The promises I make

At twenty-five, I finally stopped running.

From childhood memories I had spent years trying to forget.

From relationships I couldn't understand.

From grief I never knew how to carry.

From the girl I had been.

And from the uncomfortable truth that sometimes, the person who abandons you first is yourself.

Growing up in a small South African town, I learned to mistake attention for love and being wanted for being worthy. I made choices out of fear, lost people I thought would always be there, abandoned dreams I still sometimes mourn, and spent years trying to find myself in other people.

Then, at twenty-five, something changed.

I decided to look back.

Not to rewrite the past.

Not to decide who was innocent and who was guilty.

But to finally understand the girl who lived through it.

The Promises I Make is a raw and deeply personal memoir about childhood, love, loss, faith, mistakes, self-worth, and the strange grief of wondering who I might have become if I had chosen differently.

But most of all, it is about choosing myself.

And learning that sometimes the life I thought I lost is not the end of my story.