Twelve chapters on resilience, grace, and the quiet, daily work of moving forward — written from a kitchen, with a dog at his feet and music in the air.
The longer version of the posts. The thinking behind them. The stories that didn't fit inside a caption.
Across twelve chapters, Cullen Wallace writes about the mountain we all find ourselves on at some point — when the world goes dark, when the rules we never questioned stop working, when we have to take the first step before we are ready. Drawing on the loss of his mother, the long goodbye to his father, and the fight with his own mind, he offers a clear-headed, unflinching, and surprisingly tender map for moving forward.
It is a book for the friend in the dark stretch. The parent who is grieving. The reader who keeps showing up to the kitchen — and to themselves.
Praise
“Cullen is not somebody trying out a theory. He has lived every chapter of this book — through the loss of his mother, the long goodbye to his father, and the fight with his own mind. The fact that he can sit down and write something this clear-headed about all of it is, to me, the entire point.”
— Wes Madden, from the foreword
Contents
Twelve chapters.
01When the World Went Dark
02Give Yourself Some Grace
03The Mask We All Wear
04Overcoming Negativity
05Challenge The Rules You Never Questioned
06Stop Carrying Tomorrow's Umbrella
07You Are Responsible for Moving Forward
08Your 3 A.M. People
09You Have a Ripple Effect
10You Don't Have To, You Get To.
11The Voices You Choose to Listen To
12Taking the First Step
Inside the pages
A few quiet truths.
Give yourself some grace.
We extend it to strangers without thinking. We offer it to friends. We rarely turn it on ourselves. The work of this chapter is small and impossible: become the person you would gently forgive.
Your 3 A.M. people.
Not the people who text on your birthday. The ones who answer the phone when it rings at three in the morning. Count them. If you have one, you are wealthy. If you have a few, you are blessed beyond reason.
You don't have to. You get to.
Reframe the verb and the day rearranges itself. The same hour, the same task, the same weight on your shoulders — but a different relationship to all of it.
