the voice from when I was 18—

the family member who told me I would be

“a drain on society”

for choosing not to go to college.

That voice lived in the background for years,

quiet but persistent,

a misplaced prophecy that never accounted for who I am.

It didn’t stop me.

It definitely slowed me down for years.

And then it sharpened me.

Because the woman I became—

the woman who built, created, led, mothered, healed, traveled, transformed—

is living proof that your precious life isn’t something others dictate for you—

it’s yours to discover, shape, and grow into over time.

And that brings me back to the question,

gently now,

like a hand resting on your shoulder:

What will you do with your one precious life?

Not as a command.

Not as a timeline.

Not as a measure of worth.

But as an opening—

a widening—

a doorway into the possibility that your life, too,

can become more beautiful, more surprising,

and more fully your own than you ever imagined.

Your one precious life is not a race.

It’s an unfolding.

And you get to decide what it becomes from here.