a listening year
There are years that ask us to perform.
And years that ask us to listen.
This was a listening year.
I did not arrive at the end of it with tidy conclusions
or polished certainty.
I arrived with a quieter knowing.
A softer spine.
A deeper relationship to myself
than I’ve ever had before.
adha zelma has always been more than jewelry for me.
It has been a record.
A witness.
A way to hold what could not be spoken yet.
In the aftermath of a thirteen-year relationship ending in 2023,
I learned that healing is not linear
and it is not loud.
Sometimes it looks like standing still
long enough to hear your own breath again.
Sometimes it looks like choosing yourself
without knowing exactly who that self will become.
Out of that ending, Perlemoen emerged.
Not as a response to loss,
but as a reminder of what endures.
Like the inner layer of a shell,
it reflects light
only after weathering pressure,
salt, and time.
This collection,
and this year,
taught me that beauty does not come from perfection.
It comes from staying.
the ending that changed everything
The ending of a thirteen-year relationship
did not undo me.
It clarified me.
What it revealed,
slowly and without drama,
was how both healed and unhealed wounds
shape who we become.
Not as flaws to erase,
but as evidence.
They inform how we love.
How we protect ourselves.
How we show up
when things get difficult.
For better or worse,
they live in the body
and in the choices we make.
But listening taught me something else
just as important:
we are not required to become a product of our wounds.
Environment matters.
History matters.
What we’ve survived
leaves fingerprints.
And still,
there is a moment
where responsibility enters the room.
Only the steady work of alignment.
Of learning how to stay present
long enough to recognize
when something no longer fits,
and trusting yourself enough
to release it.
Sometimes,
what forms next
is not visible at first.
It gathers slowly.
Layer by layer.
In response to pressure.
That, too,
is a form of listening.
A moment where you decide
whether you will keep repeating
what was handed to you,
or do the quieter, harder work
of choosing differently.
This ending reaffirmed that growth
is not passive.
Healing asks for participation.
It asks you to look honestly
at your patterns
without shame.
To take ownership
without self-punishment.
To remain curious
about who you might become
if you stop outsourcing your worth.
There was no performance in this season.
No reinvention for an audience.
growth is not passive
what we’ve survived leaves fingerprints
continuing to learn, grow,and discover myself
After the ending,
there was space.
Not the kind that begs to be filled,
but the kind that asks
to be honored.
I learned that growth
does not always arrive with momentum.
Sometimes it arrives as restraint.
As choosing not to rush into answers.
As allowing yourself
to be a beginner again,
even when you are deeply experienced
in other areas of your life.
This season asked me
to meet myself
without urgency.
To notice where I was still reaching
for certainty,
and to practice staying instead.
To let curiosity lead
rather than expectation.
To understand that becoming
is not a straight line,
but a conversation
between who you’ve been
and who you are willing to listen for.
I began to see myself
less as a finished identity
and more as a living practice.
One shaped by attention.
By choice.
By the willingness
to remain open
even when openness feels tender.
This way of moving through the world
changed how I worked,
how I designed,
how I rested,
how I loved.
It reminded me that learning
does not end because we age or achieve.
It deepens.
It becomes more nuanced.
More honest.
And then,
without warning,
life asked me to listen
in a different way altogether.
Grief Without a Map:Losing My Father
Nothing prepares you
for the sudden loss of a parent.
There is no gradual loosening.
No time to rehearse the absence.
One day the world is structured
the way you understand it,
and the next
it is not.
When my father died unexpectedly in 2024,
grief arrived
without instruction.
It did not move in a straight line
or announce itself
in predictable ways.
It lived in pauses.
In the spaces between thoughts.
In the quiet recalibration
of who I was
now that he was no longer here.
What I learned,
slowly,
was that grief is not something
to resolve.
It is something to carry.
It reshapes you
not through force,
but through proximity.
It asks you to stay present
even when presence
feels unfamiliar.
In listening,
I began to understand that inheritance
is not limited
to what we are given materially.
We inherit ways of seeing.
Of enduring.
Of standing upright
when the ground shifts.
Some lessons arrive through words.
Others through watching.
Still others reveal themselves
only after someone is gone.
There were days
when creating felt impossible.
And days
when it felt essential.
Jewelry became less about adornment
and more about grounding.
About marking time.
About holding something tangible
when language failed.
This kind of loss
strips away excess.
It clarifies what matters,
not as a list,
but as a feeling.
It teaches you
how fragile
and miraculous
continuation is.
How love does not disappear.
It changes form.
Grief, I learned,
does not ask us
to stop living.
It asks us
to live
with greater intention.
Watching My DaughterBecome Herself
There is a quiet kind of wonder
in watching your child
become who they are.
Not who you imagined.
Not who the world tried to shape them into.
But who they choose to be.
My daughter is now thirty-one,
and witnessing her move through the world
with her own voice,
values,
and rhythm
has been one of the most grounding experiences
of my life.
It reminds me that becoming
does not end
at any particular age.
It evolves.
It expands.
It asks new questions.
Watching her has softened me.
It has taught me
how to release
without disappearing.
How to offer presence
without control.
How love can remain steady
even as roles change.
There is pride here,
yes,
but also humility.
She is not an extension of me.
She is her own becoming.
In moments of grief,
her growth became a counterweight.
A reminder that life continues to unfold,
even when it carries loss alongside it.
That what we tend,
what we nurture,
what we love into being,
matters deeply.
There is something profound
about standing between generations.
Holding grief for a parent
while witnessing the strength of a child.
It places you
in the middle
of a living lineage.
One that moves forward
not through perfection,
but through care.
What I Carry Forward
What this year has taught me
is simple,
but not easy.
To listen.
To stay.
To choose depth over speed.
adha zelma continues
as a living practice,
not a destination.
A place where story,
Ritual, and adornment meet.
Where what we carry inside
can be honored on the body,
not to impress, but to remember.
As we move forward,
I carry the understanding
that healing and grief,
strength and softness,
can exist at the same time.
That beauty is not something
we chase.
It is something
we allow to form
when we are willing
to do the work
and remain open.
If there is an invitation here,
it is this:
wear what reminds you
of who you are becoming.
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