I’m MJ.

Years later, I had a much more urgent reason to understand whether people can actually change. I spent years studying psychology, trauma, behavior, neuroplasticity, the nervous system, habits, repetition, and environment. The part that changed my life was realizing how much of who we are gets reinforced by what we keep doing.

A lot of the things I thought weren’t “me” turned out to be things I just hadn’t learned yet.

That gave me permission to be a beginner. I can learn to sew, get better at photography, grow something, understand a subject, or pick up something random just because I want to know if I can do it. I don’t need to master all of it. Sometimes I just really like finding out that I can.

A lot of that studying started because I needed it. I don’t think about healing the way I used to. The useful parts became part of how I live. I still care about what happens to the things you learn the hard way, though. Some things just sucked. But if I came away knowing something useful, I don’t want it to disappear with the version of me who needed it.

That is a big part of why Bluntly MaryJane exists. I want my kids to have more than pictures. I want them to be able to find what I was learning, making, changing my mind about, reading, getting wrong, and caring about. I want them to know me as a person, not only as their mom.

And I want my own record too. There have been times when other people’s versions of me were louder than mine. I don’t need to spend the rest of my life arguing with them. I just want my own voice to exist somewhere.