The Many Lives of Donovan Victoria

Donovan moves through life like a river, shifting, carving new paths, adapting to the terrain while always remaining at her core, herself. She speaks about change with the intimacy of someone who has lived many versions of herself, not in a way that feels scattered or uncertain, but in a way that suggests she has never feared transformation. She has learned, perhaps earlier than most, that adaptation is not a loss of identity but an evolution of it.

“I look back and I feel like I’ve lived twenty different lives,” she says, reflecting on the distance between the child she once was and the woman she is now. Each version of herself, she explains, was necessary for arriving at this one. And this version, tattooed, pierced, rooted in her own choices, feels the most authentic yet.

If she could sit down with her younger self, she imagines that girl would be both impressed and a little alarmed. “I was very ‘by the book’ as a kid. I never thought I’d end up like this,” she laughed. But there’s no regret in the sentiment. If anything, there’s a quiet pride in how much she’s allowed herself to break out of the mold, to follow the instincts she once suppressed.

Still, change is not always easy. Donovan acknowledged that parts of her past self still linger, particularly the part that cares too much about how she is perceived. “I still hold onto people’s opinions, even when I shouldn’t,” she admitted. It’s something she is actively unlearning, another adaptation in motion.

But amidst all this evolution, there is one thing that remains a constant: community. For Donovan, community is about being seen, being held, being met where you are. “I wouldn’t be who I am without the people who have been there for me,” she says. When her mother passed, she tried to retreat into herself, to handle grief alone. But her “tribe”, as she calls them, refused to let her disappear. “Friends were offering to fly out just to sit with me,” she recalled. “It was overwhelming, but it reminded me I wasn’t alone.”

Community, she explains, is about action. It’s about the friend who sends food because they know you forgot to eat, the ones who hold space for your grief, the ones who celebrate your joy with the same intensity as they support your struggles. She’s learned that community isn’t always about proximity, it’s about presence.

As much as Donovan has adapted, she has also built. She has intentionally curated a life where people feel safe to be their full selves, whether in silence or in chaos, and her people allow her to do the same. She describes her tribe as a whirlwind of energy, a room where someone is laughing, someone is crying (but not in a bad way), someone is talking over someone else. It’s alive. It’s messy. It’s real.

When I asked her what journey she’s on right now, Donovan took a moment. “I’d say I’m unshackling myself,” she finally said. She seems to be learning, like many of us, to center her own validation, to shape her life based on what she truly wants rather than what others expect. “It’s going fast,” she mused. “I feel like I went to sleep at 15 and woke up at 27.”

But even as time speeds by, Donovan is present. She is carving out spaces that feel like home, building a sense of belonging for herself and those around her. She is not just existing in her current life, she is creating it, one adaptation at a time.

---

Temi’s Reflection

Speaking with Donovan, I walked away with a deep appreciation for the way she moves through change, with curiosity, authenticity, and acceptance. Her story isn’t just about adapting to life’s shifts, but rather, it’s about actively shaping who she wants to be. Too often, we fear change because we think it means losing ourselves, but Donovan’s life is proof that transformation is simply the process of meeting yourself at deeper and deeper levels.

And at the heart of it all, there’s community. Not the kind that just surrounds you, but the kind that holds you up, that calls you to be present, that sees you through the hardest moments.

Maybe the lesson here is that we are not meant to figure it all out alone. That we can evolve and still belong. That the most beautiful thing we can do is both embrace change and make sure we don’t have to navigate it by ourselves.

That, perhaps, is the real journey, adapting while staying tethered to those who remind us who we are.