The Unbelievable and Unbreakable Life of Taylor Cecelia Brook

There are things I’ve lived through that I still can’t fully wrap my head around. Moments so surreal that, if they weren’t mine, I might not believe them.

• Like being 17 and realizing my “best guy friend” wasn’t a friend at all. That he had spent two years twisting my mind, my body, my trust—until I wasn’t sure who I was anymore.

• Like spending almost two years begging the universe for a baby, only to finally get pregnant and then, two days after giving birth, being told she wouldn’t live past six months. Holding her tiny hand and memorizing every breath, knowing how few I had left.

• Like trying to piece myself back together after she died, throwing myself into something bigger than grief—building a global nonprofit in her name. Because if I stopped moving, I might stop breathing too.

• Like starting IVF a month after watching my daughter take her last breath. Because I had to believe I could bring a baby into the world and not lose them. And I did. I have her now. She’s almost six. She’s everything.

• Like being diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder at 29 that finally explained why my body had always felt like it was betraying me. Why pain was my oldest companion.

• Like losing parts of myself—literally. Surgeries. Repairs. A hysterectomy before 30. A drastic breast reduction the same year. Trying to fix a body that kept breaking.

• Like opening my marriage, thinking it would set me free, and instead, watching it all burn. Watching myself burn. And then asking for a divorce, only to be kicked out when my ex learned I had broken the rules of the game we had created.

• Like stepping out of one life and into another, moving in with the man I had secretly been seeing for a year. Like finding something better, something real—even after all the wreckage.

These are just pieces. Just echoes of everything that’s led me here. And there’s so much more to say.

For now, I’ll leave you with this:

Some things, you survive. Some things, you don’t. And some things—you make sure they don’t swallow you whole.

- Taylor Cecelia Brook