June 25, 2025 @ 10:38 PM

This morning marks the seventh year since my dad passed. What a thing to say. It’s a strange feeling at this point—a poignant but dull sensation behind the eyes, a burning in the chest. The man who gave me everything is no longer here, hasn’t been here for a period of time.

I remembered how my dad used to sing throughout the house on good days—infusing heart into the home. He never rushed it.

Seven years later, that memory still feels sacred.

June 25, 2018: a date that divides my life into before and after.
There is a definitive part of me that was left behind in the early break of dawn.
So much left to ask about, but never to receive the chance.

Maybe this is my path after all. These are the cards dealt.

The sharpness of that loss has softened into something I can carry, but it’s never disappeared.
I continue to live in his music and his light.
It lives in small moments: clouds streaming across the sky, quiet acts of care, the way I show up in the world when it spins too fast.

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Learning to Carry What Stays

I’m not the same person I was at 18. Untested by real loss, I didn’t know how to carry grief—or trust that I could make it past 25. But alas, here I am.

Healing can never be linear. What comes up must come down. The downward spiral then flips up into joy.

Contemporary research shows that human cells completely replace themselves every seven years—meaning I am literally a different person than I was when my father passed.
Every cell in my body has been renewed, rebuilt, transformed.

In an ambitious sense: forged in a new fire. The passions I held dear in the past no longer align with me.

Cell turnover peaks in early development and slows with age. Stem cell activity declines.

But somehow, love remains. The lessons persist.

The way he raised me still lives in tandem to an entirely new version of me.
I do have a better understanding of my purpose… or at least, I’m learning.

The loss taught me that transformation doesn’t require drama or declarations.
Sometimes the most profound changes happen in whispers, in the way you grow more aware with age.

Frontal lobe development and whatnot.

You can choose gentleness over force in how you hold space for both grief and wonder.

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Building Something From the Softness

I started Stargirl Cozy because I needed a place to land:
Somewhere soft, safe, and full of reminders that growth does not have to be drastic to be powerful.

Blogging is the perfect place for introverts, is it not? 🤚🏼

After being told I was “too soft,” I wanted to create a corner of the internet where grief, wonder, science, and productivity could align: no judgment, just intention.

This blog is for the quiet dreamers.
The soft fighters.
The divine believers who’ve been told they’re “too much” or “not enough.”
It’s where science meets softness: where we explore the research behind resilience while honoring what makes us human.

Here, introversion isn’t something to fix.
And feeling deeply isn’t a weakness to overcome.

In building this space, I’ve discovered something unexpected:
This is how I keep him with me.

Not in the emptiness of missing him, but in the purpose of creating something he would’ve been proud of.
Not in the silence of grief, but in the stories I now choose to share.
In how I try to heal the world—and maybe myself along the way.

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The Promise of Seven

So here’s my commitment this seventh summer:

I will keep going. Even though it’s easier to go silent.
I’ve learned it’s okay to take breaks, as long as I leave a breadcrumb of effort each day.

I will keep creating content that bridges evidence-based wellness and intuitive living.

I will keep showing up with both softness and structure: for myself, and for the community growing here within the next five years (2030).

Word by word, post by post, I’m building this space into something that helps people feel a little more at home in themselves.

Because that’s what he gave me:
A sense of belonging in my own skin.
Permission to move through the world with intention rather than urgency.

He taught me how to drive.
He let me fly from the nest at 18.
We shared a hyper-independent ambition that never needed to be explained.

Seven years ago, I couldn’t have imagined that losing him would eventually lead to finding my voice.

That grief would become not just something I carry, but something that propels me forward.

A lot of objects still remind me of him: sudoku pamphlets, a whisper to slow down on turns, and a classical guitar. But now, instead of just missing how he viewed his life, I hold his spirit next to mine.

Maybe that’s the lesson:

That love persists not in grand gestures,
but in the quiet, patient way we continue tending to our dream gardens.

Thank you for being part of this journey. Here’s to seven more summers of growth, gentleness, and showing up exactly as we are. Cheers!

Try This Mantra with Me

I am not broken, I am rebuilding.
I move with intention now, no longer urgency.

Every part of me has changed, and I honor who I’ve become.

I don’t need to earn love, softness, or rest.
I was born deserving of all three.

I release the need to be perfect.
I am not behind—I am on my path.

I carry grief, but I also carry vision.
My story is still unfolding—and it’s mine to write.

I am not lost.
I am becoming.
And that is more than enough.