Nobody tells you how long the hard parts last.
I’m not going to open this page with a pretty introduction about who I am and why this blog is wonderful. I’ve done that before. It didn’t feel true.
Here’s what’s true: I am exhausted in ways that don’t go away with a good night’s sleep.There are things that I have been carrying for a long time … things that happened in a war zone, things that happened in my own family, things that crept in quietly during years of military life and didn’t announce themselves as damage until much later. And I have spent a long time pretending I was fine.
I’m done pretending.
This blog exists because I needed a place to be honest and because I think you might need that too.
My name is Christina, an Army veteran that served in Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2003 to 2005. What happened there changed me in ways I’m still sorting through. I’m married to a 24-year Air Force retiree and a mom to two teenagers. I survived a toxic family system that left marks I didn’t fully understand until I was deep into therapy trying to figure out why I kept reacting to things the way I did. I suffer daily from PTSD, anxiety, depression, chronic migraines, severe body pains from my time in service, and the particular kind of tired that comes from carrying all of that while still trying to show up every single day.
You can also find me making dinner and learning to grow a garden. I fold laundry and argue about screen time and sit in carpool lines and try to figure out what I actually want now that we’re finally, finally in one place and not moving again.
Both things are true at the same time. That’s what this space is about.
Heart & Stripes is not a highlight reel. It’s not a wellness brand. It’s not a place where I’m going to tell you that healing is beautiful and worth it every step of the way because some steps are awful, and you deserve someone who will say that out loud.
What you will find here is honesty about…
trauma and therapy.
what it actually costs to cut off toxic family.
the days when PTSD wins and the days when it doesn’t.
being a veteran who doesn’t always feel like a hero.
a mom who loves her kids fiercely and still needs to lock herself in the bathroom sometimes just to breathe.
a marriage that has survived things most people will never have to face and is still, somehow, good.
And yes, also about the garden, the recipes, the slow ordinary days that are, I’m learning, their own kind of miracle.
If any part of that sounds like your life, you’re in the right place.
Where to start…
If you’re new here, these are a good place to begin.
A Long Pause, and a New Chapter is where I talk honestly about why this space went quiet for years and what it looked like to come back to it changed. If you’ve ever had to step away from your own life just to survive it, that one’s for you.
I Forgive You is about forgiveness … what it actually is, what it doesn’t have to be, and why healing doesn’t require you to make peace with people who never deserved your trust in the first place.
Neither of these posts are meant to be rushed. Take your time with them.
Why you’ll find recipes and a garden here…
One more thing, because people ask. Yes, there are recipes here. And bread. And a garden I’m still figuring out how to build. That’s not an accident and it’s not a pivot. It’s part of the same story.
When things were at their hardest, I needed something to do with my hands that wasn’t falling apart. I started cooking more intentionally. You could find me baking bread at 10pm because the rhythm of it calmed something in me that nothing else could reach. I started planning a garden because growing something … anything … felt like proof that I still believed in the future.
Healing doesn’t only happen in therapy sessions and journal entries.
Sometimes it happens in the kitchen at the end of a long day, or with your hands in the dirt on a Tuesday morning. That’s why it’s all here together. Because that’s how it actually lives in my life.
You don’t have to be okay to be here or have to have it figured out. You don’t have to be further along in your healing than you are right now.
I just ask that you are willing to be honest with yourself. I promise to do the same.
That’s the deal. I think it’s a good one.
XoXo,
Christina