Hi guys! I’m Marissa — but my friends and family call me Riss.
I am so stinkin’ excited you found your way here.
Whether you found my blog through one of my many monologues… ahem, I mean blog posts… or through a card from The Love Always Project, I wanted to take a second to welcome you and tell you a little more about who I am (outside of all the crazy!).
At the heart of who I am, I’m a dreamer, a giver, and a lover. I believe I’m here to make a difference in the world, whatever that might look like. If the impact is one person or ten thousand people, it doesn’t matter. Impact is impact, and that is the driving force behind everything I do.
My life is probably not unlike yours. I spend most of my days working my day job, battling traffic, and coming home to cuddle Poppy and Rudy—my two cats who give me life. Except when I’m asleep and they decide I need to get up in the middle of the night. Then I temporarily want to kill them.
But the real fun is in my weekends and my passions.
I grew up in the Seattle, Washington area with my two baby sisters (and best friends—although we’ll use that term loosely for the growing-up phase of our lives). We were a dancing family. I grew up doing everything from ballet, jazz, and tap to contemporary and hip-hop, and I even tried my hand at Scottish dancing.
That love of dance and performance continued, and I eventually got my degree in acting down in LA—which I promptly left after graduating because, well… LA was not for me.
My performance life continued as I traversed the seas as a Youth Entertainment Host for Disney Cruise Line. When I finally put my stake back on solid ground, I found my way into the group fitness world.
Throughout all of it, though, one thing has always been certain: talking to people and connecting with them is massively important to me.
There is something magical about walking into a room of 40 people and trying to make every single one feel like they are the most special person there.
So you could say my dream of Love Always started well before I even knew it was going to exist.
And this is where Love Always finally got started.
Today, I live down in San Diego. Moving across the country (again), away from a toxic relationship, had me exploring passions and ideas I had previously never thought I was capable of pursuing. I hired a business coach who pushed me to start my website and consistently write my blog.
So I did.
And that is where Love Always began.
My dream of extending a hand to help other people feel less alone in less-than-ideal situations—the ones that are often too taboo or uncomfortable to talk about—became my passion.
It’s easy to feel hate and isolation when we’re alone. But when we know we have people in our corner, people who understand, it becomes so much easier to Love Always.
Not because we haven’t been wronged or hurt, but because we get to decide what the next step looks like and who we want to be in this life.
When I’m doing anything other than work…
you can probably find me at the beach looking like a beached whale, hiking Potato Chip Rock (my favorite hike), dancing on a floor somewhere in a country bar, or curled up at a movie getting all my feels on.
My friends are my lifeline, and spending time with them is incredibly important to me, so if I’m around, I’m probably doing those things with them.
And if not… I’m probably off galavanting through another state or country because, you guys, there is so much world to see and I simply cannot sit still and watch it float away.
But anyway, I am so elated to have you here—to share my journey with you and to have a space where you can share your own.
I hope that no matter what you’re going through or what you’ve experienced in life, you can find something here that makes you feel like you aren’t walking through those feelings alone.
And if you want to be alone, that’s okay too. I’ll walk through mine right next to you instead.
I love you all so much. I can’t wait to hear about you. 🙂
Love always,
Riss