Hello, you lovely soul,If you’re reading this, I think you are meant to be here. I am a firm believer in trusting the universe—the good, the bad, the sunshine, the showerss—they are put in our path to guide us.
My twenty-seven years on this earth have been a roller coaster and, having danced with death more times than I ever thought possible, it is a miracle I am here. My gosh, has it made me feel lucky to be alive and blessed to have you here, and I hope that everything I have been through will help another soul in a time of need. I never thought I would do much with my life, a lost cause, but I am slowly realizing my purpose all along was just to be me—we are enough just as we are.
I hope this book can remind us of the gifts of life. However hard our days can be, there is always hope of a brighter tomorrow and, most importantly, the knowledge that everything you need to get through is inside. You have had the strength in you all along.
If I can help one person with these sketches, I have achieved more in my life than I ever thought possible.
This book has been a journey and, if I am honest, I don’t know how we got here—lots of wrong turns, dead ends, and what felt like endless roundabouts, but I realize more and more that that’s just life. There is no right way or wrong way, only your way.
For a lot of my life, I struggled in the dark, afraid I wasn’t worthy of happiness. Afraid there wasn’t anything left in me to fight. It is only once we surface and see the first glimmers that we realize those were our strongest hours.
To love is one of life’s greatest gifts.
We hope that our first and last breaths are surrounded by it, and our lives are full of it, as without it we would simply cease to be. It’s the warmth of a smile, the melody of a laugh, the beat of a heart. In my opinion, it’s love that makes the world go round and it’s love that’s gotten us this far.
Copyright © 2025 by Lucy Claire Dunbar. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
