The Beginning of the Hub
There are moments in this journey when I feel like the ground beneath me is shifting faster than I can catch it, moments when I have no choice but to step forward, even while shaking. These past few weeks have been exactly that.
I am humbled, excited, and still catching my breath as I share this: I’ve been chosen for a storefront here in Northbridge. This will be the Thrivewell Hub, a preview branch of all that Thrivewell Estate will one day hold.
The Hub wasn’t in the original blueprint. It was born from timing, intuition, and the kind of pivot you only understand in hindsight. One door closed, and another opened just down the street. When I stepped inside, I knew. The dream whispered: Start here. Begin now.
Where I stand today is clearer than it has ever been. Meetings are being set with Unibank, Eastern Bank, and TD Bank. I thought I needed private investors, but I’ve realized this path, with banks, structured payback, and no question of equity share, is the one that gives me more control. It feels right. I have the storefront chosen. I have the business plan. I have the packets ready. This is the moment I’ve been training for.
Our target is aggressive: a Dry January soft opening. Thrivewell’s foundational four will have to pull off something extraordinary, but if any team can, it’s this one. Pod design and layout are already underway. Our general contractor is working on renovation costs. Digital systems are being mapped out. The timeline pressure? That’s familiar terrain. What’s harder is carrying the vulnerability that comes with knowing how much is on the line.
And through it all, my writing, my storytelling, my videos, they’ve been the constant. They are the thread I can always hold onto when everything else feels like it’s slipping through my fingers. Some days, they’re the only thing that reminds me I’m not unraveling, that I’m actually weaving something.
Because the truth is, what I’m building in real time is the very story I’ve been carrying my whole life. The story of resilience, of recovery, of getting knocked flat and standing back up again. For years, that story lived quietly inside of me, in journals, in drafts, in whispered conversations with people I trusted. Now it’s standing on a stage, out in the open, no longer just my private survival but a vision I’m daring to invite the world into.
And I won’t sugarcoat it: this season is brutal. It is the hardest stretch I’ve ever walked through. Harder than getting sober, because sobriety had clear steps and a roadmap. This? This has no guarantees. It’s me walking into banks with my entire heart in a folder, asking for belief before there’s proof. It’s me wrestling with fears I thought I had buried, fears that I’m not enough, that I’m reckless for even trying, that the banks will say no and I’ll be left with nothing but the echo of my own dream.
I have never felt this vulnerable. I have never felt this raw. Every insecurity I thought I had healed has been dragged back out of the shadows, my fear of failure, my fear of not belonging, my fear that maybe I was never meant to build something this big. It feels like being skinned alive some days, like every nerve is exposed.
And yet, the vision keeps pulling me forward. On the days I want to collapse, it whispers: Keep going. On the days I wonder if I’m crazy, it says: This is what it takes. Because planting Thrivewell’s first roots in the ground was never going to be easy. To grow something strong enough to hold others, I first have to be stretched to my own limits.
So I’ll leave you with this:
Where in your life are you being stretched beyond comfort?
What fears are asking to be faced instead of buried?
And what vision keeps tugging at you even when you want to give up?
As for me, I will do what I have done since this vision first found me.
I will keep going.
With gratitude, vulnerability, and belief,
Kelley