Not a phase. Not a placeholder until the "real" thing happens. Just the life you chose, and you'd choose it again.
You built a life you actually love. The quiet mornings, the trips booked on a whim, being the favorite Tia who goes home to total silence after. You didn't stumble into this, you chose it, on purpose, and you'd choose it again. This is the room where that's not a conversation starter, it's just Tuesday. Women who get it without the backstory. A community that already looks like yours.
The black sheep. The weird one. The one who never quite fit the mold anyone handed me. I spent years thinking that meant something was wrong with me. It didn't. It just meant I was building something no one had shown me yet.
Childfree by choice. First-gen Latina. The favorite Tia, not the mom, and that's a whole life, not a placeholder. I looked for a room full of women who already had this figured out. It didn't exist, so I built it.
Now I help other first-gen Latinas stop shrinking themselves to fit somewhere they were never meant to, and start building a life that actually looks like them. Still building mine too. Still figuring it out in real time. Just fully living it, on my own terms.