A few years ago, I had a full-on breakdown in the middle of aisle 7 at Home Depot. I was standing in front of a rack of paint samples, clutching a can of tile adhesive, crying into a crumpled list titled “Things I Can Control.”

It was right after I moved into my first real place. The kind of house that echoes when you cry and smells like plaster and dreams that haven’t quite dried yet. My hands were shaking from exhaustion and, if I’m being honest, from the weight of trying to build something beautiful after a year that tore me to pieces.

See, a year earlier, I’d had the kind of fight with my mom you don’t come back from easily. She told me that what I was doing—making art, upcycling tiles, selling tiny handmade things online—was “cute” but not a real life. “You’re too smart to waste your time,” she said. I packed my stuff that night and left. She never believed in me. We didn’t speak again.

But color was always my language. Even in silence, I needed to make something speak. So I started breaking dishes and old tiles, sorting through garage sale plates and chipped teacups. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just knew I wanted this wall out back to mean something.

That’s when I found a tip about the Tedooo app in this group. I saw a post from a crafter making tiny ceramic sunbursts. I sent them a napkin sketch at 2 a.m. and wrote, “Can you help me tell a story I’m not ready to say out loud?” They didn’t ask questions. They just said yes.

And that became the beginning.

Suddenly, I wasn’t just gluing broken things together—I was connecting with people all over the world who understood what it felt like to want to turn pain into something vibrant. Artists from Brazil, the Midwest, Sicily. I ordered mirror pieces from a woman who told me she’d just lost her sister. A seller from Romania made me tiny flower tiles in colors I didn’t even know I needed.

I worked barefoot most days, with coffee in one hand and grout in the other. Every circle on the wall is a season. Every flower is a moment I survived. Every bird was inspired by one I used to draw in my school notebooks when life still felt simple.

Then one day, when the wall was almost done, I got a message on Tedooo.

A woman had liked one of my tile sets. She said she loved the way I used color. She wanted to order a small mosaic kit to do with her granddaughter.

I opened the profile.

It was my mother.

I sat in absolute silence. Not mad. Not happy. Just still. Like the universe had pressed pause.

She wrote:

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe in you. I see it now. I see how powerful it is to create something that makes people feel. I’m proud of you. I really, truly am. And I hope this can be a beginning.”

She ordered the smallest set I make, and I included a red petal tile—the one I always start with. The one that means “forgiveness.”

Now the wall is done. People in the neighborhood call it “the soul wall.” Kids leave little treasures in the flowerpots. And me? I finally opened my own Tedooo shop. And it’s full of pieces that people say make them feel a little more whole.

Let’s flood the gray with color.

Let’s build walls that bring people back home.

But that wasn’t the end.

About six months after my mom messaged me, I got another notification. A review left on the kit she bought. It just said: “She smiled the whole time. Thank you.”

That hit me harder than I expected.

I hadn’t known what she’d do with it. I imagined her giving it to her neighbor or leaving it unopened on a shelf. But she actually made it—with my niece, whom I hadn’t seen in almost four years.

Then, about a week later, I got a knock at my door.

It was her.

Standing there, looking older than I remembered, holding a little glass jar of broken red tiles and daisies. She looked at me like a stranger would—hopeful, cautious.

“I brought something for the wall,” she said.

We didn’t hug. Not right away. But she stepped in. I made tea. And we sat in silence again, this time not heavy, but curious.

She showed me her hands. Calloused from gardening. Still rough like they used to be from years of taking care of everyone but herself. She told me she had started making small mosaics from old plates she found at thrift shops.

“I get it now,” she said. “What it does for the heart.”

We didn’t solve everything that afternoon. Not all bridges get rebuilt in a day. But we laid the first tile.

—

A few months later, I hosted my first community mosaic class in the backyard. I didn’t charge anything. I just asked people to bring something broken—an old plate, a chipped mug, even a cracked picture frame. Something that used to mean something, or maybe still did.

One woman brought a tea saucer that was her late husband’s. A teenager brought a shattered phone screen. A little boy brought a seashell he’d accidentally stepped on.

And together, we made a piece called “The Held Things.”

It hangs right next to the soul wall now.

Each broken piece has a name behind it. A story. A hand that placed it with care.

The day we installed it, it rained lightly, and the tiles shimmered like tiny stained-glass windows. My mother stood next to me, her hand brushing mine. Not holding it, but near enough.

She never told me she was sorry again. She didn’t need to. The real apology was in the making. In the showing up. In the quiet work of putting things back together.

And me? I finally stopped trying to control everything. That list from aisle 7 is still in a box somewhere, crumpled and tear-stained. I found it recently while cleaning out my closet. I laughed when I read it.

Turns out, the only thing I really could control was how much love I poured into what I made.

Everything else?

A bonus.

If you’re still reading, here’s what I want to say:

You don’t need to wait until everything makes sense to start creating something beautiful. You don’t need closure to begin. Start with what’s broken. Start with what you have. There’s power in that.

And if someone’s trying to come back into your life, maybe don’t open the door all the way right away—but maybe leave the light on.

Because people change. Because you change. Because sometimes, the cracks really are where the light gets in.

💛 If this story made you feel something—share it. Like it. Pass it on. You never know who might be standing in aisle 7 right now, holding their own list of “things I can control.”