As a child I would burrow under my Grandmother's kitchen table and listen to her and her girlfriends talk for hours while they met for their weekly card games. They'd laugh and cry and just share story after story and if there ever was a heaven on Earth, to me, that was it.

I have always been in love with stories. I believe, with my entire heart, that our unspoken truths hold the collective secret recipes to soothing even the strongest fears. That the validation and love that flows from seeing our own shadows reflected back to us by other bright souls who have made it through the storms, offers grace and power unspeakable.

Catch and Release is my Grandmother's kitchen table for you to sit under. For us all to sit under, together.

A collection of essays shared with the sole purpose of reverberating this truth to as many people as I can: You Are Not Alone.

I now know that the best thing I can do to help others is both the simplest and most terrifying: speak my truths.

My most sincere hope is that Catch and Release will become a dogeared well-weathered friend to you, whenever you need it most. I hope you share it with others and that it ends up, generations from now, tucked in a dusty corner of an oceanside used book store, waiting for just the right person to walk by.