Rewriting Your Story – Ash & Ember Rising

Life.
Sometimes life just… sucks.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a million ideas swirling in your head. You want to do them all. You want them done yesterday. But then life gets in the way.

For me, it was a week of study visits, followed by a week of high-stress assignments and deadlines. It feels like forever since I touched the things I actually wanted to do. Instead of thriving, I’ve just been surviving.

And I hate surviving.

I created Ash & Ember Rising because I didn’t want to just get through life — I wanted to live it. Intentionally. Fully. Passionately. I want to do all the things. Ten-people’s worth of things, if I’m honest. And of course, that’s impossible… but still, I expect it of myself.

Which means sometimes it’s hard to match my wants, my wild expectations, with reality.

What happens when reality wins?

So what do you do when life doesn’t match the plan?
When deadlines eat your days, or stress fogs your brain, or you just can’t do the things you hoped you would?

You could walk away.
You could decide it isn’t worth it.
You could label it failure.

But here’s the truth:

Just because something didn’t happen the way you wanted or expected doesn’t make it worthless.
It doesn’t make you worthless.

It makes you human.

Still here. Still trying.

I didn’t finish everything I wanted. Some things didn’t happen at all. But I’m still here.

Still caring.
Still showing up.
Still trying, even when it’s messy.

And maybe,

sometimes,

that’s enough.

From surviving to rising

Ash & Ember Rising has always been about this: turning the sparks we have left, even when everything feels burnt out, into steps forward.

So if you’re here, tired, behind, feeling like you’ve lost the thread of your own story — know this:

You’re not failing.
You’re still becoming.
And you’re allowed to start again, as many times as it takes.

Because surviving is not the end of your story. It’s just the messy middle. And the ember is still glowing.

“When I grow up, I want to be a librarian.”

I said that for years — partly as a joke, partly because books were the only thing I’d ever actually finished. But what I didn’t realize back then was that librarians don’t just love books. They thrive on curiosity, connection, and exploration. And maybe that’s why I ended up here — because secretly, I’ve been a Scanner all along.

If you’ve never heard that term before, let me explain.

The Stories They Told Me (And I Believed)

For most of my life, I was told I “never finished anything.”

My family would roll their eyes when I excitedly started a new project or hobby.
My husband would get frustrated — often about the cost of supplies for things he thought I’d never complete.

And slowly, I started believing those stories.

That maybe I was flaky.
That maybe I didn’t have what it takes to “stick it out.”
That maybe I’d never amount to anything if I couldn’t just pick one thing and do it forever.

It’s exhausting living in someone else’s story about you.

The Truth I Didn’t Know

It wasn’t until I stumbled across Barbara Sher’s book, Refuse to Choose!, that I discovered the truth:

I’m not broken.
I’m not flaky.
I’m a Scanner.

Barbara Sher describes Scanners as people who are curious, multi-passionate, and wired to explore. We don’t want to master just one thing — we want to master everything.

And for the first time, I felt like my brain made sense.

Jack of All Trades? Maybe. But…

People say “Jack of all trades, master of none” like it’s an insult. But did you know that the full phrase is actually:

“Jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than master of one.”

That hits differently, doesn’t it?

I do want to master things. Just… not one thing. I want to master all the things. And maybe that means I’ll need to figure out how to become immortal — but in the meantime, I’m learning how to embrace my multi-passionate brain instead of fighting it.

Finding a Home in Librarianship

When I finally started studying to become a librarian, I realized something surprising: librarians are basically Scanners in disguise.

We connect dots across disciplines.
We learn just enough about everything to help others go deeper.
We gather knowledge, organize it, and make it accessible.

It turns out my “dream job” wasn’t random at all — it was the perfect fit for someone like me.

A woman with long wavy brown hair sits cross‑legged on the floor of a golden‑lit library, surrounded by books, sketchpads, and creative tools, as glowing threads of light weave between the shelves, symbolizing connection and discovery. — Somewhere between the bookshelves, I found a place where my curiosity finally felt at home.

Rewriting the Narrative

For years, I told myself the story other people wrote for me: that I was inconsistent, unserious, destined to fail.

But here’s what I know now: I am consistent — at being curious. I am serious — about learning everything I can.

And I am far from destined to fail.

If you’ve been told you’re scattered, flaky, or “too much,” maybe you’re not broken either. Maybe you’re just a Scanner.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s time to stop apologizing for wanting to live more than one life.

So here’s my challenge for you:
What’s the story you’ve been told about who you are?
And what happens if you decide to rewrite it?

Because me? I don’t just want to master one thing. I want to master everything. And maybe, just maybe, that’s my superpower.

If this resonates with you, you might also like my previous post about challenging the false stories we inherit about ourselves. Together, they’re two sides of the same journey: recognizing the story you’ve been handed… and rewriting it for yourself.

Tag: Rewriting Your Story

When Surviving Feels Like Failing