My journal.

It's 3am and I'm wide awake again. Eleven weeks until I walk that stage as Miss Mexico United States and my brain refuses to clock out. I keep running the same loop — the gown, the walk, the questions they might ask, the version of me I want them to meet.

Here's the thing nobody tells you about chasing something this big: the doubt doesn't leave. It just gets quieter when you keep moving. So tonight I'm not fighting it. I'm letting it sit next to me while I write this to you.

Tomorrow I'm back in the gym at 6, then a fitting, then three hours of interview prep with my coach. I'll be exhausted and I'll love every second. The crown was never the prize. This — the 3am, the wanting, the work — this is the prize.

Okay. Going to try to sleep. Thank you for being in here with me. xx A

The gown came in today. I've been picturing it for four months — sketches, fabric swatches, a hundred midnight texts with my designer. I put it on and just… stood there in the mirror. Silver, beaded, heavier than I expected, and somehow exactly right.

I almost cried. Good tears. The kind that show up when something you only let yourself imagine finally becomes a thing you can touch.

We pinned the hem, adjusted the back, talked through how I'll move in it on stage. There's still so much to do — the walk, the turns, making it look effortless when it's anything but. But for ten minutes today I just let myself feel how far this has come.

Reminder for me and you both: the dream gets real in fittings and reps, not in daydreams. Show up for the unglamorous part.

My trainer added a third set today and somewhere around rep nine I genuinely considered switching careers. Anything that doesn't involve Bulgarian split squats. A librarian. A lighthouse keeper.

But I finished it. All three sets. Then I drank a green smoothie that tasted like a freshly mowed lawn and pretended to enjoy it for the camera.

I'm not telling you this to flex. I'm telling you because we all need to see the version of "discipline" that isn't pretty. It's not a glowing montage. It's me, sweaty and annoyed, choosing the hard thing one more time because I made a promise to myself back in January.

The body on that stage in September is being built right now, on the days I least feel like it. That's the whole secret. There isn't another one.

A sixteen-year-old girl from McAllen messaged me last night. She said watching me go for this made her sign up for her first local pageant — the one she'd been too scared to enter for two years.

I read it three times. Then I sat on my kitchen floor and got a little emotional, honestly.

Somewhere along the way I started thinking of this as my climb, my crown, my thing. And it is. But it's also bigger than me, and I forget that when I'm buried in logistics and sponsorship emails and worrying about my time on stage.

So this is my reminder, written where I'll find it: I'm not doing this just to win. I'm doing it so the next girl believes she's allowed to want something loudly. If you've been holding back on your version of this — go. I'll be cheering louder than anyone.

Six hours, four looks, one very dramatic wig situation that the final photos will never reveal. That's a shoot. The Instagram version is three perfect frames. The real version is a studio floor covered in tape, a stylist on her knees fixing a hem, and me holding a pose while my left foot completely loses circulation.

I love it. I love all of it. There's a specific magic in building an image out of nothing — a mood, a color, a feeling — and watching it come together frame by frame.

These are going into the media kit and a couple of the brand pitches I'm sending next week. You're seeing them here first, before anyone.

The lesson I keep relearning: what looks effortless took a room full of people and a lot of tape. Never measure your behind-the-scenes against someone else's highlight reel.

I turned down a paid collaboration this week. A real one, with a number that made me stare at the ceiling for a while before I answered.

It didn't feel like me. The product wasn't something I'd actually use, and the more I pictured posting it, the more it felt like borrowing someone else's voice for a paycheck.

A year ago I would have said yes on the spot. I needed it. But part of building something that lasts is learning that every yes is also a no to the version of you that's a little more honest.

I'm telling you this because I want this space to be the one place that's completely real. No borrowed voices in here. Just me, the climb, and you. Thank you for trusting me with your inbox and your attention — it means more than you know. xx A