Pretty and Painful

Pieces of Her: A Life Collected Along the Way What if the things we hold onto aren’t really things at all? In this first episode of Pieces of Her , Bailey takes a tender, sometimes funny, occasionally morbid look at the art of holding on when grief tells you to let go. A grandpa’s jacket tucked safely in a Ziplock bag. A cake pan. Japanese floral china. A pumpkin dish from QVC holding Aunt Judi’s...

🥄 New episode: Still Shining Silver 🥄 My grandma taught me to shine silver at her kitchen sink… platters, trays, butter dishes, the whole nine. Now every piece of silver I touch is a memory of her. This one’s about the grief nobody talks about — the ones left behind. She grieves different than me… quieter, steadier, decades of practice. Doesn’t mean she loves less. Doesn’t mean she doesn’t care....

Some children learn multiplication tables. Some learn how to ride a bike. Some learn what it means to say goodbye. In this week’s episode of Pretty & Painful, I’m sharing the story of two childhood friends, Dugan and Alyssa, whose lives forever shaped my own. Looking back, I realize my relationship with grief didn’t begin as an adult—it began in an elementary school classroom. We’ll talk about chi...

What if I told you one of the most meaningful stories I’ve ever shared… starts with a broken cake stand? It sounds silly until you realize it was never about the crystal. This episode is about my Aunt Judi, the recipes she left behind, the grief that still sneaks into ordinary moments, and a gift that reminded me I wasn’t “too much” for feeling deeply. It’s about broken things, quiet kindness, lea...

Some of the deepest wounds don’t come from strangers. They come wrapped in the words, “I’m just telling you the truth.” Somewhere along the way, we started confusing harshness with honesty and cruelty with strength. But Scripture never tells us that love should wound just to prove a point. Real love restores. Real love corrects with compassion. Real love tells the truth without forgetting grace. S...

Grief isn’t always quiet. Sometimes it cries. Sometimes it isolates. And sometimes… it gets angry. In this episode of our Working Through Grief series, we’re talking about one of the most misunderstood stages of grief: the emotional outbursts, the short fuse, the moments we don’t recognize ourselves, and the guilt that often follows. What if people don’t just see you as “angry”… but they never sto...

WHY 🤍 People ask me all the time… “Why do you keep talking about grief?” I thought I was writing an “About” page for Pretty & Painful. Instead, I discovered why this podcast exists. The answer wasn’t a perfectly written mission statement. It was one simple sentence. I miss them. And when I talk about them… they feel closer. This episode is for anyone who’s ever wondered why grief still shows up y...

The Girl You Don’t Know Thousands of people know pieces of me. The grief girl. The firefighter. The dispatcher. The BBQ queen. The loud girl. The girl who always seems to have something to say. But what about the girl behind all of that? In this episode, we’re pulling back the curtain and talking about the versions of ourselves we don’t often introduce to the world. The insecure girl. The angry gi...

Episode 36: Today, the Cake Is Bitter Bitterness rarely arrives all at once. It starts with a broken promise, an unanswered apology, a betrayal, a loss, or a wound that never truly healed. Before long, the hurt we’ve been carrying begins to shape the way we see people, the way we love, and even the way we see ourselves. In this episode of Pretty & Painful, we’re having an honest conversation about...

🤍 Episode 35 | I Wish They Could See This I catch myself saying it all the time. “I wish they could see this.” The new doors God is opening. Choosing joy on the hard days. Walking away when it’s time. Beating cancer. The perfect peanut butter cookies. Even my ginger hair… which I’m still hoping heaven lets me keep. 😉 Grief has taught me something I never expected. The people we love don’t stop s...

Maybe birthdays after loss will never feel the way they used to. Maybe there will always be an empty chair. An unanswered phone. A name your heart still waits to hear. But love doesn’t end because a life does. The people we love keep showing up—in recipes we still make, songs we still sing, stories we still tell, and traditions we refuse to let die. So celebrate anyway. Not because grief is gone....

🎙️ WORKING THROUGH GRIEF: DENIAL I used to tell myself my elementary school best friend wasn’t dead. She had simply gone undercover for the FBI. Delusional? Absolutely. But grief doesn’t care about logic. That’s the thing about denial nobody tells you. It’s not always refusing reality. Sometimes it’s your heart buying time. Sometimes it sounds like: “But we just talked.” “I just saw them.” “I just...

Episode 32: Slipping Away ⚠️ Content Warning: This episode discusses depression, anxiety, emotional exhaustion, and survival mode. Some episodes I show up with answers. This isn’t one of them. This week we’re talking about the quiet battles. The kind you fight while you’re still smiling. The kind nobody notices because you’re still showing up, still functioning, still carrying the weight. We’re ta...

Working Through Grief: Episode 2 — Numbness After the shock fades, something else settles in. Numbness. The silence after the phone call. The blank stare across a crowded room. The moments where you know you’re hurting, but you can’t seem to feel it. In Episode 2 of the Working Through Grief series, B opens up about the strange season that follows loss—the part where your heart builds walls to sur...

Loving From a Distance Some relationships don’t end with a slammed door. They end with a quiet realization. A realization that love and access are not the same thing. In this episode of Pretty & Painful, we’re talking about the grief that comes from loving people you can no longer do life with. The heartbreak of watching resentment, hurt, pride, and pain create distance where connection once lived...

Babes… I can’t live, laugh, love in this economy. I can barely add to cart. This week we’re talking dopamine dressing, oversized t-shirts, Shein carts, weight loss, anxiety, reunion nerves, and the strange experience of trying to recognize yourself while you’re still growing. Somewhere between the beige trends, the bed rot, the life stress, and the “I have nothing to wear” spiral, I realized this...

Sometimes grief finds us in the strangest places. A finch on a buoy. A quiet river. A memory that suddenly feels alive again. In this Table Talk episode of Pretty & Painful, we’re sharing a listener story that reminds us how deeply love lingers — even in the smallest signs. From the crystal waters of the Ichetucknee to the ache of missing someone who mattered, this episode is about connection, rem...

Shock changes people. In Episode One of the new Working Through Grief series, we’re talking about the first stage of grief — the numb, blurry, disorienting reality that comes after loss. The phone call. The hospital room. The “this can’t be real” feeling. The exhaustion. The replaying of final moments over and over again. From anticipatory grief and hospice goodbyes to sudden loss and the silence...

Some days grief looks loud. Some days it just looks tired. In Episode 28 of Pretty & Painful, Bailey talks about masking, survival mode, self care, faith, flashback nights, sweet tea coping mechanisms, and learning how to carry grief without letting it harden you completely. This episode is for the people who still show up with heavy hearts. The ones forcing themselves to drink water, answer texts...

Episode 27 — “i saw you today” Sometimes grief doesn’t crash through the front door. Sometimes it pulls up beside you at a gas pump under a red sunset sky and steals the air right out of your lungs. Today I saw a stranger… but for a second, my heart swore it was you. This episode is about the weirdness of grief — the double takes, the familiar faces, the moments that feel like warm hugs and heartb...

I found myself asking a question lately that honestly felt a little embarrassing to say out loud: “Why are they so nice to me?” Not fake nice. Not performative nice. Not nice with hidden intentions attached to it. I mean genuine kindness. Patience. Gentleness. The kind of love that doesn’t keep score. And maybe that question says more about what I’ve survived than anything else. In Episode 26 of P...

Episode 25 of Pretty & Painful is for the girl who still cringes at old Facebook memories, old choices, old relationships, old coping mechanisms… and forgets she was surviving the best way she knew how. This episode is about grace. Not just the kind God gives us — but the kind we struggle to give ourselves. Bailey opens up about grieving old versions of herself, carrying shame for seasons she bare...

Hindsight is 20/20… but sometimes our vision isn’t. In Episode 24 of Pretty & Painful, Bailey dives into blurry seasons — the moments we ignored red flags, drifted from ourselves, questioned God’s timing, or got so lost in survival mode that we stopped seeing clearly. This episode is about slow blooming, spiritual burnout, hindsight, grace, and learning that healing doesn’t always happen all at on...

Borrowing joy until you can hold your own again. Maybe grief made your hands too heavy to carry happiness for a while. Maybe watching everyone else heal, grow, fall in love, laugh, and live felt easier than figuring out how to do it yourself. But somewhere along the way… their joy reminded me mine still existed too. And babes? I spent so long wondering if I even deserved a seat at the table… until...

Some fires don’t happen all at once. Sometimes they spark slowly. A bad season. A hard goodbye. A little grief. A little healing. A little chaos wrapped up in confidence and sarcasm. In this episode of Pretty & Painful, we’re talking about dumpster fire moments, emotional cleanup jobs, the people God sends into your life at the right time, and learning that being “hauled, not healed” doesn’t mean...