Hi, I'm Cat.

     I didn’t come to this work through theory. I came to it through 25 years of chronic loneliness.

     I moved cities. I joined groups. I tried to reinvent myself. Nothing worked. It was painful — and honestly, so confusing.

     Then, as a new mom spending long afternoons in a strip mall Starbucks in Los Angeles, something unexpected happened.

      Sitting at the same table day after day, I noticed that when I stopped hiding and started being open, people responded.

     The café became a laboratory of ordinary human life. Conversations grew. Patterns emerged. I realized I wasn’t fundamentally defective — and neither was anyone else.

    The breakthrough wasn’t that I finally became good enough. It was that I had been all along.

     I’ve always lived between worlds. I left high school and homeschooled myself before being admitted to USC, where I later graduated summa cum laude in philosophy. I learned early how to move between elite institutions and ordinary life. The café simply became the place where those worlds met.

     Re-humaning, for me, means staying present, being honest, and treating each other well where we already are. Over and over again.

     If this could happen in a strip mall Starbucks, for an introverted, lonely mom, it can happen anywhere for anyone.