Took a left turn at loss...
photo circa 2008 when I wrote Teetering on Disaster
I had every intention of showing up here with reflections from the book tour…
But as life so often reminds us, our plans rarely hold a candle to where our hearts actually need to go. If you read my last post, you know we recently lost our Stilly—a once-in-a-lifetime companion who stole our hearts for fifteen years. Over the past few weeks, my journey has meant stepping into remembrance, leaning into discomfort, and entering the quiet, sacred territory of writing a parable on grief and loss.
Writing, after all, has been the baseline of my life.
When 7 Primal Wounds launched, I promised myself I wouldn’t dive into another book—at least not for a hot minute. I told my socials I needed a reprieve from the manicured photo-and-caption grind to come back to the place where my heart still finds beauty: the blog.
Turns out my "hot minute" lasted about five seconds.
It started with a vulnerable, middle-of-the-afternoon text to my dear soul sister, KerrieAnn, after Stilly passed: “Um, I’m writing because I'm sad, and now it’s becoming a parable of universal truths… can you give it a look?”
(P.S. She is one of the primary editors of 7 Primal Wounds and her brilliant editorial eye and magic touch are the very reason that manuscript evolved from a messy doctoral project into the bestseller it is today..)
While many of you know me through the podcast or the new book, this all truly began with my very first journal in the third grade and blossomed in high school. My first editorial was published in the Sacramento Bee, and by senior year, I was reporting for the Georgetown Gazette.
Right around that same era—circa 1999—my little corner of the internet took root right here on this site, when I purchased michaelarenee.com back when it was hand-coded line-by-line in raw HTML and “blog” wasn’t even a household word.
Around 2007, I began publishing personal essays for anyone and no one to read—pieces that would eventually become my memoir, Teetering on Disaster. Two decades after my high school reporting days, life came full circle when, with my young son in tow, I returned to step into the role of Editor for that very same newspaper that gave me my start.
Over the decades, people have found genuine kinship and deep resonance in these words. Naturally, others have taken offense.
I’ve learned that if you aren't pissing someone off, you’re probably doing something wrong, or at the very least, not doing something right - see what I did there? Aw hell, I'm pretty sure my own mom hated this blog for at least five minutes.
At its core, writing has always been my personal sanctuary: crafted to process and heal, but shared to spark genuine human connection. My hope has always been simple—to shine a gentle light on the quiet places, offering a mirror where someone else might catch their reflection and finally exhale.
When I wrestled with the inevitable fear of criticism while launching 7 Primal Wounds, KerrieAnn offered a piece of wisdom that never left me:
"When you write the truth, you inevitably hold up a mirror. Some people will find solace in it; others will lash out because they aren't ready to face what's looking back."
I write first and foremost for myself—to process, to heal, and to make sense of the world—and I share it for true human connection, shining a light for anyone navigating their own dark corners.
No amount of posturing, intimidation, or projection has ever scared me into silence. It has never changed the fact that this platform belongs to my voice, my craft, and those who meet it with open hearts. As a psychotherapist, I’ve learned time and again that appeasing discomfort—especially someone else's—is never how healing happens. Growth only comes from looking discomfort directly in the eye and choosing to move toward something true.
Right now, my truth is that I’m not quite ready to dive back into the high-altitude joy of the book tour reflections just yet. Grief demands its own pace, and I need a little more time to sit with the feelings of this moment as I finish writing the parable (more to come on grief and loss as well).
So, to hold us over until we take back to the skies, I wanted to share the piece below. I wrote it over a month ago and hesitated to hit publish, but it speaks right to the heart of what this season is asking of me: the quiet grace of weathering life’s storms.
Without further ado, below these throwback photos is the post I never shared…
PRETTY IN PATINA
We live in a culture obsessed with pristine, out-of-the-box perfection. We buy things factory-sealed, spotless, and unblemished, treating any scratch or dent as a flaw to be corrected or replaced. In our personal lives, we often chase a similar illusion—believing that the goal of healing, growing, and loving is to emerge completely smooth, untouched by hardship, and free of emotional residue.
If we want something to look distressed, we buy it new, and then work hard to quickly destruct it (like a pair of ragged jeans).
As a therapist and relationship coach, I see this desire for sterile perfection all the time. People come into my office wanting to wipe the slate clean, erase their past mistakes, and bypass the messy, unglamorous work of healing. Or they want to dictate how the messy is going to look - at least to everyone around them- be in control of the messy everyone else sees.
A Badge of History
Unlike manufactured perfection, a patina can't be bought off a shelf. You cannot fake it, rush it, or order it with two-day shipping. It has to be earned through time and living.
Every scratch, scuff, and weathered spot tells the story of an object’s life, handling, and journey. It answers the question: Has this thing actually been used? Has it weathered the elements?
The same goes for us. The emotional equivalent of a patina is our history—the hard lessons, the broken engagements, the divorces, the grief, and the mistakes we've survived. When we try to hide our past or pretend we arrived at adulthood fully formed, we rob ourselves of our story. Your past isn't something to sweep under the rug. It is a badge of history. It proves that you stepped into the arena, took some hits, and kept going.
In my book, 7 Primal Wounds, I talk extensively about how our earliest attachment injuries shape the way we navigate the world. But those wounds, when brought into the light and tended to, transform. They stop being open bleeding sores and turn into a rich, protective patina. They tell the world: I have lived, I have struggled, and I am still standing.
Protection and Softening
In metallurgy, a patina serves a fascinating dual purpose. While it looks like mere surface decoration to the untrained eye, it actually acts as a protective layer that prevents further corrosion. It is a shield formed by the very elements that tried to destroy it.
Metaphorically, emotional patina does the exact same thing for our hearts.
When we are young, we are often sharp-edged. We have rigid defenses, black-and-white thinking, and fragile egos that shatter at the slightest criticism. We react out of survival, clawing back when we feel threatened. But as we experience the weathering of life—as we weather our own storms and navigate the complex, beautiful dark of long-term partnerships—something incredible happens.
The sharp corners are worn smooth. The blinding, unyielding glare of ego mellows into something warmer, deeper, and far more grounding.
That weathering doesn't make us cold or cynical; it makes us resilient. It builds a healthy protective layer that lets us say, "I know how to get through a storm, and I don't need to panic." It allows us to drop our armor not because we are naive, but because our patina has made us strong enough to handle whatever comes next.
The Human Equivalent: Richness in Relationships
If individual patina is about personal maturity, relational patina is where the real magic happens.
Just like a well-loved leather armchair, human relationships develop their own kind of patina. A brand-new relationship is exciting, shiny, and pristine—much like a brand-new car fresh off the lot. But it also lacks depth. It hasn't been tested.
Real, enduring love looks different. It is forged in the trenches of daily life: the arguments resolved with grace, the midnight tears wiped away, the quiet triumphs, and the messy business of bearing witness to each other's flaws.
As I’ve noted elsewhere, a true relationship isn't about finding someone who matches your fantasy of perfection. It’s a recipe of daring, challenge, adventure, laughter, tears, salt, and sugar. It’s about bringing your wounded self to someone else's wounded self.
When you spend years weathering life side-by-side, your partnership develops a hard-earned depth and beauty that only time can create. You stop keeping score of every little misstep because you recognize that the "battle scars" you both carry are pieces of the creation you are now. You wouldn't trade the history for a blank slate, because that history is what makes the bond uniquely yours.
Embracing Your Own Patina
So often, we waste precious energy trying to buff out our flaws. We wish we didn't have those triggers, we wish our past was cleaner, or we wish our relationships looked effortless like the ones we scroll past on a screen.
What if, instead, we started treating our history like a patina?
What if we looked at our scars, our emotional maturity, and the complex, beautiful patchwork of our lives not as damage, but as proof of character? What if we allowed the weathering of life to soften our sharp edges rather than harden our hearts?
Because at the end of the day, a life untouched by time and trial isn't a masterpiece—it’s just unfinished. And the best things in this life always come with a little history.
How are you learning to embrace the weathered, beautiful parts of your own story and relationships today?