By: Phyllis Bivins-Hudson
June often arrives dressed in celebratory gear.
There are graduations, weddings, Father’s Day tributes, summer plans, and family gatherings. But this June, I find myself thinking less about celebration as an event and more about celebration as evidence.
Evidence that something was survived. Evidence that something was completed. Evidence that a woman can walk through memory, heartbreak, uncertainty, and becoming—and still arrive standing in her own celebratory gear!
That’s me. I’m still standing dressed in all my regalia.
Before the music plays, before the guests arrive, before the books are signed and the photographs are taken, there is always a story people do not see. What they see is the finished book. They see the invitation. They see the release party.
They see the smile, the outfit, the decorations, and the joy. What they may not see are the years of reflection that made the celebration possible.
They may not see the pages that had to be written, rewritten, questioned, and sometimes put away because the truth was too heavy to hold all at once. That is why this June feels different to me.
It is not simply the month of my Finding December book release celebration. It is the month where private memory steps into public meaning. It is the month where the woman who lived the story stands beside the woman who finally found the courage to tell it.
And that kind of celebration deserves more than balloons. It deserves reflection, gratitude and a moment to honor every version of myself who had to survive before I could become.
Writing Finding December required me to return to places I had outgrown, revisit emotions I thought I had settled, and look honestly at the choices, relationships, disappointments, longings, and lessons that shaped me.
It asked me not only to remember what happened, but to understand why it mattered. That is the deeper work of memoir.
It does not simply record a life. It asks the writer to make meaning of it. This is why I believe our stories, all stories, matter.
They matter not because they are perfect. Not because they are polished. And certainly not because every chapter makes us look wise, strong, or certain.
Our stories matter because they tell the truth about becoming. They remind someone else that growth is rarely neat, healing is rarely immediate, and survival does not always announce itself dramatically.
Sometimes survival looks like going to work, or raising children, or even starting over, and staying quiet until you are ready to speak. It can look like leaving when you can and remaining when you must.
But in this test of time, we are learning, little by little, how to choose ourself. That’s the spirit I’m carrying into this June. I can’t forget the other celebrations, and I won’t neglect them, but I will say, yes, there will be a party.
Yes, there will be celebration. Yes, there will be laughter, music, photographs, and joy. But beneath all of that is something sacred: the recognition that I did not arrive here by accident. I arrived here by becoming.
And maybe this can be an invitation to you this June. Not just to celebrate what is visible, or what is expected, but to honor what it took to get you here.
So before we rush into the next gathering, the next milestone, the next event on the calendar, perhaps we all should pause and ask ourselves:
What am I celebrating that other people may not fully understand?
What did it cost me to become who I am now?
What version of myself deserves to be thanked for getting me this far?
This June, I am celebrating the book, the release, and the gathering of people who will stand with me as Finding December moves into the world.
But even more than that, I am celebrating the becoming because before the party, there was the pain. Before the applause, there was the silence.
And just before the book, there I was, the woman learning how to tell my truth.
And before this June arrived dressed in celebration, there was a journey that made the celebration worth having.
I hope you will join me on June 13 as we celebrate the release of Finding December. More than a book launch, this gathering is a celebration of story, survival, self-discovery, and the courage it takes to choose yourself.
It is an invitation for every woman to ask: What have I survived? What have I learned? What am I finally ready to celebrate? I’m celebrating me becoming…what about you?
See you next month after the celebration is over.