A Farewell to 2024

A re-introduction and personal recap of my year

For any new subscribers here, I wanted to provide a little introduction on the eve of 2025!

My name is Jolie. I’m a mother of two, creeping up on forty (wtf?), living an unconventional-conventional life in the midwest. I’m a full time life coach, working with women who want help cultivating a stronger sense of self, finding their own truth and fully embodying it confidently in their lives. I came to this profession after a long road of doing the same work for myself: in my late twenties I retired from my role as Evangelical Poster Child and left my organized religion.

At 34, I allowed my personal worst nightmare to happen - I was finally fully honest with myself about the state of my marriage, got a divorce, and became a single mom. As a product of divorce myself, this felt like the pinnacle of shame for me (how I viewed it then, anyway). I had to rebuild everything from that point forward, and I’m still finally learning how to identify as something other than divorced. My work with clients is heavily influenced by the work I had to do personally to redefine myself after getting sucked into the good-girl-to-martyr-wife pipeline, something many women who were the product of 90’s and 2000’s evangelicalism experienced.

I fill my spare time reading and re-reading psychology and self-help books, trying out new recipes, running and walking outside, working on my Spanish, traveling with my boyfriend and kids, and forever using my home as an artistic canvas for my constant pull toward visual curation.

This substack has been a helpful journal for the path of redefining myself over the last few years - sharing the burdens, griefs, achievements, and enlightenments I’ve had along the way. If you’ve been through tough life transition yourself, specifically divorce, you might find solace in my archives.

Sometimes, the more personal or involved posts are reserved for my paid subscribers (who pay $5/month) as a thank you for their support! The rest of this post will be a more personal recap of 2024 for my paid subscribers.

I’m glad you’re here and I hope you’ll stick around. I’m excited to share more with you in 2025. I’m hoping to learn the ropes of engagement more here on substack in 2025, so say hello in the thread or the comment sections (or, by replying to the email if you read it that way!)

My full 2024 recap with pictures for paid subscribers, below! XO, Jolie