Our Founder Reflects On Love Lost, Love Evolved And Love Found

As we step into this so-called season of love, I wanted to share something that’s been weighing on my heart – something quite different than my usual makeup tips & tricks or anything remotely in the beauty sphere. 

This past year has been a roller coaster—highs, lows, and all the messy in-between. Life has a way of knocking you down just when you think you’ve found your footing, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that we keep going. We grow, we evolve, and somehow, we find our way.

I created Woosh as a space for real people navigating real life —the beautiful, the heartbreaking, and the downright chaotic. Whether you're thriving, barely holding it together, or just trying to figure out what’s next, I see you. I’ve been there. And I’ll be there again. 

What I’m about to share is personal. Raw. Honestly, a little terrifying to put out there. But it’s my truth, and if it helps even one person feel less alone or a little more hopeful, then it’s worth it. 

Because no matter where you are on your journey, no matter how dark it may feel in the moment, I choose to believe that good things are ahead.

Love Lost, Love Evolved, Love Found (and still figuring it out)

For most of my life, I thought love was supposed to be all-consuming. That real love meant giving everything you had, without question or hesitation. That if you just tried harder, loved more, gave endlessly, it would all work out. 

Because you make a vow, right?

I shaped my life around that belief. I built a marriage on it. And for years, I thought I had it—L.O.V.E. The kind you fight for, the kind you stay for, the kind you convince yourself is worth everything you pour into it, even when there’s nothing left. 

Until I lost it.

But what I didn’t realize then—what I could never have imagined in the midst of heartbreak and grief—was that love wasn’t gone. It was just changing.

Love Lost

Losing my husband was complicated. It wasn’t a singular, sudden event –  death may have been the finale, but the loss had started long before. If I’m being honest, it was a slow, painful erosion. Maybe we’ll talk about that some other time. 

Widow. The word itself still feels foreign. It carries an expectation of sorrow, of longing, of a love stolen too soon. But my story wasn’t so simple. 

Yes, he was my husband when he passed. But the truth is, we had already been walking separate paths, deep in a divorce, our love long unraveled. And yet, his death didn’t erase the history we had, the years we spent together, the life we built, or the children we created.

We met when I was young, naïve, and eager to love in the way I thought love was supposed to be. I fell hard. I married fast (and young). I built my life around him, thrilled to do so. And for years, I tried to mold myself into the version of me that would keep him happy, that would keep us together.

But love should never feel like a constant proving ground. It shouldn’t make you feel small or question your worth. It shouldn’t drain you dry while you desperately try to refill an empty cup that will never stay full.

Looking back, I see that now.

What I once called love was, in many ways, survival. And by the time I found the strength to leave—because yes, I left—there wasn’t much of me left to take with.

And yet, when he passed, the grief still hit. Hard.

Because no matter how broken something is, when you’ve spent well over a decade building a life with someone, its loss still leaves a hole. 

I didn’t mourn the man he became. I mourned the man I thought he was and that I had once loved. I mourned the girl who believed in forever, who thought love meant giving without limits, assuming – of course – that it would be returned in kind. 

I mourned the dreams we built that never seemed to come to pass. I mourned the loss of a love I had already buried. But most of all, I mourned my boys losing their dad.

This was the hardest part—the grief that wasn’t mine to carry but that I had to guide my children through. And let me tell you, there is nothing in the parenting handbook that prepares you for that. No roadmap to ease their pain, no right words to make it better. Just raw grief, relentless questions, and the impossible task of comforting little hearts when your own is still shattered in completely different ways. 

Love Evolved

If love had once meant endurance, now it meant survival.

I have always loved my boys fiercely—maybe too fiercely if that’s even possible. But after losing their father, that love transformed. It became something deeper, something almost primal. 

We weren’t just a new kind of family. We were a unit. A weird little team – tighter-knit than ever (who knew that was possible?) – one that sometimes used dark humor as a coping mechanism, enlisted radical honesty & transparency, and could communicate entire thoughts with just a look. 

I had no choice but to become their everything. Their safe space. Their steady ground. 

And they became my reason to keep going.

But as I poured into them, something else happened—I started to see just how empty I had become.

For years, I had given everything to my marriage, my family, my survival. My personal well-being had been at the bottom of the priority list, somewhere between "maybe eat an actual meal" and "try to sleep more than a few hours?" 

Suddenly, I understood something I should have known all along:

You cannot pour from an empty cup. But how do you fill it?

Love Found

If I wanted to love others well, I had to start with myself. 

If I wanted a different kind of love in the future, I had to believe I was worthy of it. 

For so long, I thought loving others meant sacrifice - that if I just gave enough, proved enough, did enough, love would come back to me in full. But love doesn’t work like that. You cannot love anyone well if you don’t first love yourself.

And let me be clear – self-love wasn’t something that came naturally to me. It wasn’t about bubble baths or face masks or ‘treating myself’ (though I fully support a good skincare routine). It was about unlearning years of self-neglect. 

It meant sitting in silence with myself (which I still hate btw) - without distractions, without noise – truly listening to what I needed. 

It meant letting go of guilt when I chose myself for once. 

It meant releasing the idea that my worth was tied to what I could do for other people. 

And perhaps hardest of all, it meant learning to forgive myself. 

For staying too long. 

For bending too much.

For thinking love was meant to be painful. 

For all the ways I had abandoned myself in the name of love. 

I had to stop seeing myself as someone who needed to be fixed. I wasn’t broken, I wasn’t too much or not enough. I was just… me. And eventually I started to believe that was actually a really beautiful thing. 

I stopped apologizing for having needs. I started speaking up – saying what I actually wanted, rather than just going along with what made others happy. 

I learned that “no” is a full sentence (though often my boys still need that reminder) and that setting boundaries didn’t make me a bad or uncaring person. 

I paid attention to how I spoke to myself. For so long my inner dialogue was brutal – things I would NEVER say to another person, I was saying to myself daily. 

Because if I wanted my boys to be whole, I had to be whole first. 

And then, when I was finally getting back to myself, love found me again. 

Not because I needed it, but because I had made space for the kind of love I deserved. 

This time, love came softly. It didn’t ask me to sacrifice myself. It didn’t require me to shrink, to bend, to prove. 

This love is steady, not fragile. Grounded. It feels safe, not conditional. Like exhaling after years of holding my breath.

And the most beautiful part? 

It mirrors the love I have finally learned to give myself. 

This love doesn’t just accept me as I am – it encourages me to be even more myself. 

To be loud when I want to be.

To be quiet when I need to be.

To chase the things that light me up. 

To take up all the space I want and/or need. 

It’s not about completion, or competition. It’s about addition. 

I’m already whole. And that’s the difference. 

Full Circle

This period in life broke me. It unmade me. It forced me to rebuild from the ground up & face parts of myself I had long ignored. 

But in the wreckage, I found something I never expected—a deeper, truer love. 

Love that evolved into the unshakable bond between me and my boys.

Love that took root in the form of self-respect, self-worth, and self-compassion. 

Love that grew from me choosing myself first.

And when I was finally ready, found me again—not because I needed it to complete me, but because I was already whole.

Love is never just one thing. It doesn’t always last the way we think it will. It isn’t always easy, or simple, or fair. 

But it never truly disappears. 

It just changes shape. 

This time, I know better than to lose myself in it.

I am still learning. Still healing. Still figuring it all out. 

But for probably the first time in my life, I am not just surviving love.

I am living it. 

And this time, I am home.