“Flowers die, but diamonds don’t.” — Leon Thomas, Vibes Don’t Lie Remix
Date: August 22, 2025
I have so many thoughts after leaving “my journal” home for the last five nights. I want to capture it all, and I feel like I want to rush so I don’t lose my train of thought, but my Spirit keeps saying, “I will help you remember.” And I trust it.
Traveling for work this week, I realized how easy it is to get wrapped up in life and neglect spending time with God. I found moments to meditate and breathe, stayed in prayer, and gave thanks many times. But I didn’t read my Word; I didn’t carve out intentional time for Them. And on my travels back home, I felt lovingly convicted… like I was being told I was missed. More like I felt missed. I apologize to my Spirit and my God, but I am grateful it was revealed, and I was able to catch it before things, excel, as it were (wink).
I always get the most out of what I don’t want to do. Case in point: the way I whined about this work travel, missing my apartment, and the nerves of traveling—I basically let my inner child, Ashley, have her way. But the refined woman I am becoming, Ashley Morgan, recognized that I should be grateful and excited to visit a city I’ve never been to, to meet peers I only see on screens, and to gain another perspective on my personal and professional life.
Morgan—the healed, adult version of me—was able to write the entry from 8/14/2025: nervous, learning, yet ready if things needed to be handled. But this trip… this trip was refreshing, renewing, revealing, confirming. I listened and learned in conference sessions, connected with colleagues navigating the same systemic obstacles, and tried new foods and experiences. I toured a famous landmark, watched its documentary, and when others asked to join me for dinner or to ride the city-view wheel… I said yes. In the past, I would have refused without hesitation. This time, I trusted myself enough to choose differently. In spaces that once left me tense and on edge, I was relaxed, free to be my whole self. Not because I immediately discerned others as safe, but because I am learning to trust myself enough to reengage socially from this internal space of grounded isolation.
I’m not the social butterfly I was as the little, wide-eyed, ponytailed Ashley, nor as carefree as the college-living, unafraid, too-confident Morgan. Yet I felt myself shift—witnessing my own growth in real-time. Will I ever be Ashley or Morgan again? No. But Ashley Morgan is growing into herself, and that transformation is a sight to behold.
Then… a realization about a past relationship came into focus—one I had completely misunderstood.
Until next time—stay grounded, and keep blooming. Our growth is sacred—and who says we can’t express it in the luxury language of love?
Yours in haute healing,
DreamGirl ✨🌿
