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Kelly DeLace Perdomo

@kelly_delace

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Intuitive. Storyteller. Marketer. Creative.
IG is my visual journal.
DM for work inquiries/sessions🔮
Recovering MTV, Sony, SXM/Pandora

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I survived his first tackle football game 🥴
Playing tackle wasn’t anything I ever saw myself allowing, and tbh, it hasn’t been easy. Anyone I’ve talked to in the past 6 months has had a window into my attempts to ground myself in a decision that puts so much out of my control, while knowing it is something he’s wanted to do for years.

Thank you to everyone who listened. Especially to the one(s) who talked me through a panic attack, not trying to tell me it’s going to be fine and it’s no big deal, or that’s there’s other sports with risks and I should get over it. Just really hearing me and validating the very real risk I was grappling with. Meant a lot.

My heart still drops in my ass when I hear the crunch of him contacting with someone on a play, and I don’t think that will ever change….

One play at a time. 😬

Can we talk about this pic though? So badass. I’m so proud of him. by @kelly_delace

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14 days ago

21. My Bitsa Bella is 21!

Our life together could never be boiled down to a picture carousel, so I just tried to mix in some favorites with some buried treasures. Moments and memories captured that bring up such intense feelings. Sadness and grief at the speed of time. Joy and pride and happiness for every experience and every second of the past two decades (plus one)with Bella.

And every moment feels like yesterday.

When those first two little teeth came in, when her combover finally grew and we graduated to pigtails…how she smiled at the camera, lighting up the lens…every time I asked….and still does.

I’m really great with words, but spoken language does a really crappy job of encapsulating my intense emotions that 21 years with Bella brings. We leave for Belfast (TOMORROW) for the next leg of your journey. Grad school.

Which is crazy, because I was just pushing for almost four hours to bring you into the world…and now you’re pretty far along your path to change it…all on your own.

I love you Bella. In every moment, I’m proud beyond measure. Here’s to more moments and memories.
Bigger than the whole sky. The whole damn sky. 💕

Happy 21st Birthday. by @kelly_delace

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a month ago

She’s turning 21 tomorrow.
But she’ll always be my Baby Bella.
😭😭😭😭😭😭
I’m not well. by @kelly_delace

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a month ago

A new era begins. 7th Grade and Football. I cried a little.
Ok, a lot.

He knows I’m his biggest cheerleader and that I’m here every step of the way…and that’s exactly the kind of parent I always wanted to be. Time is flying. Bittersweet tears. Full heart. ❤️ by @kelly_delace

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a month ago

49 spins.

Getting older is a privilege. And that privilege offers us something you can’t get any other way… the perspective to do better, to be better. Phase after phase where you learn the lesson, heal, come back stronger for the next one.

The body keeps its own score, though. And as you age, it comes to collect for all the years you didn’t know better.
Even now. Even in the best phase of my life emotionally and spiritually, the body still sends the bill.

So this year I’m holding both. The joy of finally having the wisdom… and the resentment of not having it sooner. It’s an interesting road to walk.

And specifically this year, the one between 49 and 50…it will belong to my body. The one that carried me through every phase, every lesson, every heartbreak, every 36 hour trip to LA and back for a softball game, every collection notice. She gets my full attention now. Not as punishment… as repayment. As honor. I guess I’m saying it here to hold myself accountable, to be better… for me.

49 looks like freedom. With a half century marker to hit in 365 days. And I’m here for all of it. Feeling like the luckiest person alive to even get the chance to try. by @kelly_delace

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2 months ago

For my Bella, On Graduation Day,

Today you will walk across a stage in London to receive your hard-earned University degree with High Honors. I want to say that sentence again slowly, because I have watched you build it from the inside. You moved to a foreign country by yourself. You made a life here, a whole life…with friends and routines and a favorite coffee place and the park where you sit and read your latest book. You wrote and studied and doubted yourself and did it anyway, which is the only way anyone has ever done anything worth doing.

You moved across an ocean at eighteen and built a life out of nothing but your own nerve…and you succeeded spectacularly.

Today the city that took you in will hand you back to the world with a degree and my whole heart. I will be in the audience with your brother, and when your name is called I will make exactly the amount of noise you would expect and probably slightly more...fully embracing my New York, American stereotype for just this one moment.

And what I want for you now is not a plan. It is room. I want you to have the freedom to walk toward whoever you are actually meant to be, and the means to make that walk possible, and the strength to keep going when the path stops being obvious. That is my whole prayer for you. Not a career, not a timeline, not a version of your life that makes sense to anyone else. Just enough space, enough resources, and enough bravery for you to become the entire thing you already are.

My Bella, I love you to the edge of language and I’m proud of you beyond what words could convey.

Congratulations….and onward to your next adventure in Belfast. by @kelly_delace

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3 months ago

12.

Life with you is being bathed in a love brighter than a star shining from a million light years away. Your mere existence has helped me excavate every wound I had, so you’d never have to carry it. Your depth, your insight, your desire to understand and work to be a better person… it inspires me.

You push boundaries, you test patience, and you hold me accountable. I will always be your safe space to learn.

Life with you is a mix of constant hilarity and having my last nerve danced on simultaneously. And I love every second!
My sweet Jack. Almost a teen, but always my baby.
Forever.

I have no clear memory of who I was before Jack. I just know I’m a better person, mother, friend because of it.
Happiest of Birthdays to my Sweet Love.
I love you bigger than the whole sky. Forever and always.
💕♥️💕 by @kelly_delace

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5 months ago

Five years ago, life delivered changes I could have never predicted. And during that Valentine’s Day, while I was down bad with Covid, I made a pact with myself to make decisions driven by my intuition…which I had ignored for years.
That pact has led me here…to a life I’m building on trust instead of fear, to mornings by the ocean, to working around people who make me feel good about myself…with kids who are watching me choose myself without apology.

Love isn’t just the grand gestures we’re supposed to want. It’s a baseline hum of showing up…for them, for me, and for the messy beautiful unfolding of living a human life.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all my favorites 💕 and as I tell Jack and Bella every day…I love the life we’ve been creating together, one intuitive decision at a time.

📸 circa 2021 - taken by the amazing @xoshira, a true bestie I met by sliding into her DMs when I moved to Long Beach. Another intuitive decision I’m grateful for. by @kelly_delace

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8 months ago

2025- one of the best years of my life.
Because of the people in it.
Because of the people who stayed, who loved, who laughed, and who grew with me.

(Doesn’t mean chaotic shit didn’t happen, doesn’t mean I didn’t lose people I thought I’d love forever, doesn’t mean everything was rosy. It certainly wasn’t that).

But, it was pretty fucking great. 2025 was everything I needed and I’m excited and ready for 2026.

Happy New Year’s Favorites. Here’s to staying grounded in chaos. Here’s to being and really committed to loving…and living 💕 by @kelly_delace

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10 months ago

We started off the week with a Jack request.
A beach sunrise.
So simple to walk down the block, but these moments are everything to me.

Last year I was grateful to be alive.
This year, I’m so thankful to just appreciate living.
No dramatic updates (from me, at least), Bella is home in 12 days, AND we celebrate a family member being cancer free…
This is living 💕

Happy Thanksgiving indeed. ❤️
Love you 💕 by @kelly_delace

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a year ago

My Fearless, Amazing Bella
20!? Two decades!? How?

My greatest wish when I had Bella was to love and give her everything I wished for when I was a child. I wanted her to know she was seen and heard and loved beyond measure. I wanted her to feel comfortable being herself and making her own choices. I wanted her to know I was a safe space to learn and grow into a kind human.

Yet…that’s exactly what she taught me from the moment she was born. True, pure unconditional love.

When she was turning 13, I was randomly at a bunch of work dinners with players, executives, and coaches from the NFL. I won’t name names, but there was more than a handful of hall of famers and announcers all up in my ear telling me I had a MAX of 6 months before she was gonna turn on me. I was terrified.

Well, like most men 😉, they were wrong.
(I’m looking at you Marino 👀 )

When this could have gone sideways, we both did the hard work to stay connected…

20 years of amazing memories. Life is such a fun adventure with you. We leave in 3 days for Year 3 of school in London, and it’s a joy to see you confidently being you.

The road less traveled is hard, but you’ve shown me that embracing it was the lesson we both needed to learn, because when your heart and soul show you the path…you follow it. Thank you for being the greatest teacher I could ever learn to teach.

I love you, my Bitsa Bella Bean. My Boodle Bear. My Sweet Love. My #amazingbella
Happy 20th Birthday 💕 by @kelly_delace

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a year ago

6th Grade - My Sweet Love.

Watching him navigate life as it grows more complicated has shown me just how incredibly caring and emotional this kid is. Here’s to a year filled with fun, football, and lessons that show him that he’s exactly who knows he is and can be…and no matter what happens, the Mommy Confessional is always open 😬

And yes, I cried.
#amazingjack by @kelly_delace

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a year ago