being in the Underworld

Hey everyone, it's Kinsey — and I'm back.

If you've been wondering where I went, honestly? I've been in it. Deep in it. The last time I sat down to record, I was freshly out of my government job, newly sober, and trying to convince myself that jumping into the unknown was going to be okay. What I didn't know then was just how much more was still coming.

So let's catch up.

Over the past eight months my life has pretty much fallen apart and put itself back together again — and not in a neat, tidy way. In October, my partner of nearly four years told me she wanted to de-escalate from being primary partners. Which, on top of already not having a job or any real sense of what my future looked like, absolutely wrecked me. The thing I had been leaning on the most started to shift, and I didn't know how to handle it.

What followed was a slow unraveling that took months. We went from primary partners to just partners, then from partners to friends, and then in January things completely fell apart. And January, February, and March were some of the darkest months of my life — I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I was unemployed, my savings were disappearing, the credit cards were piling up, and the person I thought was the love of my life was moving on. There were days I really didn't want to get out of bed. There were nights I couldn't sleep at all.

But I also learned so much through all of it.

I talk in this episode about something that completely shifted the way I see relationships — this idea that relationships move in cycles, not in a straight line. Our culture sells us this escalator model where you meet someone, move in together, get married, and stay together forever or you failed. But I don't think that's how it actually works, and I don't think that's how it has to work. I share the framework that helped me make sense of what was happening and find some peace in it.

I also get into something I've been thinking about a lot, which is the difference between expectations and invitations. So much of the pain in relationships — and I mean so much of it — comes from expectations we didn't even know we had. I share some really specific examples from my own relationship, some of them small, some of them not so small, and how recognizing that difference changed things for me.

And I get honest about the old wound that all of this cracked open. The feeling of being seen but not chosen. It goes all the way back to childhood for me, and watching it show up again in this relationship, and understanding why, was one of the harder and more important things I've had to sit with.

By the end of March things started to turn around. A trip to Asheville to visit a friend helped a lot. Leaning on my community helped even more. I started doing what I could to bring in money — Ubering, medical studies, donating plasma — and I started actually putting myself out there as a relationship coach and professional DOM, even though it was terrifying and I had no idea what I was doing.

In April I moved out of the home my partner and I had shared for two and a half years and into my own place. And honestly? Having my own space has been everything. I feel like myself again. I have more friends and more connection than I've ever had. I'm building something that actually feels like mine.

There's still a lot I don't have figured out. The work stuff is still a work in progress. But I feel capable in a way I haven't in a long time. If I could get through what the last eight months threw at me, I think I can handle just about anything.

If you're in the middle of a hard season right now, I hope this episode makes you feel a little less alone. You're not broken. You're not behind. You're just becoming.

I'm really glad to be back.

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