Life is a Storm is a personal blog exploring work, faith, creativity, and meaning through lived experience. It covers journalism, music, visual art, technology, psychology, and spirituality as parts of one life in motion. Some posts track projects; others reflect on moments of clarity and change. This space exists to examine life honestly as it unfolds.
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Not Healed, but Stable
I recently found myself on an unexpected path into book writing. It wasn’t planned. It simply felt necessary. Grief and internal pain had been building—before, during, and after the holidays—and I couldn’t shake it. Some of it is still there. I don’t believe it will ever fully disappear, and I’m not interested in scraping it all out. As long as the weight is manageable, I can function again. That’s enough.
Tonight, I decided to create a professional and personal portfolio of everything I am and everything I’m involved in—this blog included. Writing, I’m realizing, has always been an outlet for me, even though I didn’t fully recognize it at the time.
I became a reporter and caught the journalism bug while working as a newsroom assistant, eventually moving from a small-town paper to more established local, national, and governmental publications. I didn’t pursue journalism because I fell deeply in love with it. I pursued it because it came naturally. It challenged my brain. It sparked connections—synapses firing in ways that felt purposeful.
Between January 3rd and January 12th, I completed a six-book series. I barely stopped typing. I poured out every dark day that still pierces my heart and mind. There was clearly more that needed to be said—not just for personal development, but for others as well. The writing became an outlet, shaped creatively through voice and scripture.
So, now I'm waiting. Hopefully, The Book of Carlos will be available on Audible within 10 days following evaluation.
I’m not perfect, and I never will be. But I know what side I'm on. I know where I stand. I try. I’m a work in progress. And for now, that’s my best.
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📚 All Books Now Available on Amazon My full collection of books is now available. Over the past month, I completed and released multiple volumes across connected series built from lived experience, structured reflection, and the question of how a human system forms under pressure. These books are not fiction, and they are not traditional self-help. They are documentation — of survival, adaptation, grief, and meaning. --- 🔹 Operating Without a Manual This series explores what happens when life offers no blueprint. It focuses on early responsibility, instability, and learning how to build a life without guidance or safety nets. These volumes form the foundation of the collection — the environmental and developmental conditions that shaped everything that followed. Recommended reading order: first --- 🔹 I’m a Traumatized Human This series examines survival through a psychological and human lens. Rather than asking “what’s wrong,” it asks what happened — and how the mind and nerv...
Mom's ukulele stylings in backdrop of the storm. Sunday — February 8, 2026 11:45 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. We were running late to Leilani’s memorial service at Reflection Church in Rockport, led by Pastor Kevin Saegert. Not late in the ordinary sense — not the kind of late that means missing the opening song or slipping quietly into a back pew. On the drive there my father mentioned the time, and I snapped. The words came out sharper than I intended: We’re not late. She’s already gone. There’s nothing to be late to now. Leilani is gone. The second I said it, I felt the weight of what I meant. Death has a way of stripping language down to its bones. There is no schedule once someone has crossed that line. I had to reframe my thoughts in real time, sitting there in a car full of grief and Hawaiian-style button-ups, trying to honor someone we loved. Midway through the drive I asked my father if he had thought about bringing his ukulele. It was a big part of Leilani’s life. It was a ...
I feel like death has been standing behind me lately. Not touching me. Not taking me. Just close enough that I can feel it breathing. Throughout my life, death has taken people I love — the closest people. And the strange thing is, I’ve almost always had a window before it happened. A visit. A moment. A strange, cosmic link. Like Chimmy Chanhrattana. He was my neighbor around the time my great-grandfather's house burned down. His family and mine were close. Our parents would visit each other, have dinners, take food over. He was my age. This was around junior high school. We didn’t stay close as adults, but he was always cool with me. One of those people I always appreciated. One day, years later, I was pumping gas in Ingleside and he pulled up to the stall next to mine. Out of nowhere. We caught up, talked about our families, laughed a little. It felt really good to see him after so long. Maybe a week later, he was gone. January 28, 2019. https://www.puenteandsons.com/...
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