Seek Your Epic: What Happens When You Finally Choose to Live
A story of survival, healing, letting go, and finding your way forward
At Perky, we believe that healing doesn't always look the way we expect it to.
Sometimes healing looks like rebuilding. Sometimes it looks like starting over. Sometimes it looks like sitting with the hard stuff we've spent years trying to outrun. And sometimes, it looks like selling your house, quitting your career, packing a 7-pound rescue dog into your car, and driving west with no return date.
That's what Stacy did.
We first came to know Stacy through the incredible community of women we've been fortunate enough to meet through organizations and programs like Pink Warrior Advocates. Her story is one of those that stays with you—not because it's perfectly wrapped up or because she has all the answers, but because she is willing to be honest about what it actually looks like to move from surviving toward living.
Her new Substack series, Seek Your Epic, tells the story of a 59-day solo road trip across the Western U.S. But it's about so much more than a road trip.
It's about what happens when the life you've built no longer fits the person you're becoming. It's about grief, trauma, love, purpose, friendship, and the uncomfortable freedom that comes with letting go. And, as you'll see, it's also about dogs, national parks, unexpected detours, a little cosmic guidance (or "G.U.S." as Stacy calls it), and a whole lot of figuring things out along the way.
We asked Stacy to share the story behind Seek Your Epic with our community. What follows is hers, in her own words.
Seek Your Epic
Almost 5 years ago, I walked away from a 15-year career, sold my house, and packed up my 7-pound rescue dog Duke for a 59-day solo road trip across the Western U.S. No itinerary. No return date. Just a gas tank, a loose direction toward the Redwoods, and a very loud feeling that something in me needed to break open before it could rebuild.
It is and it isn’t as cool as it might sound.
Somehow, tearing myself away from all responsibilities and loved ones made me AND them question my sanity. But after years of trauma and different types of therapy, my soul was ready for a rebirth.
I didn't leave because I had it all figured out. I left because it became painfully obvious that I didn't, and I was tired of pretending otherwise.
Seek Your Epic is the Substack series where I'm telling that story—not the highlight-reel version, but the real and raw one.
The gas station panic on day one. My other dog, Pocket, escaping the backyard at home less than 24 hours into the trip, and the week of searching for him that followed. The nights on BLM land under a super moon. The moments at the Grand Canyon that cracked me open in ways I didn't see coming.
What it actually took to close the door on who I'd been—a decade-plus in a career I'd outgrown, a house that no longer felt like home, a version of myself built for survival instead of living—so I could go find who I was becoming.
What's crazy is that I'm only two stops in on what ended up being almost two months, through eight states and eleven National Parks.
And this is only the beginning.
Surviving Isn't the Same as Healing
If you've spent any time in this community, you already know the shorthand for what I mean by "surviving isn't the same as healing."
Cancer taught me that lesson first.
I was diagnosed at 31, and suddenly I was learning how to survive in ways I never expected. But physical survival was only part of the story. There was a spiritual survival. An emotional survival. A learning-how-to-live-again survival.
This road trip is what happened when I finally decided to actually live and learn that lesson.
Along the way, I watched the universe—or G.U.S., as you'll find I talk about—give me a front-row seat to a life full of lessons in love, grief, growth, and purpose. And somehow, along that path, I met some amazing women through organizations and programs like Pink Warrior Advocates and Perky who became part of the story, too.
Some of you already know Jen Reynolds' name and know what her friendship meant to so many of us. Her presence runs through this series too—held for the moments it deserves, not rushed.
What You Can Expect
Seek Your Epic will unfold episode by episode, following the trip roughly in real time.
The chaos. The humor. The wide-open landscapes. The unexpected moments. And the quieter reckonings that happened somewhere between one state line and the next.
It's vulnerable, but it's not a sob story.
It's the story of a woman, a dog (well, two, briefly), and 59 days of finding out what's on the other side of letting go. Because sometimes you don't know who you're becoming until you're brave enough to stop clinging to who you've been.
If any part of my story has ever made you feel less alone, I hope this does too. Come find your own epic with me.
New episodes of Seek Your Epic are live on Substack now.
And if you want to follow the bigger picture of what I'm building from this experience, you can also learn more about my newest project: Happily Epic After.
Your Epic Doesn't Have to Look Like Anyone Else's
We love this part of Stacy's story because there is no single definition of healing.
You don't have to sell your house and drive across the country. You don't have to quit your job. You don't have to know exactly what's next.
Sometimes finding your way forward starts with something much smaller: admitting that the life you're living no longer feels like yours, giving yourself permission to want something different, or taking one brave step toward the person you're becoming.
Whatever your epic looks like, we hope Stacy's story reminds you that surviving can be the beginning—not the end—of your story.
