A love letter to all the women crying at quarter to five, then carrying on.

It used to be so hard for her to cry. Now it’s absolutely brutal if she doesn’t. Her tears mark the graves that hold the line through every cycle of death and rebirth and memorialize the countercultural life path she’s chosen for herself.

A path that refuses her a shortcut, the quick surface-level wins. A path of years. Walking without precedent or example. Forfeiting loyalties to bloodline, mainstream, culture, the expectations of everyone. Her choices born of endless chaos.

Yet, hers is a path that meanders and circumvents the chaos—by choice: the corporate ladder, the wedding bells, the systems of ownership, the pregnancy announcements. She’s off the beaten path that beats the girl from birth.

Growing up, she was no different than the girl-next-door. She played with her Barbies and dreamed of having her own little house on the prairie. Played imaginary family like rest of her friends. You be the daddy, I’ll be the mommy. She lived happily ever after.

And gave birth to a girl who chose to sign the promissory note of an uncertain future and debt she had to pay back. She was eighteen when she signed that promise. The first one in the family. She wasn’t old enough to sign that shit. But it was the only promise that would get her there. So, she signed it.

And she worked. Her way through it. Making all-day-breakfast behind a grill then making her way to class. Ten times harder, she worked. For an almost perfect GPA. She didn’t get the internship in Boston, but she still found a way. Found the guy she thought she’d marry. Mom told her not to, but she loved him. Mom was right in the end. It didn’t work out. She tried. It didn’t work out. Why are moms always right? So, she chose a different path. Let him go and kept moving forward. Tried something else.

All of it cost her a hundred thousand dollars and then some. Paid some of it back, then walked through a fire. Crawled her way back up from nothing. Started a project. Started a business. Started a new life from the ashes of her old one. Again. Again.

She’s still trying, guys. She’s still dying. She’s being reborn. She’s dying again. It hurts. It’s scary as fuck. She puts $100 a paycheck toward it. The rest goes to keeping herself moving and eating. She holds so much space. She cares so damn much.

And in the process, she’s finding out who she really is. Underneath all the heaviness, the conditioning, the cultural narrative. What’s she’s truly made of. Crying and choosing—over and over again through the uncertainty—a path of deep alignment.

It’s backbreaking work meeting a soul standard instead of a market standard. To tell the truth even when it costs her the comfort, connection, and approval. To preserve her dignity with a line in the sand that separates her from an entire world of humans who could use their market power to annihilate. Praying to God every night that they won’t. That they’ll help her along her path instead. She’s grateful for those who did. Who still loved her, even though she was imperfect, and scared, and inauthentic.

She keeps going without guarantees—not because it’s strategic, but because it’s sacred in a world that rewards speed. Certainty. Visibility. Productivity. And she never won any awards for being the fastest. She sucked at athletics. She had anxiety. Bad. Undiagnosed. Math was her worst subject by far. She burnt out trying to produce the right answer. It never added up. So, she chose a different path. Had to.

Constructed a world that might reward her with alignment, resonance, depth, authenticity, meaning, and purpose…and if it didn’t? If it dug her even deeper into the well? Well, she’d find a way to pay it back. Put it on the credit card. Pay in installments.

Still, it was always a better option—even though it sucked and still does. She keeps walking the path of devotion to this day. Carrying her grief. Mourning her losses. Holding her own heart for those she loved and lost along her way. Those she still thinks of and cries for almost daily. Still has little conversations with while making her tea. Wishing them happiness wherever they are on the path they chose.

Praying that maybe the wheels of fortune will turn one day and they will meet again, knowing they probably won’t. Because very few would choose to hold what she carries. Very few would choose to look into the mirror she looks into every single day and see the truth reflected back. It scares them. Can they even live up to it? Not sure.

Do you know how hard it is to scare people when all you want is to love them? Do you know how hard it is to let go of people who can’t choose you— and not even be able to hate them for it because you know why they walked away? It’s hard. It’s really hard.

It’s fucking lonely. It’s devastatingly, hauntingly tragic. Very few people would choose this. Very few people have to. So, she doesn’t blame them. She just keeps loving them from a distance. Dropping wishes for them in the wishing well. Keeping her distance. Keeping her heart open. Letting herself escape into the romanticism of it all for now.

Yeah, she wishes it were different. That she could take the easy way out of this life. But at the end of the day, she knows this is the only way. Never had the luxury. Of family she could fall back on, executive function she could leverage, a nervous system forged through security instead of survival, a stable foundation to build on that she wasn’t forced to construct on her own, brick by brick, day by day. Tear by tear.

Oh look. The tears have stopped falling. A signal that she can carry forward now. Just one…more…day. Another day of giving voice to the grief that rides shotgun with her courage. Telling her terrifying true stories. Becoming the precedent she never had. Leading herself as the girl who leads by example. Being her own boyfriend. Being the mother she never had. The architect of a life nobody handed her a blueprint for. Laying her soul like a promissory note on the altar of the rise and fall of each new day.

In her tears there is a love letter. One she wishes to write to all of the women she’s been. Who had to make the hard choices to become the next and best version of herself despite the terrible odds against her. This is that love letter. To all the women out there crying at quarter to five. Then, carrying on.

She loves you, and she is me.

Your dear friend,

Leah