Resilient is a deeply personal story about love, resilience, and the complexity of relationships. It follows Deja, a woman in her 20s, who believes she has found her forever in Val—a passionate and adventurous partner who brings excitement and love into her life. But as the years go by, Deja faces the hard truths of marriage. Addiction, emotional distance, and unresolved trauma threaten to unravel the life they’ve built together. Through their struggles, Deja learns that love isn’t always enough to overcome life’s challenges. As her marriage to Val begins to fall apart, Deja embarks on a journey of self-discovery and healing. She confronts her childhood trauma, religious beliefs about love and marriage, and the patterns of self-sacrifice that have shaped her life. In This is 30, Deja discovers that resilience is about more than surviving—it’s about thriving through the mess. As she navigates her divorce, she finds the strength to fall back in love with herself and rebuild her life, piece by piece. This is a story for anyone who has ever had to find the courage to let go and learn to love themselves again. Letter from the Writer Dear Readers, Writing RESILIENT has been a deeply personal and transformative journey for me. At its heart, this story is about resilience—the kind of resilience that doesn’t always come with big victories or dramatic moments of triumph, but in the quiet, everyday decision to keep going. It’s about learning how to love, how to let go, and how to rediscover the most important relationship we have—the one with ourselves. I wrote Resilient when I was 26 years old. Looking back, I can see the mistakes and holes in that story—the places where my perspective wasn’t yet fully formed. As I grew and matured, so did my writing. That’s why I waited until I was out of my 20s to tell this story properly. There’s nothing like being out of the storm, rather than in it, to reflect and understand the journey you’ve been on. In my 20s, I believed in love fiercely. I believed that if I just held on tightly enough, worked hard enough, and gave enough of myself, love would be enough to carry me through anything. But life isn’t black and white, and love—while powerful—isn’t always the answer to every challenge. Through the ups and downs of marriage, I realized that the hardest part isn’t just the struggle to make it work; it’s the courage to let go when it no longer serves you. This book is more than a story about relationships. It’s about breaking old patterns, healing from the past, and finding the strength to rebuild. For anyone who has ever felt lost in love, struggled with letting go, or had to rediscover themselves in the aftermath of a broken relationship—I wrote this for you. Thank you for allowing me to share this journey with you. I hope that as you read Resilient, you find pieces of yourself in these pages and are reminded that no matter how hard life gets, there is always hope in the rebuilding. With love and resilience, Shy