"The wreckage from Boa's wrecking ball took some time to clear" (Blue Star Bound, p. 277).

In my memoir, Blue Star Bound, I share some painful and deeply personal experiences, many of which star my ex-husband, called Boa (a fictional name). 

Yes, I named him after a snake, and he deserved that name. You have to read the whole story to understand. 

The deepest disappointment from that marriage wasn't the money he embezzled from my school, the women he purchased at brothels, or his excessive drinking. It was the miscarriage. While not exactly his fault, it still added salt to the wound. It was the icing on the cake that our union didn't at least produce the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world. My dream of motherhood was shattered. It was devastating.

They say that sometimes God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. I really hate that saying but have to admit its validity. 

The hard truth is that having a child with Boa would have been a heavy burden to bear. I would have been connected to him forever with his gaslighting, dysfunctional soap opera of a life if we shared a human being. I would not have been able to move back to California to be close to my family because he would never have allowed his child, and by extension me, to leave Costa Rica. 

Don't get me wrong: I love Costa Rica. But being stuck anywhere - even in paradise - isn't ideal. 

After a few years of untangling my life from the marriage and my school in Costa Rica, I moved back to California in June of 2022. It was mostly smooth sailing until I hit a snag fifteen months ago when my neighbor's massive Oak tree had sudden limb failure right before my eyes. I was standing at the bottom of my driveway, returning from a leisurely summer morning walk with my three dogs, when I heard a loud snap. I looked up and saw a branch, big enough to be a tree in its own right, fall on my house. 

Fortunately, no one was hurt. My house didn't collapse, but it endured extensive damages. That wrecking ball, much like that of my dear ex-husband, has taken time to clear. Two insurance claims and multiple contractors later, I am ecstatic to be on the cusp of finishing all of the repairs to the house. Finally, the end is in sight.

The cool thing is that I haven't merely fixed the damages. I've been able to improve the value of the house and my experience living in it. Sometimes when you're making one change, you have to seize the opportunity to make a few more changes. 

Thanks to that tree falling, I have a new roof, gutters, front door, and natural stone hearth with a freestanding woodstove (so much better than the outdated hearth, clunky chimney and insert woodstove that I had). All of the dry rot is fixed on my 1969 house. I have new drains in the back yard, crucial for houses like mine on a steep incline. My back patio and front porch are now adorned with bright Mexican and terra cotta tiles that are so aesthetically pleasing that I want to sit and stare at them for hours. 

By next week, there will be six concrete patios in the front yard with a hot tub on one of them. The painter will finish making my house a cheerful yellow, which goes great with those tiles.

The drains and modern concrete patio design are thanks to my dad, a successful landscape architect, who loves using his creative talents and crew to help his eldest daughter. During these upgrades, my father has remarked several times, "Isn't it crazy that these improvements are all thanks to that tree falling on your house?"

In other words, that awful incident in July of 2025 ended up being an unexpected blessing. Just like other hardships in my life, the tree-fall was a catalyst for positive changes. 

For these change agents that cause big messes and take extensive time to clean up, I am deeply grateful.