From Lost to Found: A Birthday Letter

Four years ago, on my first birthday in recovery, there was a photo of me and my dog standing in the woods. The ground was damp with early Autumn thaw, the trees stretched bare and uncertain above us, and my body language said everything: we were a little lost, unsure of where the path would take us. I told myself I didn’t want my birthday to be a big deal, but the truth was simpler and harder, I didn’t know how to hold celebration. I didn’t know how to hold myself.

For so long, I believed I had been “too loud” in the wrong ways. Too messy. Too much. My voice had carried chaos instead of clarity, and so the safest thing seemed to be to shrink. To step carefully. To be quiet, soft, almost invisible. In that first year of sobriety, survival was my only goal. Celebration felt impossible.

This weekend, on my fortieth birthday, I stood in the woods again with my dog and took another photo. At first glance, the frame could be mistaken for the same one, trees rising up around us, paths winding in directions unknown, but the woman in the picture is not the same. This time, it is not the image of someone lost. This time, it is proof that not all who wander are lost. What once was a portrait of uncertainty is now a portrait of becoming.

Because I am different.

Forty arrived with a force I didn’t anticipate. The emotions hit harder than I expected, not with fear, but with awe. There was a time I never thought I’d live to see this milestone. I used to make jokes about it, but the truth was, I wasn’t joking. I couldn’t imagine myself here. I couldn’t imagine myself whole.

And yet here I am, not only alive, but celebrated. Supported. Loved.

More than that, for the first time I was able to receive that love. Not just tolerate it. Not just nod politely and hope no one noticed the discomfort in my chest. But to stand in it, to let it in fully, and to say yes. Yes, I deserve this. Yes, I am here. Yes, I am willing. That willingness is its own miracle.

There are different kinds of loudness. There is the kind that drowns out pain, masks fear, spins us in endless circles while never letting us be seen. That was my old loud. But there is another kind of loudness, the kind that carries light. The kind that says: I’m here. I survived. And I have something worth sharing.

That is the loudness I carry now.

If I had to go through it all again, the pain, the silence, the countless nights I doubted whether tomorrow would come, I would. Because the secure, steady happiness I feel now is worth every single step. The love I know now. The purpose. The confidence. The community. None of it came easy, but all of it came real. And that is worth everything.

Forty is not the end of anything. It is the beginning. My forties are not a quiet arrival through a side door. I am done being quiet. I am arriving with a double-door entrance I am high-kicking open, glitter flying everywhere, laughter echoing behind me, light spilling out ahead of me.

Because life is too precious to tiptoe into anymore.

This is the truth that built Thrivewell. The belief that our most painful journeys can become the most powerful foundations. That healing isn’t meant to be hidden but shared. That love, community, and vision are not soft whispers, but loud beacons.

So here I stand, forty years old, torch in hand, lighting the way forward. For myself. For those who walk beside me. For those still searching for their path in the woods. For anyone who has ever thought they wouldn’t see the next birthday, let alone forty.

To everyone who celebrated with me this weekend: thank you. To everyone who has believed in me, loved me, carried me when I wasn’t sure I could stand: you are my roots. You are the reason I can step into this decade not just alive, but alive with purpose.

The best is still ahead. The doors are open. The glitter is falling. And I have arrived.

With love and light,
Kelley