Chapter 1: This Is My Page

I’ve spent a long time trying to figure out who I am.

Not in the casual, “what’s my passion?” kind of way. I mean in the real, bone-deep way - the kind of wondering that happens when you’re sitting alone on the edge of a mattress that isn’t yours, in a place that doesn’t feel like home, wondering what the hell you’re doing here. Wondering if you're still you, or if you’ve become something else entirely.

I’ve been there. Through identity crises that didn’t come with labels, through addiction I tried to hide behind laughter, and through homelessness that wore down my sense of self more than it ever wore down my body. It wasn’t always dramatic - sometimes it was just… empty. Silent. Quiet pain. The kind that makes you feel invisible.

And the only thing that ever pulled me out wasn’t a plan, or a rehab, or a perfect new path.

It was connection.

Real connection.

The kind where someone sees you before you have to explain yourself. The kind that doesn’t ask you to prove your worth. It didn’t always look like a grand gesture - sometimes it was a conversation at the right time. A voice on the other end of a phone. A stranger sharing their story when I needed it most.

That’s what this book is about.

Book That Never Ends didn’t start as a campaign, or a social experiment, or a world record attempt. It started with a truth I kept bumping into over and over again - that everyone is carrying something, and most people are just waiting for someone to ask them what it is.

We’re not short on stories. We’re short on spaces to share them. We’re short on people willing to listen - without interruption, without a lesson at the end, without judgment.

I’ve spoken to people who have survived the unimaginable, and people who are still in it. People who’ve lost themselves in addiction, and others who’ve been numb for so long they forgot they even had a story to tell. And I’ve learned this: the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And when we create space for connection - real, honest, story-soaked connection - things start to shift.

That’s why this book doesn’t have one author. It has hundreds. One day it will have thousands. Each chapter, one voice. One moment. One truth.

Maybe it’s a memory. Maybe it’s a lesson. Maybe it’s something imagined, or rewritten. It doesn’t have to be clean or resolved or even explainable. It just has to be yours.

Because this book isn’t here to impress anyone. It’s here to remind you that you’re not alone. That your story, no matter how ordinary or messy or fragmented it feels, could be the very thing someone else needs to read.

We’ve been trained to think stories belong in books written by professionals, edited for perfection, tied in neat endings.

But that’s not real life. Real life is nonlinear. It’s rough drafts and regrets and sharp turns. Real life is broken bits, hard-earned lessons, short-lived joys, and surprising resilience. And when you string enough of those chapters together, you get something… honest. Something human.

So here it is. The first page in a book that never ends. A place where strangers become witnesses to each other’s lives. Where connection replaces silence. Where the things we carry find space to be set down.

Write yours.

Even if it’s just a paragraph.

Even if you don’t think it matters.

It does.

And maybe - just maybe - someone out there needs your chapter more than you know.