“If you ever doubt that you have people that love you, here’s proof.”

My friend Felon said this after she threw me a Labubu themed cartoonish birthday party before my dad passed and resent a photo so full of joy of my group of friends that attended. and one that I had saved as evidence, one that I always look at when I’m feeling a bit blue.

And honestly? It was.

There’s a funny thing people say when your life feels like it’s on fire: “You’re so resilient.”

They mean well, of course, and I appreciate the compliment. But resilience is a bit like fancy makeup, it looks impressive on the outside, requires skill you absolutely did not plan to acquire, and smudges easily when things get emotional.

The truth is that resilience isn’t something you’re born with like eye color or an affinity for cats and cosplay. Although, if we’re being honest, both Luna and Bailey have contributed to my emotional support plan more than any self-help book ever could.

Resilience is built from tiny survival tactics and the often-invisible scaffolding we get from the people around us. And let’s not pretend scaffolding isn’t heavy; being held up is work.

In the past couple of years, my world has felt like a blender where so many events have helped me grow, in unexpected ways.

There’s loss, change, grief, and the kind of existential puzzles no one prepares you for. And yet, in between all the emotional brand management, these bursts of unexpected love showed up.

Notes from UF, FAU and Boca Raton High School students thanking me for believing in them, telling me that journalism matters, or that writing opened something for them, and those tiny little love letters showed up in moments that I wasn’t sure I had much left to give.

One wrote that they finally felt seen. I reread it on a day I felt invisible.

That’s the thing about support systems, they’re rarely symmetrical. You can be teaching your students to polish a lead, analyze storytelling, and debate the cultural importance of Comic Con feminism, and meanwhile, those same students are quietly uplifting your spirit. Life is sneaky like that.

But support doesn’t only come from people. Sometimes it comes from the things that make us feel alive.

That could be things like fandom, travel, Disney magic, Broadway musicals, a beautiful sunny day in Florida, themed cocktails at press trips, the electricity of a newsroom, or the simple comfort of hearing Luna and Bailey’s dramatic pre-nap monologues, and the sounds of them running after each other at home.

I’ve learned that joy isn’t obvious, but it’s there and sneaks up on you. And for someone who writes about culture, travel, and the messy beauty of being human, reclaiming joy is its own serious act of resistance.

When grief shows up, it tries to convince you that everything good has been canceled indefinitely.

So you must remind it: actually, no Comic Con is still happening, the bakery still has your favorite treat, students still argue passionately about what they believe in, and you still get that exact same spark when a story lands on the page just right or you feel like you make a difference.

Having a support system isn’t about never falling apart. It’s about having people and passions, and places, that help you find your way back.

It’s about the friend who sends a dumb meme that makes you laugh while crying. It’s about family who shows up. It’s about the spouse who doesn’t ask for explanations, just holds a loving space. It’s about colleagues who understand that creativity doesn’t pause for personal chaos. It’s about students who leave notes that feel like much-needed support.

If life insists on handing out plot twists, then we owe it to ourselves to keep our joy on standby.

Even if it comes in strange shapes, like theme parks, musical scores, press trips, romance novels with vampire lords, or cats who think you exist solely for entertainment value.

So yes, I suppose resilience is part of the story, but no one is resilient alone, and no one should have to be. If we’re lucky, we get a cast of characters who make the hard chapters survivable and the good chapters unforgettable.

And if we’re lucky, we keep finding new reasons to stay upright thanks to their support and your own individual growth through the challenges.

And that’s the power of being unafraid and realizing that you truly have an army behind you that will always support you, when you might have lost hope through hard times that you did have one at all.