A GOODYEAR After All

All year, I drove past the big GOODYEAR sign downtown.
It’s bold and impossible to miss, but the lights?
Always off.

I got used to it.
Another thing in the background of a year that felt heavy in a way I couldn’t explain.
But during the very last week of school, I looked up—and it was glowing.
Just like that.

And it felt like something in me lit up too.

Because if you had told me a year ago that I’d be where I am now—on my own, living in a new city, not tied to the identity I used to cling to—I wouldn’t have believed you.
Not because I didn’t want it… but because I couldn’t yet see myself strong enough to choose it.

This past year brought me to my knees in every way.
Emotionally, spiritually, financially, physically.
It was one of the hardest, messiest, most disorienting seasons I’ve ever walked through.

I started it in a job that drained me, in a place that never quite felt like mine, with a version of myself that was quietly unraveling.
I was holding things together because I didn’t know what else to do.

And then slowly, everything I was holding onto—started falling apart.

But as it did, something else started growing.
Not in big, dramatic ways. Just small, honest ones.

I started praying more.
Asking deeper questions.
Listening.
Letting go.
Letting God.

Now I live in a quiet little apartment in a completely new part of Ohio—a place I never pictured myself, but somehow feels like exactly where I’m meant to be.
It’s peaceful here. Artsy. Slow. Full of walking trails, local coffee, friendly neighbors, and that small-town magic that somehow still has soul.

I had never lived alone before.
I was scared—of the silence, of the bills, of not being enough.
But God has poured out grace in ways I never expected.
I can afford to live, really live, and that alone still humbles me.

This has been a spiritual journey more than anything else.
Of learning to live with less fear.
Of making space for quiet things—like joy, like gentleness, like listening when my soul speaks.

I think that’s why the Goodyear sign meant something when the lights finally came on.
It reminded me that just because something looks dormant doesn’t mean it’s dead.
That just because your life feels quiet or unseen or in-between—it doesn’t mean God isn’t working.

Some years are soft resets.
Some are wild uprootings.
Some strip you bare so the new things can actually take root.

If you’re in a hard season right now—whatever that environment may be for you—I just want to say:
It won’t always feel like this.
Keep going, gently.
Let yourself grieve and grow at the same time.
Ask God for peace and expect Him to show up in unexpected ways.
Do things with love—for yourself, and for others.

Your glow is coming back.
Not because you forced it…
but because you finally let the light in.

So yeah—maybe it really was a Goodyear after all.