I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I’m a fighter.

Not in the way people casually say it, like it’s a personality trait or something you’re born with.  I’m talking about really thinking about it.  Tracing it back.  Trying to understand where it came from and why it has never left me.

And the truth is, I can trace it back.

Not to one moment, but to a series of moments that shaped how I see the world, how I respond to it, and why I refuse to sit quietly when something doesn’t feel right.

Before I ever sat in a courtroom as someone personally affected by the outcome, I sat in one as a student.  I was at Southern High School, taking a law class with a teacher I still remember, Miss Oliveto.  One day she took us downtown to the Clarence Mitchell Courthouse, and we spent the day sitting in on hearings.

At the time, I didn’t fully understand what I was watching.  I just knew I was interested.  I paid attention to how people spoke, how decisions were made, how everything seemed structured and important.

And then the day kept going, the way normal days do when you’re young.  That same day, Pearl Jam released the album many of us knew as Five Against One.  My best friend Amy and I left the courthouse and walked down to the Inner Harbor, excited, laughing, just being teenagers.  We went to the Harborplace and bought the cassette under that original title before it was later changed to Vs.

That contrast has always stayed with me.  One part of the day I was sitting in a courtroom, quietly observing how the system worked.  The next, I was just living my life, surrounded by music, friendship, and everything that felt normal.

I didn’t know then how much that courtroom would come back into my life.

I didn’t know that one day I wouldn’t just be watching.

I would be sitting there for real reasons.  Real loss.  Real consequences.

In 1995, that changed.

My uncle Donald was brutally murdered on August 9, 1995.  During the proceedings, the man responsible initially asserted a claim of self-defense.  The prosecution focused on key facts that challenged that claim.  My uncle weighed approximately 75 pounds without his prosthetic legs, and when he was found, he was not wearing them.  Those details were part of what was considered as the case unfolded, and ultimately, the defendant changed his plea and the outcome shifted.  The man was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

That was the first time I understood something that never really leaves you once you see it clearly.

Justice is not guaranteed.

That realization does something to a person.  It doesn’t just make you sad or angry.  It changes the way you look at everything.  You start paying closer attention.  You start questioning more.  You notice when things don’t line up, when explanations shift, when outcomes don’t match what feels right.

You stop assuming that the system will always get it right.

I didn’t just experience that case from a distance.  I was there.  I attended the hearings.  I sat in that courtroom and watched it unfold.

And at a certain point during that time, I was pregnant with my oldest child, Meghan.

I sat there, with-child, listening to testimony, watching a system try to define what justice looked like for my family.  And then there was a moment I will never forget.

I came face to face with him in the hallway.

No courtroom structure.  No distance.  No barrier between us.

Me, pregnant, and the man who took my uncle’s life… wearing handcuffs and shackles as he was being escorted into our courtroom by the officers.

I remember exactly what it felt like.  Not just in my thoughts, but in my body.  The rush of adrenaline.  The awareness.  The tension that seemed to take over everything at once.

And underneath all of that was something even stronger.

I was carrying my child.

In that moment, everything became very clear to me in a way that I don’t think can be taught, only experienced.  The world is not always safe.  It is not always fair.  And it is not always accountable.

And when you come face to face with that reality, you don’t walk away unchanged.

That experience shaped how I saw justice.  It also shaped how I thought about punishment.  At one point in my life, my views on capital punishment were much more rigid.  It felt simple.  If someone takes a life, they should lose theirs.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to wrestle with that thinking.  I’ve learned more about how the system works, and more importantly, how it can fail.  I’ve learned that outcomes are not always a reflection of truth, but of what can be proven, argued, or accepted within a system that is not perfect.

My views didn’t disappear.  They evolved.

And maybe that’s part of being a fighter too.  Not just holding onto beliefs, but being willing to question them, even when they come from a place of deep pain.

Not every experience that shaped me came from a courtroom.

In 2010, my cousin died by suicide.

There was no process to sit through.  No explanation that made it make sense.  Just a loss that settled into our family in a way that is hard to describe unless you’ve lived it.

I remember the weight he carried.  And I remember my Aunt Sue and the kind of pain that changes a person forever.

That experience taught me something different.

That not all battles are visible.  That not all suffering announces itself.  And that sometimes the most important fight is the one happening quietly, inside someone else.

It changed how I see people.  It made me more aware.  More attentive.  More understanding that strength is not always something you can recognize from the outside.

When I think about why I’m a fighter, it’s not because I enjoy conflict.  It’s not because I’m unwilling to let things go for the sake of it.

It’s because I have seen what happens when things are overlooked, when systems fall short, when pain goes unnoticed, and when outcomes don’t reflect what they should.

I have sat in courtrooms as a student, curious and observant.  I have sat in courtrooms as family, carrying grief and searching for justice.  I have stood face to face with the reality of what people are capable of.  And I have experienced the kind of loss that doesn’t come with answers at all.

All of those moments stay with you.

They shape you.

And if you let them, they teach you.

For me, they taught me to pay attention.  To question.  To stand up when something doesn’t feel right.  And to keep going, even when the outcome isn’t guaranteed.

And now I find myself in a different place in life.

My children are grown.  The years that were once filled with raising them and protecting them have shifted into something new.  I am looking ahead at retirement in the next couple of years, knowing that I will still be young, still capable, and still carrying everything that has shaped me.

And I’ve been asking myself a simple question.

What do I do with all of this?

Because being a fighter is not just something you are.  It’s something you use.  It’s something that either sits quietly inside you, or something you choose to direct with intention.

For most of my life, that instinct has shown up when it needed to.  In moments where something wasn’t right.  In situations where I refused to accept an answer that didn’t make sense.  In times where I had no choice but to stand up, speak up, and push forward.

But now, for the first time, I have the opportunity to be intentional about it.

To decide where that energy goes.

To decide what I fight for, not just when something forces me to, but because I choose to.

And that changes everything.

Because when you step back and really look at your life, you start to see that the experiences you’ve had were not isolated.  They were shaping you for something.

I’ve seen what happens when systems fail.  I’ve experienced what it feels like to sit in a courtroom and walk away without a sense of justice.  I’ve seen what quiet suffering looks like, and what happens when it goes unseen.

I can’t unsee any of that.

Because all of it has given me clarity.  Perspective.  A willingness to question what others might accept.

And I also know this.

I have spent nearly thirty years working alongside some of the most brilliant minds in the world.  It would be naive to think I haven’t learned a thing or two along the way.

I’ve learned how systems operate.  I’ve learned how decisions are made.  I’ve learned how to navigate complexity, how to ask the right questions, and how to push when something doesn’t make sense.

And I intend to use that.

I intend to take everything I’ve learned, everything I’ve experienced, and let it carry me into whatever comes next.

Because the next chapter of my life isn’t about slowing down.

It’s about redirecting.

It’s about taking everything I’ve been given and deciding how I want to show up in the world moving forward.

Not just reacting.

But acting with purpose.

I don’t have every detail mapped out, and maybe I’m not supposed to yet.

But I know this much.

I’m not done.

Not even close.

If anything, I feel like I’m just getting started in life in a different way.

A way that isn’t driven only by what happens to me, but by what I choose to do with what I’ve been given.

A way that allows me to use my voice, my experiences, and my perspective in a way that might help someone else make sense of their own.

A way that doesn’t ignore what I’ve seen, but builds something from it.

Because being a fighter was never meant to be something that just sits inside me.

It was meant to go somewhere.

And one day in the near future, I will have the space to decide where.