Manifested SO Hard I Turned My Mental Breakdown Into an Opportunity at Hallmark

On chasing dreams without guarantees and the extraordinary things unfolding beyond what we can see

I manifested SO hard I turned my very messy mental health breakdown into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at Hallmark.

Yes, that Hallmark.

The one that immediately popped into your mind: the iconic greeting cards, the beloved Christmas movies, the company responsible for making grown adults cry in the middle of a CVS.

Little ole ME. At Hallmark.

But how? How did one of the lowest points of my entire life, marked by depression and an eventual unraveling of everything I thought I wanted, somehow lead to an invitation to speak at one of the most recognizable brands in American history?

Wellllllllll it all started on an otherwise ordinary Thursday this past August. I can’t provide much texture to the day, my specific memories are foggy, but I remember sharing a cup of coffee with my mom.

At some point, the familiar ping of a notification interrupted our time together.

A woman named Sarah had sent me a direct message on Substack. I opened it, expecting the usual exchange that comes with sharing your innermost thoughts and vulnerable experiences on the internet. Instead, I found myself staring at the screen, rereading her words to make sure I understood what was being asked.

I’ll let you read it below:

Sarah is the Director of Hallmark’s Creative Writing Studio, the team responsible for the heartfelt prose found on millions of greeting cards, globally. She’d come across my work and was reaching out with an invitation.

To Hallmark.

Little ole ME.

Now, Hallmark wasn’t exactly on my 2026 bingo card. Transparently, I don’t think Hallmark had even crossed my mind since shopping for a birthday card for one of my aunts a couple of years ago.

But as I would soon learn, for the past 28 years, Hallmark’s Word Community has hosted Wordtober, a monthlong celebration of the power of words through workshops, readings, and guest speakers. And this year, Sarah wanted me to be part of it. As if that weren’t enough, there was another detail that made the invitation especially meaningful.

If you’re a Kansas Citian, chances are you’ve seen the news. After 70 years at its longtime headquarters in the Crown Center area, Hallmark is preparing to say goodbye to the building to make way for the Kansas City Royals’ new stadium.

The building itself, a space where generations of writers and creatives have developed ideas, built careers and brought words into the world, will eventually be demolished.

This year’s Wordtober celebration would mark the final chapter in that space.

And somehow, little ole ME (yes, I’m reiterating my little ole ME-ness because we’re talking about the literary behemoth that is Hallmark) was being invited to close it out as the final speaker.

Now, when I walked away from the career I’d spent nearly a decade building, I had no idea what came next. But I won’t rehash that story. Longtime subscribers have heard it a dozen different ways, and frankly, that poor horse has been beaten, buried and resurrected just to be beaten again.

Anyway, I started making things.

I quickly transformed my Substack from a drool-inducing recipe hub into a raw, vulnerable chronicle of my life, the messy bits (always) included. That shift was preceded by The UNBecoming, a short film exploring identity and transformation, and eventually followed by my first participatory art installation, Take What You Need.

Again, old news if you’ve been around for a while. But if you’re a recent subscriber, click below for a little introduction to Take What You Need.

Along the way, these seemingly separate creative experiments began forming a world of their own. While I’ve shared some of the more exciting developments here, the truth is that much of this past year has been spent working without knowing what, if anything, would come of it.

There have been too many unanswered emails to count. Every Wednesday, I participate in a little ritual I picked up from another creator called Shoot My Shot Wednesdays, where I reach out to someone I admire, want to collaborate with or simply hope to connect with. And that’s just Wednesdays. There are countless other emails, proposals and introductions scattered throughout the week, many of which go absolutely nowhere.

And behind all that effort is the less glamorous reality of trying to build a new life without the financial security of my old one. Case in point: I’m typing this very Substack next to a stack of past-due bills. Some days, I feel more certain than EVER about the direction I’m headed, only to wake up the next morning wondering how the hell I’m going to make any of it work.

It’s a very human and relatable place to be, right?

Maybe there’s a side gig you’ve been quietly building, a creative project you’ve poured months into, or a dream you’ve been nurturing for years without much external evidence that it’s going anywhere.

And you believe in what you’re doing. At least most days. I know I do.

This distinction is very important: believing in something and continuing to invest in it without knowing how things will turn out are two very different experiences.

I think that’s one of the more difficult parts of pursuing something that matters to you. There’s so much happening beneath the surface that nobody else gets to see, and sometimes even you struggle to recognize it as progress.

That brings me back to that faithful Thursday in August.

I hadn’t written anything specifically for Sarah. I hadn’t reached out to Hallmark or attempted to position myself for an invitation. I’d simply been sharing my work-as I thought it should be shared, and somehow, it found its way to someone who saw a place for it.

And that, is wonderful. Simply put.

It doesn’t guarantee that every unanswered email or unrealized dream will eventually lead somewhere extraordinary. But! It’s a reminder that we don’t always have a complete picture of where our efforts are taking us.

Oh and the invitation didn’t only include a talk.

I brought Take What You Need to Hallmark yesterday, giving employees an opportunity to experience the installation firsthand.

There’s something particularly fitting about bringing an installation built around the power of words into a place where people have spent decades finding ways to express what it means to be human. A few dozen letters, each beginning with a phrase someone might relate to, entering a space filled with people who’ve made careers out of finding the right words for moments that matter.

Then there’s the talk itself.

I’ve been given an incredible amount of creative freedom, which, depending on the day, feels either like a gift or a slightly terrifying amount of responsibility. I’ve spent the past several weeks developing something that draws on my experiences with uncertainty, change and the strange territory between the lives we leave behind and the ones we’re still learning to inhabit.

It’s called Before the Butterfly, There Was Soup.

And yes, I realize that title probably raises more questions than it answers.

We’ll get to that.

For now, I’m grateful.

Grateful to Sarah for taking the time to reach out, to the team at Hallmark for welcoming me into such a meaningful moment in their history, and to everyone who’s continued reading, sharing and engaging with my work as I’ve figured out what this next chapter might look like. There’s still so much I don’t know about where any of this is going.

But every so often, something happens that reminds me why I started. And on a random Thursday in August, that reminder arrived in my Substack inbox.

I’ll tell you more about the soup next week.