THE CROSSING TRILOGY
Three Books. One Life Still Unfolding.
The Crossing Trilogy follows one continuing journey through disruption, survival, rebuilding, and becoming.
The three books are connected by lived experience and the R4 Style metaphors of the curb, the crosswalk, and the other side of the street. Each book explores a different view of what it means to live through change and continue becoming.
They are not self-help books, instructions, or a fixed sequence of stages.
They are lived-experience reflections that invite readers to consider their own crossings.
The books can be read together or independently. Life does not always move forward in a straight line, and neither does the trilogy. We may move forward, step back, pause, grieve, rebuild, begin again, and discover that more than one reality can be present at the same time.
Three books. One continuing journey.
BOOK ONE: On the Other Side of the Street
The Courage to Take the First Step
Published August 26, 2025
On the Other Side of the Street begins with disruption—the moment when the life I knew could no longer continue unchanged.
Through experiences of illness, addiction, recovery, disability, loss, identity, and survival, I reflect on what it means to recognize that something has changed and to move toward a future that cannot yet be fully seen.
The book explores the fear and uncertainty of standing at the curb, the courage required to enter the crosswalk, and the possibility of choosing life after everything has shifted.
It does not present survival as a polished victory or imply that crossing the street resolves every struggle. It tells the story of learning that movement can begin before certainty arrives.
At its center is a question that belongs to more than one story:
What becomes possible when we take the first step?
“I was not meant to stay at the curb.”
On the Other Side of the Street is available now.
BOOK TWO: OVER HERE
Building a Life Over Here
Coming in 2027
Crossing the street changes our circumstances. Learning how to live on the other side changes us.
Over Here is a reflective companion to On the Other Side of the Street. It begins after the immediate crossing—when crisis has softened, survival is no longer the only goal, and life asks a more complicated question:
Now what?
The book explores what happens when we must learn to trust stability, live without the armor that once protected us, and create purpose without demanding perfection from ourselves.
Through reflections on recovery, identity, independence, grief, aging, relationships, community, resilience, and reinvention, Over Here considers the quieter work of building a life after disruption.
Recovery is not a finish line. Resilience does not erase fear or grief.
Reinvention is not a polished transformation. Living over here means learning how to hold what has happened while making room for what remains possible.
The book includes a foreword by John D. Bedford, MD, who has been my primary-care physician for more than twenty years. Its twelve chapters include reflection questions and a self-care activity—not as instructions, but as invitations for readers to pause and consider their own experience.
“Crossing the street changes your circumstances. Learning how to live over here changes you.”
BOOK THREE: STILL HERE. STILL BECOMING.
There Is No Final Version of Who We Are
Coming in 2028
Still Here. Still Becoming. turns toward presence, aging, long-term survivorship, legacy, belonging, purpose, and the continuing possibility of growth.
The book asks what it means to live a life we once did not know we would have—and to recognize that surviving is not the end of the story.
Being “still here” carries gratitude, but it can also carry grief, responsibility, memory, and questions about what comes next. Becoming does not require rejecting who we have been. It means allowing new meaning, relationships, purpose, and possibility to emerge within the life we now have.
This final book does not present becoming as a destination. There is no finished version of a person waiting on the other side of one final crossing.
As long as life continues, we continue responding, adapting, remembering, creating, and becoming.
The first draft of Still Here. Still Becoming. is complete, and publication is planned for 2028.
“There is no final version of who we are. As long as life continues, so does the possibility of becoming.”
.
Join Me at HESSCO's Age Well
I’m honored to present “Where Are You in the Crossing?”—an interactive R4 Style workshop exploring change, support, and the next honest step.
Wednesday, October 7, 2026
9:00 a.m.–2:30 p.m.
Lake Pearl Luciano’s
Wrentham, Massachusetts
Admission: $25
Includes: Registration, Networking, Speakers, Exhibitor Fair, Relaxation and Wellness Room, Continental Breakfast and Lunch, Door Prizes, Giveaways, and more,