The relationship nobody taught me to tend was the one with myself.

It is the foundation from which everything else moves, your friendships, your partnerships, the way you show up in a room, the way you speak to yourself at the end of a hard day. And yet so few of us are ever taught this. We are handed maps for how to love others long before anyone asks us how we feel about ourselves.

I think about how different things might have looked if someone had told us earlier. That we are responsible for ourselves. That falling in love is not something you find outside of you. It is something you return to.

I have been a massage therapist for over fourteen years. I built Manaloa Massage from the ground up, and it has been a beautiful journey. I built it while also raising a son. He is grown now, out in the world living his own story, and I find myself standing in a new chapter, one I am still learning to name.

This chapter has a lot to do with coming home to myself.

I was deeply shaped by motherhood. Raising my son on my own gave me a particular kind of clarity. About strength that doesn't announce itself. About the weight women carry quietly. About what it means to build something, a home, a life, a sense of self.

That experience rooted something in me. A love for women that is bone-deep and unconditional. I believe in women's power. I believe in their right to choose, in all things, in all directions, at every stage of life. No one has to earn that from me. It simply is.

My heart lives in community, in the circle of women who hold each other up, who tell the truth even when it's uncomfortable, who show up not because everything is fine but because it isn't. 

I am good at showing up for other people. In the room, on the table, in relationships, I know how to hold space. What I am learning is how to hold myself. 

I believe the body holds what the mind tries to outrun. I believe healing is not a destination but a practice. And I believe the most radical thing a woman can do is decide, slowly, imperfectly, that her soul and her heart are worth tending.

I believe every life has value. Everyone deserves care. Every human deserves to feel worthy of love, and that starts with the relationship we have with self.

Sincerely, a work in progress,

Veronica