The story behind the story of The Relentless Butterfly

(2/23/21) For those of you that are here on my website but did not have the opportunity to follow its inception and creation on my Facebook page, this is the story of how the Relentless Butterfly literally popped into my head and gave me the inspiration to pursue my dream of writing for my life:

The caterpillar: me! (shocker, I know)

The golden butterfly: Hamilton. No seriously, Hamilton. Yes, Hamilton. Hamilton the musical. Yes, I am actually telling you that a musical spoke to me and changed my life. Now, I don't have a history of being a huge fan of musicals. Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy and respect the hell out of them, but they're just usually not on my list of things that I must experience to feel fulfilled. So when Hamilton originally came out and the world went crazy, I was like, "eh," and then when I had family members seeing it multiple times and raving about it, I was like, "eh." We even went to dance competitions where multiple studios had numbers choreographed to Hamilton songs, and I was like, "weird." So on the very first day that Hamilton was available on Disney+, our most enthusiastic family member checked in to make sure that we were going to watch it, so Michael put it on. I begrudgingly sat down to appease him and so that he could tell our most enthusiastic family member that I had at least tried to watch it.

So now we're watching Hamilton, but I was never really interested in history growing up, so I'm actually learning stuff as we go. We've also got the subtitles on so that we can follow the story easier - the singing and rapping are just too fast for my old lady ears and brain. A few minutes in, I get a phone call that I have to take, and by the time I return, it's already Act II and George Washington is flying across the stage on a giant staircase. I am not sure why. I am also not sure why they didn't pause it and wait for me, but whatever, I guess. We watch it till the end, I laugh and cry several times, and then I move on with my day.

But a day or two later, I find myself sitting down to watch just the chunk that I missed and then decide to watch it in its entirety. Now, Hamilton is a spectacle, to be sure; the set, the costumes, the choreography, but I begin to zero in on the words. And not just the words but the message. And I'm sorry, but I need to say it again -- the words! I find the soundtrack on Apple Music, and it becomes the soundtrack of my heart.

Now, I could go on and on and on about the perfection of Hamilton's symbolism and message, as well as the genius of Lin Manuel Miranda's words, but that would probably be a snooze fest for about 98% of you. So let's simply say that all of those things roused and revived the creative side of my brain that had been dormant for many, many years. Suddenly, I was concocting stories in my head based on things that I was seeing or things that I remembered or things that I had recently experienced, and I began to reconnect with the person that I was before I was a wife or a mother. Even as I was just thinking of writing, I felt like I was becoming my whole self again. It was as if this piece of me had been lost, and as it was shifting back into place, I could physically feel a happiness bubbling inside of me that is still making me smile right now.

Now, while all of these things were changing for me, I had a very enlightening conversation with some very good friends of mine about the significance of butterflies, and shortly thereafter, I awoke to a picture in my head of a very specific butterfly that changed my life forever.

During our butterfly conversation, a close friend had mentioned a butterfly tattoo of hers that has significant characteristics which are very meaningful to her personally. Well, that must have been ruminating in my mind all night because I awoke to a crystal clear and compelling picture in my head - a butterfly that was fighting with every ounce of energy that she had in order to extricate herself from a hole at the top of her chrysalis. Her wings were already free, and they were an iridescent ivory color with words on them. Those wings were actually the pages of a book, and my eyes flew open with this determination, and this fire, and this plan, and this future for myself. In that moment, I knew what was going to happen. I realized that the butterfly was actually me, and I was instantly transformed.

I began meeting with my dear friend/creative minded life coach Sandi Duncan, who encouraged and supported and validated my feelings and plans. One of the main reasons that I had originally reached out to her was our shared Hamilton obsession. She was the perfect person to confide in that I didn't just really enjoy Hamilton, but that I was starting to think that it had actually changed my life. And not only did Sandi not laugh at me, she totally understood and fostered the reasons for it. She helped me to embrace what was happening, and then the butterfly flew right off the leaf.

So then, after trying many other names for my venture that were already taken (Paperwings, Wordwings, Bookwings, etc.), I started to really think about that butterfly and how hard she was working to get out of her chrysalis. The word relentless popped into my head, I feverishly typed it into the search bar, and no companies appeared! I purchased the domain name, was connected with Abigail Sakati through Sandi, and Abigail created this amazing website just for me. More impressively, she has very sweetly and patiently taught me the technological process of bringing my stories to you (not a small feat). And someday, once we get everything really going here, The Relentless Butterfly will be on t-shirts and sweatshirts and book bags and journals and stickers, and a percentage of the proceeds will go to a charity-to-be-named later once I figure out who can help me do that too.

(2/13/25, ALMOST EXACTLY FOUR YEARS LATER)

So life happened, as it always does, and I had to put this dream on hold for a long, long while. It wasn’t possible to carve out any time for myself, and more often than not, I didn’t want to anyway. I recently scrolled through my Notes and found something that I wrote during that period, and I figured, what the hell, I’ve shared everything else so far, so:

(May 2024) The Broken Butterfly 

Who knew that a butterfly could turn back into a caterpillar? 

Three years ago, I was soaring. My eyes were reopened, my brain was unlocked, my world got so big! I would look up to the sky, and my happiness was so great that I couldn’t contain it.  I’d be driving or walking or standing with the hugest smile on my face - and sometimes it would even bubble right out of me and a giggle would escape. I could see everything I wanted and knew that I would have it. My optimism and my excitement about my future were boundless. There was nothing that I couldn’t do! 

And then I got shot out of the sky. 

I plummeted through the air and hit the ground in an explosion of agony that I’d never felt before. Reeling from shock and pain, I laid there, motionless and broken. Then someone picked me up, and I thought I was saved, but they just ripped my wings off and shoved me back down in the dirt, rubbing my face in it until it was all I could see and smell - nothing but the dirt that I thought I would never live in again.

Re-reading it now, it’s pretty melodramatic, to say the least, but it was definitely how I was feeling at the time. Thankfully my family made some changes that gave me the ability to pick myself up and start finding my way back.

I started by writing now and again, and it felt so good to reconnect with those feelings that I kept finding and making the time to write more and more. I was adding to the stories on my website but also growing frustrated with the technical side of it. I started to get bogged down with trying to figure out how to update and organize it the way that I wanted. Enter Jamie Richards.

Jamie Richards at www.blisscreativestudio.com was the last piece of the Relentless Butterfly puzzle. I found her through Wix, but I know that the universe sent her to me exactly when I needed her. Jamie heard what I both needed and wanted, and she absolutely delivered. In spades. A week early. Jamie doesn’t mess around.

So here we are, almost exactly four years later, and everything is perfectly aligned, so come fly with me. It’s going to be an amazing ride.