When your dreams don't come true.

Lessons from a NON-Bestseller

This piece has sat in my drafts for over a month now.

I debated whether to speak on this at all.
Because most people would probably say not to bring more attention to it.
To brush it off and keep it moving.

I also didn’t want writing about this one thing to overshadow all of the beauty. The community that showed up for me, the absolute joy of meeting so many of you in person.

On the flip-side, I’ve never been one to hide what’s real.
That honesty, that willingness to show the mess, isn’t just something I reserve for recipes.

So here goes!!!

I believe in belief. In manifestation and visualizing your dreams,
I believe in naming what you want and watching the universe rearrange itself around your clarity.

I’ve seen it work in my life.
I’ve felt it in my bones.
Which makes it all the more confusing when it doesn’t.

When you’re so sure, so trusting, so aligned, so ready…
and then the answer is no.

Or maybe not no, exactly.
Just… not this.
Not now.

That’s the part I’m sitting in right now.

For over a year, this has been written at the top of my journal:
New York Times Bestseller.

My greatest goal and my deepest wish for my cookbook.

On every eyelash, dandelion, and 11:11. While blowing out my candles on my birthday cake, just two days before my pub date.

I held my breath under tunnels, in many ways, it feels like I’m still holding my breath.

I dreamed of getting that call from my publisher, and calling my parents to tell them the news.

I visualized posting that emotional moment on social media, seeing my name on the list and thinking, 'Wow, I really made it.’

But that dream didn’t happen.

And the wild part is, I don’t even know if it was truly my dream?
Or just one I was told to want.

But I chased it anyway, I believed in it anyway.
So the heartbreak is still real.

And it hurts.
It hurts in that tender, embarrassing, irrational way that feels bigger than it “should.”
Because it wasn’t just a goal. It was a symbol.
Of worth, and success, and being taken seriously (as silly as I am).

Even though I know how subjective that list is,
even though I know it doesn't define me or my work,
it still stings in a way that’s hard to explain.

It’s made me question things. Everything.

Is my thing not good?
Am I not good?
Have I lost my magic?
Was there ever any magic to begin with?

And that’s the real heartbreak, isn’t it?
Not just that the dream didn’t happen,
but that some small, scared part of me wonders if I didn’t deserve it.

The deeper disappointment isn’t just in the thing that didn’t happen.
It’s in the meaning I attached to it.
The story I wrote.
The way it was supposed to unlock everything else.

And funny enough, that’s the whole point of the book we’re talking about,
to say scratch that when things don’t go as planned,
to keep showing up anyway.

That is actually how you unlock everything else.

Maybe this outcome was already written in the stars.
Maybe it’s not, “not this.”
Maybe it’s, “not now.”

Maybe belief isn’t broken,
and timing is just the piece of the spell we can’t control.
Maybe the lesson is to keep showing up for yourself, even when the world hasn’t fully caught on yet.
To trust that your power doesn’t disappear when the results (you think you need) don’t show up on schedule.

I’m learning that “not now” does not mean “not ever.”
It simply means there’s more unfolding.
More to become and more to grow into.

Most people are afraid to want things too much.
To name a dream out loud. To say “I want this” with their full chest.
Because if it doesn’t happen, the fall feels catastrophic.

But I moved past that fear.
I named my wish. I claimed my wish. I believed it so. close. into being.
And now I’m in the place so few people talk about,
the thick of disappointment.

Not the fear of failure.
The actual, lived experience of not getting the thing you were sure was meant for you.

It stings, for sure.
But it was not catastrophic.

And I’m still glad I was brave enough to wish for it.
In my head and out loud.

The only real, true failure is that this pain has caused me to stop showing up. To second-guess myself and my work.

Whenever someone so innocently asks me how my cookbook went, I stumble over my words.

When I see it in my kitchen, or even in the wild, I’m flooded with pride, and then that cruel voice pops in to remind me that it wasn’t good enough.

That I’m not good enough.

I didn’t get my happy ending.
But maybe that’s because I’m not at the end.
Maybe this is just the plot twist before something better unfolds.

A reminder that I still get to write the next page.

Because I’m learning that disappointment doesn’t mean you were wrong to want it.
It just means you were willing to bet on yourself.

Not all bets win.

The magic was never about the outcome.
The magic was (and is) in daring to believe at all.

So I’m just here to say, if you’ve ever sat in the thick of disappointment, in the sting of believing and not receiving,

keep betting.