I never let myself believe I could make it to the final two. All the way through, I refused to think ahead or imagine outcomes. I stayed present, took each rose ceremony as it came, and every time my name was called, I felt grateful, almost shocked. I’d pinch myself and think, I get one more week. One more adventure. One more chance to share this with these women and with Bear.<\/p>\n
When we were down to five, I thought, ‘Is this actually happening?’ Down to three, ‘Oh my God, really?’ And then two, wow.<\/p>\n
I’d walked into this experience with no expectations at all. And somehow, there I was, standing in the final two. The final morning, I felt, hopeful. I felt confident.<\/p>\n
My dress, the most beautiful gown I’ve ever worn. Beautiful crystals catching and matching the African light, I felt like it was made for that destination; it made me feel like something out of a dream. My very own fairytale.<\/p>\n
Getting ready overlooking the city felt surreal. How did I get here? How did this happen?<\/p>\n
Pinch-me moment after pinch-me moment.<\/p>\n
Then driving into the mountains, fierce wind whipping everywhere, my hair blowing, climbing the hill, the rocks in high heels and a gown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I never let myself believe I could make it to the final two. All the way through, I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-144544","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}