I then proceeded to write nine more pages of words.

At approximately 243 words per page on my legal pad, I have written just over 2,100 words this morning. To which I mutter to myself, “What is going on with you Heather?”

Two days ago this photo popped up in the memories of my socials.

It is a photo of me and Dominick from June 2005. We were in the same leadership class and this was taken at our graduation luncheon in Little Rock.

As of this photo, we had known each other for seven years and worked at the same firm for five of them which is where we met back in early 1999.

{He was my co-worker, my mentor, and my friend. I miss him dearly. It hasn’t even been a year since he passed.}

You know what I thought when I saw this photo? Well, the second thought, to be honest.

I thought wow they are young and beautiful.

Young and beautiful.

Do you know what I remember about that season?

*My insecurities - my weight, my body, my brain, etc.

*My broken heart - I had been deeply in love and rejected.

*My family dysfunction - simply a precursor to the second implosion of my family just three years later which left me rejected by my other parent (bringing the count to two) with some siblings added in for good measure.

What I also remember is…

*How I had persevered through years of night classes while juggling a full-time job and graduated with my MBA just a month prior.

*My mother drove down and attended that graduation luncheon to support me.

*How much I loved that leadership experience and how it continues to have ripple effects 21 years later.

This morning, grappling with some interpersonal relationships that are not operating as I want or need them to be, I am suddenly having to sort out for myself what is real and what are lies. Not lies someone is telling me. Lies I am telling myself. You read that right.

Lies I am telling myself.

For the absolute love. {insert facepalm}

The red string (read that as the source) of this present angst began two days ago when I saw this photo and then things escalated when some interactions with actual humans didn’t go as one might hope over the past couple of days. Mix all of that together and you can use that red string to stir the cocktail your trail of thoughts create. And just to drag out this metaphor a step (or two) too far…you can order you a double for the second round before deciding that maybe, just maybe there was something going on that had nothing to do with you or the people in those interactions, or maybe not even the person in the 21 year old photograph.

Well, shit.

I think the real pain in the ass of getting older is the work one has to do to stave off regret.

You can have had a great life.

Check.

You can have a great life at present.

Check. Check.

Yet, you can still have regret slither into your thoughts at any given moment.

The person you didn’t marry.

The children you didn’t birth.

The people who didn’t forgive you or you didn’t forgive.

The people you let keep you from people you love.

The career paths you didn’t attempt.

The jobs you stayed at too long.

The jobs you didn’t stay at long enough.

The people you have lost.

The people that lost you.

The money wasted.

That thing you were too afraid to attempt.

The friendships lost.

And on and on.

That is the thing with regret. He is an ass hole that never sleeps and never runs out of material.

I don’t live in regret. It is an active choice I have made since I was a kid. I was keenly aware at a young age that my life was what I was going to make it and I didn’t have time for self-pity or regret. I had to make the best decisions I could at the time, efficiently, quickly, and then keep moving.

Perseverance became my drug of choice; endurance my middle name.

So the fact that I find myself challenged more as I get older with keeping regret at bay is challenging for me on a couple of fronts. I am 10/10 not a fan.

*Writing helps.

*Meditation helps.

*Prayer helps, but I will warn you that my prayer life probably doesn’t look like yours. Mine often comes with a raised voice and four letter words. It is very conversational. To say the least.

Maybe what helps the most is remembering that you are, in fact, a human, and an imperfect one at that.

Also, you are not God, and he, in fact, is not mad at you. He loves you. And even though all evidence might appear to be to the contrary, he in fact is always working all things out for your good even up to and including when you arrive at the pearly gates where you can only hope he is waiting for you with open arms, and maybe doesn’t say, “Well done,” but I will take a “You made it kid. Good job.” Which is more than I ever got from my earthly parents so that might be the reason I want to hear it so desperately from my heavenly one.

Just sayin’.

God, we are a messed up bunch, aren’t we?

You are as messed up as me, right???

The lies we tell ourselves.

And that is where I am going to wrap this piece of writing up. Not with a pretty red bow, but instead with a declaration. A declaration and the truest sentence I can write in this very moment.

The worst lies ever spoken to us are the ones we speak to ourselves from between our ears. Learn to quieten those, and you will have really done something.

It isn’t always easy, and maybe like me, you need to hear that too.

Some days the lies win.

Luckily, most days they don’t.

Most days my insane amount of gratitude wins out. My Pollyanna attitude and mindset prevails. My oversized heart remains unbroken and unmoored, riding the wild waves of my one little life. I run freely, full of optimism and hope, with open arms into every interaction or challenge. Most days I am more Heather than ever.

Most days.

On the days I am not. On the days that are hard, I let them be hard. I don’t berate myself for having hard days and hard thoughts. I love myself even more on those days. I feel those days all the way to my toes, and then I let them go. Releasing them.

And here is a little secret I will share with you…

Since changing my posture on the hard days, I have found they don’t last nearly as long or cut nearly as deeply.

Aghast.

If you will let yourself be human, it will all be okay.

What a *%#^ concept. I know. I know. Language.

So here is to the humans among us, to the human we ourselves are, and to the humans that love us. Just as we are. Always calling forth our better angels. They are the heroes in our one life. The wingmen and wingwomen sent by God to hold our hands and walk through this life with us. For a season or the full breadth and depth of it. For them, I am the most grateful.

I miss you Dominick. I miss so many gone too soon. Grateful for the seasons I had them and for their lessons I am still benefiting from. I am the luckiest woman in the world.

❤️

{Author’s Note: Forgive any errors as I typed this up on my phone with two thumbs and only one cup of coffee. 😉 Also, why there is no audio. I will try and record at a later date.}

The person/people you spend your days with matters.

Every day you wake up, you live, you go to bed.

You are trading a day of your one life every single day.

On repeat.

How are you spending your days?

Who are you spending your days with?

Maybe I overthink things like these, but maybe someone reading this doesn’t think enough about them.

I was asked the other day if I was ready for someone’s help on something. It is something they know I want, and they want to help. Simple as that. Except my response to them is haunting me.

“Not quite yet,” I responded slightly waving my hand past my face as I then made a pressing down motion with it as if to signal ‘simmer down now’ to my sweet friend.

What am I waiting for?

That is the question haunting me.

Yesterday I sat in Asolo, Italy, overlooking the piazza with its beauty and the bustle of people milling about as the intoxicating smell of jasmine swept over me with every light breeze. I remembered sitting at that exact spot, table 25 (2+5 = 7 #IYKYK) in 2018, in 2023, and every year since.

It isn’t what, it is who.

There are days for gratitude, and there are days for grief.

There are days to hold on, and days to let go.

Life is learning to live in the tension of what it gives to us, what it takes from us, and what we may never have this side of heaven.

No one wants to talk about that. Believing you can manifest, or achieve anything and everything you want, well, it sells better. It sells better to me.

I know that I am living, for the most part, the most charmed of lives. I worked very hard, had a lot of dumb luck, prayed like a monk, and became a hope dealer in the best of ways.

I don’t have everything I worked for though…or that I prayed for…or that I hoped for…

When you are young, life feels like a magic to do list that you work on step by step and year by year, checking things off and wracking in the accolades. Lots of pats on the back and “you are the luckiest” tossed at you like verbal confetti.

As you get older, you assess everything from the wisdom of that original list to the choices and sacrifices you made all along the way. Sacrifices for others. Sacrifices to others. Were they right? Were you?

I’m in year two of a three year plan, and like clockwork I am rethinking everything. This is who I am. Make the plan. Work the plan. Question the wisdom and validity of said plan about midway through.

*Insert Slight Side Smile*

I think what God is trying to remind me on this slow morning. My first without a plan (or even a list) in weeks, maybe months, is that it is okay to be frustrated with the slowness or even the absence of something or someone. It is okay to be sad while in the most beautiful place in the world. It is okay to know exactly how you want to live out your last quarter plus of life but not know when or if you will get that opportunity. It is okay to feel deep oceans of gratitude and love and joy while grappling with that absence of them, or those questions. It is perfectly normal and understandable for joy and grief to coexist in our human bodies, tumble around in our minds, play pinball in our hearts, and make us question our own deeply rooted spirituality. I think God wants to remind me that nothing I am feeling scares him. That he has me, as he always has, and that he loves me just as I am in all of my overthinking, over loving, over joyful, worrier little self.

What matters most is who you share your life with…every day. In your work. In play. In community. In your home. In your one body…this one life.

Grateful for what is and missing what is…not quite yet.

Always.

❤️

Masterpiece.

For those of us for whom, the first one changed our lives twenty years ago, take Kleenex.

I was 35 years old, and I absolutely loved that film. It is a favorite to watch again and again. I still listen to that soundtrack on mornings when I need to find my inner Andy or Miranda. The original did give me a bit of a complicated view of work and being a woman in leadership. I can see that a lot clearer now so far removed. A lot of films back then did.

So while they didn’t need to redeem themselves or anything like that, with one single exchange in the sequel, my little workaholic heart was touched to the point of tears spilling into my popcorn.

“You should write it, and you should keep all the juicy bits in," Miranda tells Andy. "How impatient I am, how demanding and imperious, and how much of my children's lives I've missed. Just put it all in there, because people should know there's a cost. But, boy, I love working. I really do, don't you? I just love it."

And yes, Andy does.

Deep Sigh.

Me too, Miranda. Me too.

Several minutes later, the film ended and the lights started going up, and there I sat still crying and smiling. Feeling ridiculously seen and understood and known by a scene in a film.

Now I am all up in my feelings.

In seasons where I have been burnt out or worn out or flat out hated my work (which to be honest have been few), the problem was never working. The problem was always the work I was doing, and/or the people I was doing the work with, at the time. It took a long sabbatical in 2023 to help me begin to peel back the onion on that…four decade puzzle.

Work has giveth and it has taketh. The sacrifices are real. Miranda is right, there is a COST. A very real cost.

I turned 55 years old this past week. Alone. Just like I did last year, albeit different geography. I often choose this for myself because it is easier for me to process the day. I am, in fact, alone, and will be for the foreseeable future. A fact that stuns me every single year as if it is new information for my brain, so I have to process it like an old trauma popping up.

You are alone. You are okay. You have a great life. You are so grateful. Maybe someday. Don’t worry about it. Focus on the positives. Keep moving.

My birthday mantra to myself.

Insert eye roll.

All of those things are in fact true, and helpful.

I have built a life I am very proud of, and I am over the moon at the variety of actual work I get to do daily. I work with absolute unicorns. Every day I get to meet people doing amazing things, great work of their own. I get to tell others about the amazing things happening everywhere around them. I also get to travel and teach and learn new things and meet new people and do good work. Every day.

It is glorious. It is exhausting. It is fulfilling.

…and yes, it is sacrificial to some things I also want.

When those things show up, I will be elated, but until then - and in the off-chance they never do - I am going to revel in the fact that I get to do work I love. I am also going to stop being all meek about the fact that I love working. I really believe Miranda (and Andy) might be onto something.

And when did work become the bad guy anyway?

When did ‘Sunday Scaries’ and ‘slap my laptop shut’ memes become reality for all of us?

I guess I simply want to applaud the film for redeeming the love of work - especially for those of us who truly love ours.

Not a bad life.

Not a bad legacy.

❤️

If January is the slowest month of the year, February has to be the fastest.

Where did it go?

Seriously, I am asking, where did it go?

I began this month euphorically, and I am ending it stoically.

Yesterday, this past week actually, our family teetered on the edge of the worst thing in the world happening to us, but as I sit here on this beautiful Saturday morning, I am not so sure it isn’t going to end up leading us to the best thing(s).

Our family, like your own, keeps a lot of secrets. We not only keep them from the outside world, we keep them from each other inside the original, tiny unit. We do it under the guise of “protecting” ourselves or each other. We do it because we are embarrassed or prideful. We do it because the world has always wanted a highlight reel of people’s lives (the Internet didn’t create that, it only exacerbated it). We do it because we hold a hope that someday we will get all of our shit together and be able to bare all like one of those rags to riches success stories.

In the interim, those secrets…

Bury us.

Isolate us.

Kill us.

When I went through intensive therapy years ago, one of the primary things I had to unpack was my family’s secrets and the scars that had left on my life.

The truth is humans are not made to keep secrets.

Our minds, hearts, bodies, souls. None of it.

I would like to offer up the book of Genesis as Exhibit A.

A member of our family has been hurting a very long time. Yesterday, for the very first time, I saw that pain up close and personal. They have been “hiding” it from me for seven years. It is going to take me a minute to process my culpability in that…and their own. For now, I - all of us - need to focus on their next first step.

I don’t know what their future holds. I have a lot of hope though that theirs will be a full and robust life. Fresh hope in my heart birthed out of the ashes left from all that was burned down before my eyes yesterday.

I was reminded in the chaos how important it is for us to be seen, known, loved, respected wholly by at least one other person on this earth. We need someone - in the flesh - to fully bear witness to our one life here on earth. At least one person to know all of our secrets so that we don’t fall prey to the negative narrative lurking between our ears.

I was also reminded yesterday of the places and relationships in my life where I have stolen my own voice. Muzzled myself by choice. Mainly, because it was easier and safer. To be even more honest, it allowed me some well earned peace and quiet.

I am going to be testing out my voice in the days and weeks ahead in areas where I have previously been very quiet. I am confident I am going to stumble with it, but better to stutter and stumble words of love and wisdom than to be silent while others suffer.

I laid bare our family’s pain in texts to dear, close friends yesterday asking for prayer. Yet, prayer wasn’t what I really needed. The truest need was to admit that our family was struggling with something, and to rip off whatever duct tape + Elmer’s glue narrative they had that our family had it all together. I needed them to bear witness to our pain. I needed someone to bear witness to my pain.

I love to say I am a simple girl at heart, and honestly that is ridiculously true…and no more than in this way…(here is a secret about me)…99% of what is rattling between my ears will go away if you will sit beside me and hold my hands. That’s it. That is the secret. I don’t need gifts or money or fill-in-the-blank. I just need someone to sit with me, beside me, in my questions or my pain or my love.

I think I am not unique in that.

I think that each of us simply needs a witness, our witness, to our full unvarnished life.

So, as I am asking myself this very question today, I ask of you -

Whose life are you bearing witness to?

Your witness is deeply needed in someone’s life today. I can promise you that.

❤️

Author’s Note: My sincerest apologies for any grammatical errors as my two thumbs are pulling the load this morning on my cell phone writing this out.

My faith, and faith journey, has been different since that first Ash Wednesday. Just like with my belongings, I started turning over every rock of my “faith” and asking harder questions of it. What did I really believe? What does the Bible really say about this or that? Do I believe what I have been taught about this or that, and if so, why or why not? I learned that my faith, the Bible, and God were a lot stronger than I had ever imagined them to be. I also learned that a lot of what I had always believed to be true, wasn’t, or at the very least was not as cut and dry as I had been taught to believe. I was reminded again of the mystery of God. We ruin our faith a bit in our quest to understand absolutely everything. Faith is at its core, a mystery. In some ways, just like love.

I don’t have all the answers about faith or love or life, but I know that I never want to lose the mix of curiosity and nervousness and giddiness that the younger me had on that night in 2015. At my core, at my very best, that is who I am. Someone who does…that.

So, with that rather long offering of context, I give you my very raw, unfiltered take on my first Ash Wednesday service eleven years ago.

My wish for you is that you find what you are searching for, what you need…whatever that is…

//

Yesterday I experienced my first Ash Wednesday Service at a little church in Little Rock, Arkansas. I knew no one there. I knew little to nothing about the denomination. I had never attended their church. I knew nothing about an Ash Wednesday Service. What??? 

I had been thinking about participating in Lent this year. One of the things I love most about this season is how I am being educated about religions and denominations outside of my limited scope growing up. One thing I have learned is that I am not as knowledgeable about other denominations and religions as I thought. #humbling

I had been reading about lent for weeks and really felt God whispering to me, "This is for YOU." so I was planning on participating in some form. Then earlier this week someone posted an article about Baptists and lent and one of the people posting a comment mentioned Ash Wednesday services, and I asked the obvious, stupid question, "How do you find an Ash Wednesday Service" to which they kindly and graciously educated me in follow-up comments. So there I was at 8 a.m. on Ash Wednesday in my office googling for services.

SO...there I sat eight hours later in a beautiful chapel on the back pew feeling very, very small. I texted a couple of my friends like a little girl squealing, "You are NEVER going to believe where I am?! Pray for me." I then turned off my phone and absorbed EVERYTHING.

Let me just say that everyone there was more lovely to me than you could ever imagine. It was so obvious I was lost...with my doe eyes, waders up to my knees (snow day....and thank goodness I wasn't the only one), luggage (you know I came packing everything as I was coming from work), and of course I gravitated to the back-row (which got me a ribbing from one of the reverends). While speaking with me, they even made a point to let me know that I was welcome to participate in communion, which brought tears to my eyes (isn't that silly of me?).

What followed was a service like I have never experienced. It was intense, beautiful, orchestrated (I mean that in a good way), and it was humbling. Let me say this, all churches need knee benches. I think we all need to be on our knees more (preaching to myself here). The opening lesson was on Isaiah 58 which we all know I am completely obsessed with Isaiah so I felt immediately at home.

The sermon was on "Time" to which I felt myself slide down in my seat some. Haven't I been wrestling with that since the first of the year, through #restorationJanuary and this insane season I am in? I looked up and spoke to God, "I hear ya. I am in the exact spot you want me in right now. Got it."

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

I don't know what to say about The Imposition of Ashes portion. There was this little girl about three in front of me through the service and then next to me during the ashes and communion. It was as if...

...let me be clear here....I am not saying that what I am experiencing is for everyone or right or wrong or preaching or anything...this is just the place where I am and my very transparent observations of it...

...it was as if I was seeing myself at three. She was with her father only. She was…let’s say, a handful...but at the altar...she was near angelic, and she would look up at me, and I swear she was winking at me. One of the reverends caught us both the first time and smiled so lovingly. I swear, I was in the middle of a film.

I have to say I loved everything about it...the prayers and readings, everything. I felt like I was being emotionally and spiritually prepared for the 40 days ahead. It was very beautiful (did I say that already?).

Communion was intense, and I had a hard time not breaking down. If you know me, you know that I have a real love and reverence for communion. I truly believe it is something that we should do weekly not because of a rule or a scripture (per se), but because it is good for our hearts. The way they handled communion was very sacred and it felt so much more personal than what I experience these days elsewhere.

Everyone prayed together after that, and it was so beautiful, I am including that prayer below:

"Eternal God, heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, and you have fed us with spiritual food in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. Send us now into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart; through Christ our Lord. Amen."

...and you exit in silence.

I walked straight to my car in awed silence with the biggest smile on my face. Someone could have hit me, and I am not sure I would have felt it. I am still struggling to find words, but I promised many that I would write about my experience so I am forcing myself to write this now (not my best work I am sure), but I am struggling with the words.

I will say this, the only experience that compares for me is the first time I went to church in Marmalade, Haiti. Just like there, you could feel the Holy Spirit thick in the air around you. I want more of THAT. Just like church in Haiti was terrifying the first time, so was this, but I think it is the stepping out of my spiritual comfort zone that is adding such great value to my walk with God. He is pushing me into these unknown spaces to show me something about him, something about others who believe in him, and in the end...something about myself. That is HOLY.

I ran into the restaurant downstairs (I know the owners well) to grab a snack on my way home, and they said what is that on your forehead. I had forgotten the ash cross. I got to sit with them and tell them all about it (they go to another church), and it was a pretty fascinating conversation. Then I started thinking about Ann Voskamp's words again about wearing the cross and how we don't do that. I am still tossing and turning on those thoughts, but it is worth noting that unlike other religions, we don't wear our faith outwardly which means we must really represent Jesus in our actions otherwise how are they to know??? Right??? I can feel more writing (even if just in my journals) about that...that is too deep for this morning after only one cup of coffee. :)

So....I am participating fully in lent this year, and I will do my best to document the next 40 days as best I can....this is a VERY busy season for me in other areas of my life, so I anticipate that God's timing is always perfect so this is going to be a cross between beautiful and brutal for me. ;)

So....what or where are some scary places that God is taking you? It seems to be a "thing" as God moves in all of our hearts in new and different ways.

I know this because I could never have imagined walking into an unknown church, alone, not knowing anything, and just saying, "Here I am Lord. Now what?" as I did last night. As I sat there (15 mins early and everything) in anticipation, my fear changed to giddiness, and I am not kidding...I thought about leaving a few times. It feels pretty amazing to be embracing the scary stuff and even funnier when people say that you are being brave. I guess I am, but it feels a lot more like obedience. The kind of obedience John Eldredge talks about in "Utter Relief of Holiness" where you long to do/be/act whatever it is....pretty intense stuff. So. Worth. It.

I hope you will step into the scary with God...the terror turns to wings of faith very quickly...Promise.

#Lent2015

//

❤️

Author’s Note: I apologize for any errors as I typed this with two thumbs on my iPhone.

I didn’t always feel this way towards the month that always feels like it lasts 4,267,987 days.

Years ago, maybe 2015, I opted to flip the script on the ‘longest month” from slogging through to using it to my advantage. I nicknamed the month Restoration January because I believe in naming things. Duh. I then made a habit of doing my postmortem on the prior year and prognosticating for the upcoming year throughout the month. So, technically, my “goals” start February 1st.

This pattern has worked beautifully for me for years. I adore it.

This year, I found myself up at the cottage the bulk of the month, and then Mother Nature decided to dump 10” of snow and ice along with a stretch of days well below freezing as a chef’s kiss to the final week of January.

The slow thaw begins February 1st with the Leo Moon, also known as the Snow Moon, which is all on the cusp of The Fire Horse year beginning this month on the 17th.

Whatever your beliefs from biblical to numerology to Chinese zodiac, etc., please know that if you will do a thimble’s worth of research, you will find a tremendous amount of overlap. Some friends of mine - across a few spectrums - have become more than a bit curious about what is happening in 2026, and unashamedly, so have I.

The research I have done this past several months would fill a vault. I find it all tremendously fascinating, and I am loving the overlap across disciplines. I have a recording of my great grandfather (a big Bible thumper mind you), talking about the Bible and the moon and how he studied and followed all of the teachings around planting and harvesting on the cycles, etc. He was a renaissance man long before they were a thing. He was a farmer, a builder, a hunter, a craftsman, and don’t get me started on his sorghum making. What I wouldn’t give for a ginormous pile of my great grandmother’s homemade biscuits, a glass dish full of real butter, and a big jar of jet black sweet sorghum. I could watch it slow drip out of that jar over my biscuits + butter all day long.

Art.

I digress. But also, can’t you just taste it???

I have savored every single day of this past month. Absolutely squeezing every ounce of flavor from it.

I have walked back over the past year, and at times gone even further back. But the cream has been my thoughts on the days and years ahead of me. I have dreamed afresh, prayed, pondered, allowed my imagination to wander, and studied - all to a degree I have not done in years, if ever.

I have goals and lists and plans and budgets (oh my God, the spreadsheets I have built) and action items and strategies and visions (even more spreadsheets!). I have examined every inch of my navel, so to speak, and it is all a delightful exercise, by the way.

I have not loved every second of all of this. Self-reflection, at least the way I do it, is not for the faint of heart. It is deep work as a direct result of being a student of the gifts found in examining one’s own life with a microscope and a scalpel. I have a deep desire to always do and be better. Couple that with my insatiable curiosity, and you get the joy bomb that is me in the month of January with her legal pads, highlighters, pens, piles of books, post-it notes, four hundred tabs open on her Internet browser, two types of planners, and giant maps - one of the world and one of the year.

I’m super fun. I swear.

Make the plan; work the plan.

It will be on my tombstone if anyone that knows me is in charge of my arrangements.

I love this shit. I can’t help it.

Anything worth doing, is doing well, and that extends, in my opinion, to how we live our one life on this floating blue and green ball of gas.

I have done the work. I have the receipts.

…and this year, I happen to believe strongly that I am going to win the lottery.

Not the billion dollar kind - though I did purchase more than a few tickets last month.

The kind that comes after you have done the work, persevered, come out the other side, and pronounced loudly in a whisper…I am still here. I am still mother-fucking here. The devil came for me, but he did not win.

No sword.

No waving wildly screaming.

Just a quiet confidence that can only come from a spine fortified over time with steel.

Hence, the loud whisper…

I’m still here.

I have dreamed and planned and mapped out a lot of years in my lifetime, but I have never done one quite like this one….and I have never loved the process more.

January, I love you.

I love you because when the whole world is hungover from a month of celebrations, you offer us the cold winter winds that give us permission to hibernate in our spaces, lick our wounds, take an Ibuprofen (or two), and sip some hot tea with a little whiskey because it is medicinal and somehow perfectly acceptable.

I love you because you have 31 days just like several other months, but for some reason - and well beyond any logic - you feel like you last for six months. You are unapologetic that you are, well, a lot. The “a lot” in me feels seen and accepted by you. Thanks for that.

I love you because you are you are stealth. There you are at the beginning, set at the very first of the calendar. Yet, just like the sabbath of a Sunday, you forgo pomp and circumstance and in a slow Southern drawl, invite us to sit a spell.

To rest. To recharge. To reset.

I have had some very good Januarys in my life, but none has left me more contented, more focused, and more ready for all that is to come.

I’m grateful.

Grateful for these days of wintering.

Grateful to be ready to run.

Grateful.

❤️

That is the art of being grateful. Isn’t it?

Be honest with yourself (or someone), about anything and everything wrong in your world, talking it out (or writing it out) until you exhaust yourself and so that all that is left in you is the gratitude—just sitting over there in the corners of your mind waiting to be noticed, remembered—the gift in the chaos of what rattles between our ears daily.

If you are in a season that is simply taking your breath, let me suggest an exercise…

Write down everything that is not working. Every single pain, angst, frustration, loss - anything that makes you utter, “Ugh,” when you think of it. Then, once the last of it is down on paper, turn the page, and write out everything that is going well - everything you are grateful for in that moment.

Perspective.

Sometimes gratitude comes at the intersection of what is not working and has already worked out beautifully.

I think this morning, I just want to try and stop making myself crazy with the list of things I cannot control. Sometimes we have to unclench our hands and allow what is truly ours to remain, or come, and what is not, to go. No one gets everything they want, and most of us get far more than we deserve in our one life.

…and with that, let gratitude wash over each of our hearts as we enter Thanksgiving week. A holiday that asks no more or less of us than to be thankful.

…and I am, in fact, thankful.

{Deep Breath}

Love,

Heather

Leave a comment

I forced myself to put on my tennis shoes this morning and do my old #5MilesADay route through Argenta and Downtown Little Rock crisscrossing the Arkansas River and bridges that I love so much.

I sat a spell on the levee and listened to “I Was Here” by Beyoncé on repeat. Remembering every instance of mentoring and friendship that impacted my life by another, who we lost this past week.

I said goodbye to another person I loved by a river years ago. The wind and sun on my face today felt much like it did back then.

Grief is the trickiest thing I have ever navigated, but to be frank - this is only my second time to do it in a manner one would classify as “healthy,” so every bit of it feels foreign to me. I keep asking myself, “Am I doing this correctly?”

And why does grief heighten everything?

There is a reason they say do not make any big decisions while grieving.

This week, I felt the urge to sell everything and move to Ireland or Maine. Hide in a cave. Or any number of second-long crazy thoughts.

I have thought a lot this week about what my mentor and friend would think about how much we all miss him. How important he was to his family, friends, co-workers, and clients. Did we tell him enough, I find myself wondering?

I make it weird on the regular saying “I love you,” and hugging people, even strangers. This past week has been especially awkward - for others - around me. Bless.

A mentor and mutual friend said to me this week that grief is how we know it mattered, that we loved someone or something well, that they were important, and what we had was important. I know he is right.

Grief is simply a byproduct of loving well.

Somewhere between the wind causing my loose hair to tickle my face and stick to my tears as the sun beams down, I guess I wanted to note the lesson. The one I am learning about how to love others well, and when I lose them - to grieve the loss of them well. I want to be better at both.

Because…

He was here, and he mattered.

❤️

#lessonsingrief

In a week that has held some of the highest professional peaks I have experienced in my 54 years, our little family is experiencing a pretty wide mixed bag with life and death struggles walking side by side with the gift of new life.

Selfishly, incredibly so, my emotions this morning didn’t come until I felt the sting of my “status” in all of this.

Three decades ago I operated like a third parent in so many ways to my sister’s beautiful family, but let me tell you - that all changes when those kids reach adulthood and begin building families of their own. Parents are suddenly jockeying for their own position in their children’s new family. Where does that leave the third wheel tag-a-long? Well, let me first say I now know what we were all supposed to use that Algebra for…LOL. A little long division later, carry the two, and multiply the whole times five…An aunt, for instance, doesn’t become once removed as a great aunt, but slides down the Chutes and Ladder to a spot that depends on how many siblings and such are now mashed in there, plus in-laws and the like.

Again, Algebra.

So, this morning while looking at sweet photos of the newest beauty in our family, pondering the desperate situation of another, and wondering where all the years have gone…

My own deficiency slapped me in the face, and the tears fell. Slowly, then faster.

Choices.

We make choices in our lives.

And one day we wake up and realize that we have built things and loved people and made dreams come true and seen the world and on and on…

Yet we sit in our “comfort” with no one to share it with…no one to pass it on to…no one to love…and the tears burn as they fall.

When I was a little girl - like four, five - I would play mother and teacher and preacher CONSTANTLY. I never imagined back then that I wouldn’t or couldn’t be all of those things…and more. My father taught me to read when I was four years old and encouraged my wild imagination. I absorbed Little House On the Prairie and The Walton’s. I was surrounded by this massive close, extended family that I adored, and that openly adored me. I was safe and happy and loved and never imagined that life would ever in a million years be anything other than exactly that…

In my 20s and 30s I would openly lie that I was fine with no love and no children because I had been a mom at age eight to my little brother and sister and that was good enough…did anyone even believe me??

At 39, I lost my ability to have a choice about having my own children due to a health scare. The solution cost me my choice, and I was devastated yet I didn’t talk about how I felt for years to anyone. Not even my mother who was still in my life at that time, and cared for me beautifully as I healed from surgery. In fact, that was the last time she cared for me like that.

I grieved the children I didn’t have for years before properly dealing with that unborn grief in therapy.

And yet this morning, I am feeling fresh grief wash over me, and I am transported back to 39 years old sitting in that doctor’s office with both me and my lovely doctor (a grown ass man) weeping over the choice he was asking me to make. Even though he and my other doctor were not asking, but telling me.

In therapy years later, as I told that story, I envisioned four - five year old Heather sitting there with me, forgiving me for not making our dreams come true.

Healing is hard.

There is also tension in it.

The tension of holding the death of dreams unfulfilled and the joy of new life.

It is both beautiful and brutal here.

Those are difficult words to write, and so are these…

Last week in the class I teach this semester at the university, I was asked about the sacrifices I have made in my life…I knew what they meant. My answer was half-hearted and less than truthful. I want to tell them that life is still good even when you don’t get everything you dreamed of as a child. That you can miss your window of opportunity and find another. I do say those things. What I struggle more to say is that sometimes windows close without another one opening. And that it happens in all areas of our lives. I want to tell them not to wait to grab some dreams because there are expiration dates that appear out of nowhere. That sometimes dreams die in a cold, corner office in a medical building. Sometimes they die when walking away is the only option left. Sometimes they simply die. I want to be an encourager though, so I skirt the truth a bit, and say something cheesy like seize the day…and then proceed to slap my forehead on the drive home.

…and days later the grief pricked by their question rolls out inconveniently on a Saturday morning while I smile at a photo of my new great niece.

That is how it goes.

Life in the tension.

Joy.

Grief.

Loss.

Wins.

Love is patient. Love is kind.

Love is…

Love is forgiving ourselves. Again and fucking again.

This morning I am going to sit in my grief until I forgive myself once again. Until the tears dry up. Until I can once again hear the voice of Young Heather forgiving me. Until my joy bursts forth once again overwhelming every other emotion in me.

Life rolls on. I made my choices. I have to live with them. I do, and I will. Life is still good. I am still loveable. Worthy. Good.

❤️

Author’s Note: I typed this out with two thumbs on the app on my phone through teary eyes and a snotty nose so please forgive any grammatical errors. Also, this is for those that have had dreams die and need permission to embrace the tension of living in grief and joy. It’s okay, and so are you. Hugs.

It is everything I love…

• Weather

• Football on TV

• Fireplaces | Firepits

• Scotch + Cigars

• Blankets | Quilts

• Colors

• Falling Leaves

• Softer Sunlight

• And more…

I don’t know if it is the season of life I am in or my age or something I haven’t even considered, but I am as acutely aware of the daily beauty in my life as I am of my own breath.

This morning walking onto the screened-in porch, hitting that crisp 56 degrees, I joyfully turned on the fireplace for the first time.

I just purchased a special Yeti coffee cup to keep my morning coffee warmer longer on these fall and winter mornings on the porch.

Every decision these days rooted in how can I extend my time on the porch…savoring the beauty of the woods…the soft autumn sunlight…and a dark roast with some bourbon in it (Shana Coffee™️).

Life is busy, difficult, trying. No doubt.

It is also gorgeous, breathtaking, and joyful.

Autumn, without even trying, whispers to my weary mind/body/heart/soul - rest, let go, everything is going to be okay, savor, smile from the inside out, and love…

Deeper.

Richer.

More.

Love is birthed out of beauty.

Think upon the beauty of an acorn.

A nut with a hat, if you will.

That is the simple beauty and joy of an acorn.

It sounds like fireworks at the cottage these days with acorns hitting the metal roof as the trees pour out their summer’s bounty.

Fireworks never sounded so peaceful.

If you can fall in love with a season, I fall in love again every autumn.

…and just like great love, one wants it to last forever and ever and always.

To Autumn, With Love. 🤎

I no longer go to church regularly. I stopped rather abruptly in 2023 after someone I love was bullied in their home church by a pastor that, up to that point I had loved and respected…even though we disagreed on more than a few theological points.

I never publicly wrote about my decision or discussed it. I am scratching my head to come up with more than a couple of people I even told.

When you live a life that has you constantly on the move between landing spots, it is easy to disrupt your own patterns without anyone taking much notice.

The last couple of years have allowed me a lot of disruptive freedom. Just saying.

This morning watching the most beautiful cross-section of humans pass through the doors of Blackberry Market, I suddenly tear up.

Uh oh, I thought. What is happening???

Humans. Differences. Jesus.

THIS is my church I thought. This.

This beautiful place full of people from every single walk of life with differences that one can see and others that are hidden. With a line out the front door and tables overflowing onto the sidewalk out front, people are flowing in for food, drink, community, work, or a place to read. All these reasons and more bring them in, but I wonder…

If what might also bring them in is that the owners (who I dearly love) have created a safe space for humans to simply exist.

These days you can feel the vibe of a place - is it safe or is it well…not.

This place feels like a warm hug.

Always.

That is what the church once felt like to me.

Safe.

Warm.

Loving.

Nurturing.

Fun.

Challenging.

Community.

Unconditional acceptance.

Not now. Not in a long, long time.

The church I knew as a child. The church I clung to when my family imploded. The church I kept going back to, and flowing in and out of, searching for a version that felt like the church of my childhood. The church I got baptized in out of love and then out of survival and then once again out of love. The church that my grandfathers got saved in as adults and then leaders in. The church one of my grandfathers once bought the building for in order to save it for the smallest of communities to have a place to worship. The church that brought my parents together, and in some ways, ultimately contributed to the collapse of their marriage.

The church.

The church.

The church.

One day I will darken the door of a church again…maybe an Anglican. That makes me smile and laugh…because I could feel my grandmothers clutching their pearls from beyond as I typed the words. LOL

I could also see the warm smiles of my grandfathers mouthing at me from beside them both, “Do you.”

My grandfathers understood that the church is supposed to be a safe place. They came to the church late in their lives in search of a safe place for their hearts. They would go on to become leaders in their churches even as they wrestled with their own flaws and shortcomings. I have a deep love and precious memories of my grandfathers who were much more, let’s say “relaxed,” than either of my grandmothers. I often wonder what they would think of the church I have come to know today. I believe they would be heartbroken. I know I am.

I digress.

The line is still out the door. I have been here an hour. It has been consistently, steadily moving people through it even as people continue to come. This place runs like a machine. A beautiful machine.

I miss this place. I miss places like this. Places where you can come and sit a spell, eat, people watch, and feel the safety of the world because it is safe here. It is safe to simply be who you are.

Existing is not a revolutionary act inside these walls.

It also isn’t a revolutionary act to be a Pollyanna in this space. All I see is sunshine and love and smiles and happiness. More of ALL of that too. Please and thank you very much.

Maybe it is time we all find our own form of church and acknowledge it for what it is instead of bemoaning what the churches of our pasts are not, or no longer.

We live in a hard, broken world, but it isn’t all bad. Seeking out the good is half the battle of actually finding it. Then, squeeze all of that good for as long as you have on this earth. Our ability to see good and savor good and spread good in a world that feels “bad” a lot of the time…that’s a powerful legacy.

I hope it is part of my legacy.

Happy Sunday!

❤️

Author’s Note: Typed with two thumbs in my app on my phone while people watching so please excuse any grammatical errors.

Also, my breakfast…😋

The lies we tell ourselves.

It would be therapy years later that would help me understand just how strong my instincts are and how I “just know” things before there is even one shred of evidence to support them.

Before that, I knew there was something different about me, but I had no vocabulary or education or experience with it to even begin to explain or express it - to myself or others. Being raised in the church, you can search there for an explanation and maybe just think of it as God, the Holy Spirit, but then you are deemed a little “Pentecostal” if you talk about that too much. True story.

I find it strange that we are not actively raised to trust ourselves when we have brains and souls and hearts and bodies that are literally built to signal us when we are safe or unsafe, hungry or full, loved or unloved, etc. What can be better evidence for us to believe?

A year or so later, give or take, the first domino fell on a life I had carefully curated with my own two hands. At the time, I was oblivious to my own responsibility in setting all of that in motion a few years prior. In that moment, I could only hear the silence of the crash.

Heartbreak, my parents’ second marriages in turmoil followed by death and disownment (this time as an adult and by the opposite parent), fractured sibling relationships, and a boss that was quite simply a bully…I ran for the hills.

Literally.

Spinning a narrative in my mind that THIS was the point of it all - this new life that was waiting for me to live - imagine angels singing and a bright light shining down on the pages that held the storybook narrative I had scripted for myself. I had convinced myself I had been doing it all wrong (up to this point) and this new narrative was what it was all for…and with a new professional opportunity dropping in my lap that fit right into the narrative I had spun, I did not even stop for a nanosecond to ask myself if it made a lick of sense. It was meant to be, I told myself.

The lies we tell ourselves.

It took all of fifteen minutes walking inside that new narrative for me to trip the first land mine. An emotionally healthier Heather (heck, human) would have turned on her heel and walked clean out of that story without looking back. Sadly, I did not. In typical Heather fashion, for the time, I buckled down and endeavored to persevere. I convinced myself I could make it work. I mean, this was the story. It had to work. Period. Full stop.

The lies we tell ourselves.

You have never seen or known a more miserable human than what I was for the next two years. It is one thing to make a mistake. It is another one to live inside of your own mistake. I danced like a damn monkey those two years. Spinning plates, plastering a smile on my face, and plastering up the cracks inside of me like a boss as I crumbled more and more on the daily. My life was a disaster, but I sold it as perfection and everyone gobbled up my story. I even had my mentors convinced for a time because I was lying to them that I was “fine” and dodging calls. Let me be clear, I was not fine. I just needed time to fix it, I told myself.

The lies we tell ourselves.

I think it was poetic really that the first domino to fall in that season wasn’t professional, it was personal. Poetic because the root of the lies I was telling myself began there, and I had built the others around it to support that lie. The root was rotten, and therefore everything that came from it or got planted near it was tainted, but being naive and having convinced my broken heart that this was the real fairytale I had been looking for…I kept watering and feeding that rotten-rooted plant fully expecting it to become a rose garden.

The lies we tell ourselves.

Sitting here years later, I look back with such compassion and empathy for the younger woman in that story. She desperately wanted a nuclear (read that as healthy) family, romantic love, a great professional life, a home, safety, financial security, and mostly…she wanted unconditional love. She wanted to know in her bones she was chosen and someone would never abandon her (again).

By that age, disownment had become a word as common in her vocabulary and experience as the word “family.” Likened to a game of musical chairs and who was going to abandoned next. She had no idea how that particular part of her story was polluting so much of her life, convincing her she wasn’t worthy of love or good things or safety.

I can feel even now the fear and tension that resided in her 24/7/365 like an unwelcome house guest.

I no longer blame her for the lies she told herself. For the story she spun, first selling herself on it, and then others.

All of that, and the years of therapy and healing that came later, have given me a depth of wisdom I would not otherwise have ever known. Wisdom and stories that I can share to help others in similar circumstances. Helping them avoid some of life’s landmines.

It gave me more empathy, a deeper capacity for deep love, and a fearlessness that I can survive whatever life throws my way.

More than anything, it taught me to ask the question, “What does x, y, or z want to teach me?” I became curious about the source of my failures, my bad habits, my pain, my circumstances, even my oversized heart.

…and from that I have learned to deeply trust my own damn self. God gave me a brain and a body and a heart and a soul for a reason. Maybe, just maybe, I should listen to them.

I now not only trust myself, I trust my instincts.

I trust my voice once again.

I wouldn’t wish that season on my worst enemy, but I owe the life I live today to it. It was a brutal, long, hard lesson…but by God, I learned from it.

It has taken a few years shy of two decades to look back on that season from a fully healthy place. It wasn’t an easy or fast repair job. The easy button world we live in says that it took too long, and I would like to respond with, “No shit!” That’s the breaks, though. Sometimes it takes a long time to do a quality job at fixing something (or say, yourself).

Personally, I know I was worth the work.

…and you are too.

Everyone deserves to be happy and healthy.

Everyone deserves to be loved unconditionally and know it in their bones.

Everyone deserves to heal.

Everyone deserves to live a fully authentic life.

Just because the world is on fire, or your little world is, doesn’t mean you have to set yourself on fire too. You can choose to bring the water. Hell, you can BE the water.

Just remember to love yourself enough to put out your own fire first.

Sending so much love on this gorgeous Friday!

❤️

Why?

It was breathtaking to watch the interaction between these leaders and the students.

I never anticipated the success of this class. I never expected so many yeses from leaders I adore and respect. I never anticipated I would get to teach it with the Chancellor. I never anticipated that the panelists would love the experience as much as the students. I never expected the panelists would love the book at the center of the class or their commitment to reading it.

I never…

Here is the truth of it.

I had an idea. I had a boss/leader who said yes to it.

At the heart of it, that is the thing that is most stunning to me.

That I am being listened to…championed…encouraged…and that some of these ideas I am sharing are actually working…they are actually good.

Something in me that was broken is healing.

I didn’t know that there were still some shards of glass lying around inside of me, but in the past year and a half, I have cut myself on them from time to time. Nothing fatal, cuts that I think can be bandaged over. Except now. This morning. I am taking the time to inspect all the little, tiny scars from the minor cuts and deciding to look around to see what is causing them.

PTSD is real, friends. It is real, yet deceptive. It doesn’t always look like we have come to expect due to how Hollywood portrays it on television and film. It can be much more subtle. Please don’t sleep on it, though, as it can also lead to death by a thousand cuts.

According to Patrick Lencioni’s The Six Types of Working Genius, my two natural work giftings are wonder and discernment. These days, I find myself operating primarily in those two areas, and my life, my health, everything, is better for it.

Operating in these areas is not simply about what I am good at, but also about what I am trusted to do in these areas.

Trust.

What a powerful word.

Am I trusted to do the work I know and love to do?

Are my words trusted? My ideas? My thoughts?

Is WHO I AM as a fully formed human trusted?

Deep thoughts for a Wednesday.

Deep thoughts for any day.

I have spent four decades working. Yes, four. To be exact, 41.

I have spent years in roles where I was seen, known, and trusted. Believed in and believed in way beyond my ability.

I have also spent years in roles and relationships where I was unseen, unknown, untrusted, and unbelieved in. Roles where I was used for my access or the boxes my hire checked or my Rolodex by individuals who projected their wants and needs onto me with little thought or concern for my own wants and needs.

While those former ones nurtured me and helped me blossom, the latter ones not only hurt me, but they also diminished me in my own mind.

This morning, I am realizing that some of those experiences lie in the shards of glass I keep cutting myself on. As good as the work I am doing now is, it won’t be all that it can be if I don’t figure out how to sweep up and trash those lingering doubts that the worst things I have been told about myself over four decades - about who I am and what I am worth - are not the end all be all of my story, and in some cases are simply flat out untrue. At the very least, they are not helpful.

Words matter. Silence matters.

A wise person once said, pay attention to the voices you let in because they become the narrative you tell yourself again and again about who you are and who you will always be.

What I will remind you too is that even once those voices are no longer in your active life, unless you deal with them, they continue to play on a loop in the back of your brain.

I had a family member tell me when I was a very little girl that I was ugly - I talked too much - I was too happy - I was annoying - and the cherry on top, that I was not loved (by someone else in our family).

I don’t know what to tell you other than, I am 54 years old…that was every bit of 48 years ago, and if I close my eyes right this minute, I can hear their voice and see their face as they say it to me….and I have had some of the best therapy in the world.

Words, the f*ck, matter.

To all the great parents, leaders, mentors, friends, and humans out there who pour good words into others every single day - you are the heroes of this world. Just out there doing the Lord’s work every single day, often without even realizing that your good words are the water reviving a dry, dusty soul.

Humans don’t carry the scars from words on the outside. They carry them deep inside, where they are too often unseen and unknown to anyone in their life.

The truth is we need to be pouring water into people every day just because we can…

I have some very, very good people in my life in this season. They are restoring and healing pieces in me that I had zero idea were still broken. I am getting better, too. I said that to one of them just last week when they coached me on some negative self-talk I was doing…because I am, in fact, getting better.

This world is full of good, good people. Make sure to seek them out and surround yourself with them. Make sure it is their feeds you follow if you are on any social media. Make sure it is their voice you seek out when you feel yourself spiraling - even a little bit. Make sure you have the right voices in your life, period.

…and one more #protip - really see people you come across on the daily and when you do, speak good words over and into them - the difference it will make is immeasurable this side of heaven.

Much love,

❤️

Author’s Note: I will try and record a voiceover later so come back if you prefer it that way as this was typed with two thumbs on my phone app. 🤍

It is a wild oversimplification to say I rested and healed over that period.

A more accurate description is…

Over that four months, I fell in love with teaching, slept like I was in a coma, traveled, became a grazer again - eating like a toddler, stepped away from the day-to-day of a company I co-founded and co-built, wrote and finished a book I had been living and writing for a dozen years, saw relationships rekindle and die while others just simply…died, became a great aunt, grieved, watched and felt my body slowly heal, discovered a rhythm and pace that felt truer to my design, and on and on.

The lessons and experiences were breathtaking.

Simply breathtaking.

I promised myself that I would never allow myself to get that far gone again. To be so disassociated with my own body and mind and heart and soul that it took four months to even begin to feel like myself…to feel like I knew myself. I also flew back across the ocean wondering what was the point? What or who had I done all of this for?

//

In another life, I had all the babies. I don’t know if any of them were as cute as my great nephew in this photo below (taken the day after I got back to Arkansas from my sabbatical - him learning why my nickname is the Baby Whisperer as his father slept like this on me when he was this age), but I bet they were.

I am a broken record that I do not live in regret, but if I am honest, I am experiencing a few right now that have me feeling a bit melancholy. A strange sensation when you are walking through a season rich with goodness. “These are your best days, Heather,” I hear from so many, and they are certainly some of them, no doubt.

Taylor Swift (I know. I know.) was in an interview years ago, and was asked about the season of success she was in (at that time). She shared a story about an awards show she had recently attended where she had received a major award and that later at home alone she had wondered to herself, “…shouldn’t I have someone (romantic someone) to share this moment with…to call?…” I have to be honest, I read that quote while on sabbatical two years ago at the height of my loneliness and sitting in a scenario that should have had me feeling like the cat that ate the canary, and all I could think was how relatable her words felt to my heart.

…and if I am honest…

How relatable they feel to me today.

I don’t believe that marriage and partnering up is for everyone. I certainly know people who love being single. Prefer it even.

I also am the first to say that based on my own childhood, you might think I would prefer being single. I did not have the best role models in my home.

Yet, here I am, and here I have always been, very much the romantic. Very much feeling the absence of someone to share my life with…and to be honest, I feel it more acutely in the seasons rich with goodness over even the seasons of trial. Go figure.

Not everyone gets their person. I understand that, and that may very well be my story in this lifetime. It is just what do you do with all of this stuff…this abundance in your life? Lately, I have been thinking, maybe it isn’t that I am too much, it is simply I don’t have anywhere to go with so much of myself that it just bubbles over sometimes and let’s be clear that your family and friends can only take on so much. Bless them. LOL

//

Yesterday would have been Doretha’s 100th birthday. Throughout the day I tried and tried and tried to write something about it, her. Nothing. Crickets in my brain where words usually reside. Some of the most important and enduring lessons of my life were taught to me by her. She brought out the best parts of me. She knew things instinctually about me. She even knew when I lied to her which happened on two occasions. Once when she told me an old wives tale about a book in the Bible, Song of Solomon, and I lied to her about an exercise she had me do pertaining to it. The second time was the last time we saw each other, and I told her that she and I would be okay. I think about those two conversations with her all the time. The first one because I knew I was in a bad relationship and didn’t know how to remove myself from it which ultimately led to the second one because I knew I would never be able to see her again, and I blamed (appropriately) myself.

The truth is that if I had not been so broken (pre-therapy), I would have never been in those situations. The relationship was a rebound, which are always a bad idea, and it led to a whole laundry list of bad decisions that I paid for right up until Doretha’s death. Then, because death is not a tidy red bow on a season of life, I continue to pay for it in different ways.

When Doretha passed away, I spent weeks in my therapist’s office working through all of the complicated feelings and grief and anger and guilt and pure angst I had over losing her, not being close to her the last few years of her life, those two lies I had told (that she knew were lies), and pages of stuff that I would pour out onto paper and then share with my therapist.

Months later, I would secretly visit her grave and say my own goodbyes. It was a brutal and holy day.

One of the things I reminded myself that day at her grave, and in the years since, is how she taught me that grief can convert to joy. She had become masterful at it, and I had been her pupil listening to her stories - seeing her own tears followed by her laughter - and watching how she lived her life.

I think that is what I am remembering about her most today in this season where I recognize the beautiful life I am living while also feeling the weight (and grief) of what I don’t have (yet, maybe). How it is okay to hold and live in the tension of beauty and pain…of success and the not yets…of what we have and what we still want. She was a master of living in the tension beautifully, and I do mean beautifully. To be in her presence was to be in the presence of magic, to feel the tingle in the air. She made you feel safe and seen and known and understood and accepted and….all the things. Even when we were alone going through photos or her telling me stories, and her voice would crack with emotions as tears would fall…even then, you could feel the magic because she was in that moment…with you and also fully in the memory she was experiencing. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed to watch her straddle time and space being in two places at once feeling the joy and grief simultaneously. I can feel the lump in my throat growing as I remember those moments. It was otherworldly, that is all I can tell you.

I hope someday someone knows me as well as I got to know her in those years, and I hope to know someone again as I got to know her. It was a real gift to be allowed in behind the curtain of her life. To hold her stories. To hold them now.

…and maybe that is the source of my own melancholy these days…

Who will hold my stories?

Who will hold yours?

A life well lived is great, and I certainly hope I have/am/will live one, but let’s be honest I am spiraling rather quickly to my fourth quarter.

Deep Breath

So, this is where I remind myself of all I am grateful for and that it is okay to be honest (with myself and others) that living in the tension of life is difficult.

…and maybe you need that reminder too.

This life is not for the faint of heart.

Love you Doretha. You are missed, but maybe even more, you are remembered. Thank you for everything.

🤍

//

#FiveThingsFriday

I almost didn’t do this exercise, but then I remembered when and why I started doing them years ago.

To find glimmers of joy and meaning and even the silly while in a season that was secretly beating me up.

So, in honor of my resilient heart + Pollyanna optimism, here goes…

1. Monday I spoke to over 100 students who are part of the mentoring program at the A-State Center for Leadership Excellence which is a unicorn of sorts providing mentoring opportunities in groups and one-on-one to any and all students wanting to participate. The students are phenomenal and inspirational!!!

2. Meetings with Arkansas State University students this week to talk about opportunities to study abroad at CIMBA Italy which is a new collaboration between the two schools! 🐺+🇮🇹

3. Week 3 of mine and the Chancellor’s entrepreneurship and leadership lecture series brought three more leaders to campus. It was an amazing night!

4. When you are juggling multiple balls, every once and awhile you drop one or you drop. I dropped for a minute this week. Lots of crying and questioning and wondering and staring into the woods. I licked my own wounds, wrote a lot, and tried to catch up on some sleep. Here is the truest sentence I can write this morning to you - you can be living your best life and still have a moment or moments where you absolutely fall apart and even a pin dropping pushes you to tears. Mental and physical exhaustion hits happy people too. We are not machines. I’m just grateful that I am surrounded by people who call me out when I need to rest AND people who have an expectation for me TO rest. THAT, is also a sign you are with the right people.

5. This week was HARD on a lot of levels for every single human on planet earth. 🌍 My #protip for when life and/or the world feels hard is to sit in quiet and hand write thank you notes. Bonus points if you have a cup of hot tea, a comfy chair, a throw over your legs, and birds out the window to glance up at every now and again. I did this on Friday, and it lifted my spirits and poured into my hope tank.

Be kind. Speak less. Listen more. Seek to understand. Embrace empathy. Speak your mind, but don’t be a butt hole. Love others well. Love yourself.

🤍

📷 I used some of my most cherished stationary that I purchased at my favorite paper shop in Venice, Italy. 🇮🇹 I am a repeat customer there for four years. It is tiny and perfect in every single way. ❤️

I have always had a strange connection with my Gramps. He passed away when I was eight years old. {An important point is that both of my grandfathers passed away within months of each other and then less than a year later my parent’s marriage imploded in dramatic fashion. In therapy as an adult, I wondered out loud if my grandfathers were somehow unknowingly holding my parent’s marriage together, and without their steadiness, it crumbled. I’ll never know.} I have a lot of both my grandfathers in me. I have heard and known that since I was a child. From Gramps, I absolutely got my perseverance. He lived a challenging and fascinating life, and one that was all too brief. I have a photocopy of a photograph of him and his “first love” in front of his childhood home in Combs, Arkansas. He no longer lived there at the time even though he was just a teenager. The photo is one of my most cherished possessions.

This piece popped up today which feels a bit serendipitous so I thought I would share.

So, from the archives….

//

God, I love Sundays.

I think I have loved them all of my life. Like the months of January and September, Sundays always feel like a “fresh start.” I am a woman whose life is a testament to fresh starts.

Yesterday I was listening to a podcast on the drive home from Fayetteville. Suddenly, the guest being interviewed described the weakness of my personality type (INFJ) as “one who tends to stay in bad situations longer than they should,” and the air left my lungs.

The GPS in my car had done a weird thing when I punched in “Home,” and taken me back via the Pig Trail instead of the interstate. To the average person, no big deal. To me, that path takes me through Combs, Arkansas, where my grandfather grew up until the age of 13 when he left home, hitchhiked to the CCC Camp in Mull, Arkansas (three hours by car today), and somehow convinced them he was older than his 13 years. 😳

My grandfather would “begin again” several times over the course of his life…until his heart gave out in his 50s.

I thought about that as I slowed my car to a crawl driving through Combs. I thought about how I had been feeling sorry for myself a lot lately. How my perseverance gene felt run down, sword dull, and my spirit weary. Then, I thought about Gramps. What would he say to me right now?

History shows us the strength in those who stay and endure, but also in those that leave and forge new paths. I’m a bi-product of both.

I am feeling afresh this morning the heaviness of my grandfather’s choices, or lack thereof, and also my own.

Perseverance is a strength. Of that, I am certain.

…but what of letting go?

Deep thoughts for a Sunday, and all because my GPS had a mind of its own yesterday. 😏

Here is to knowing when to stay and when to go, and having the courage to take the next first step when you do. 💛

#Musings

“I am only one, but I am one. I can’t do everything, but I can do something.” - Edward Everett Hale

We live in a big world with more people and places and opportunities…and yes, problems, than any single one of us can fully take in on any given day…or lifetime.

With access to 24/7/365 news (more like commentary), it is overwhelming for humans to take in all of the beauty and suffering happening around the globe.

It can make us numb.

It can make me numb.

In the past couple of years, I have done a lot of healing from some hurt that came as a result of my ‘swinging a sword’ in defense of - others or things I believed in or even of myself. I have to be honest, there was a time when I thought my sword swinging days were over. Perfectly content to fly under the radar (so to speak) and live a small, quiet little life.

In my mind, it felt like wisdom. The right thing to do.

…and then I look into a classroom full of eyeballs fixed on mine or someone calls me upset that they were misunderstood by someone(s) and are fearful of retribution or a client calls me with questions on how to thread the needle (so to speak) in dealing with some potentially charged landmines…

…and the sword swinger in me rises up from her nap.

I can’t solve ALL the problems. I won’t win every battle. Also, not every conflict is EVEN a battle. No one is keeping a tally of my wins and losses. Heck, 99% of what I do these days is unknown (and I like it that way).

What I can do is help even the one person. Pour into a classroom of students who are smart and funny and full of hope (and yes, trepidation) for their futures (just like I was at that age). I can help sort out a simple misunderstanding. I can encourage someone having a crisis of confidence. I can be kind. I can love others well. I can point out the good whenever and wherever possible. I can be honest about my own failings and shortcomings. I can be joyful in a world that feels like it is on absolute fire (and let me tell you THAT is a form of sword swinging on its own).

The words in the image below - I absolutely believe…but let me also say, that to even BE POSITIVE on the daily is a flex in today’s world. We all are well aware of what is not going right…so maybe we speak more to each other and here on our socials about all that we see that is going well. Maybe we find a way to speak life into and over each other even when it is hard to see it or feel it.

Maybe that is the flex. Maybe that is how love wins.

Grateful for this week and all the opportunities I had to pour into others…to love others well…to grab a selfie with a hero of mine or a friend…for all the 911 calls from mentees needing to be calmed down or listened to or encouraged. What a gift to be a helper in the year of our Lord 2025.

🤍

#musings

#BEanEncourager

I spent the next four months praying for confirmation that what I had “heard” was right. I told not a soul. Not one single soul.

Four months later, on top of a hill overlooking a lake in Rwanda, I got my final (of three) confirmations.

I started walking out the list/instructions/roadmap within weeks which set off the hardest seventeen months of my life. Without a hint of dramatics, I damn near didn’t survive it - emotionally, mentally, and by the end - physically.

Three months later on the fourth and final month of my sabbatical - and the last item on the roadmap - I burned the roadmap on a hike while at the top of the second tallest mountain in Bergen, Norway. I prayed. I cried. I gave thanks. Then, I hiked back down and proceeded to spiral, untethered, and rudderless.

I slowly felt permission to reimagine my life…my work…me. The days and weeks and months - and yes, years - since have been both challenging and breathtaking with their mind-bending possibilities…and questions.

Who am I without x, y, or z???

What am I?

As I come up on the two and four year anniversaries of those pivotal moments with God, I am struck by all I have learned about myself, but even more, what I have learned about him. He showed up for me, and then he showed out, but neither would have happened if I hadn’t risked everything to believe in what I heard him say to me four years ago. Works, actions, they’re great. But faith, faith is where the magic happens with God. At least that has been my experience.

It was insane and audacious what he told me to do. It wasn’t a quick fix. It was difficult, brutal, and took me to the very end of myself.

And in the end, it was the most loving thing he has ever done for me.

…and as a footnote, in the end, it was also loving to others, though at the time they certainly didn’t see it that way through their lens of disappointment in, and anger against, me.

//

From The Archives -

Back in 2009, I had to get new headshots for work. Here is one of them. 📷

I have worked hard and consistently since I was 13 years old. That is 40 years for anyone keeping score at home. I am proud of that number and the work I have done, but I am not going to lie either, I landed at my #sabbatical last summer EXHAUSTED.

I have had some interesting jobs, careers, and I have enjoyed all of them (for the most part). Some, I loved so much they became obsessions.

My sabbatical was everything and more.

Post-sabbatical, I had the unique opportunity to look at my life and ask myself some good, hard questions about what I wanted it to look like going forward and how I was going to get there. To be honest, I have not enjoyed that part very much. It seems it is a lot harder to redesign a life than one might think.

If my transition season has a transition month, August is it. This is the month I step into some new roles while balancing the other roles I have already tweaked or added. The pie chart is getting fleshed out a little more. This month will be the most I have juggled yet within the four quadrants. Will I like it? Not? How will I re-calibrate and rebalance with the additions? Can I remain balanced? How will this impact my new rhythms and pace?

When I returned from sabbatical, a mentor told me how he could not wait to see Heather 3.0. I joked, “Me either.” Well, we are all about to witness another piece clicking into place (more to come soon).

After talking with a different mentor and friend yesterday about his transition and mine, I was reminded how important it is to walk through these seasons with people who love and encourage us. They are the mirror holders who speak into and over us giving us a clear view of who we are…the best of us, not our worst - or our insecurities.

Another sweet note about this photo and these words, both of the mentors/friends I reference here were pouring into me when this photo was taken back in 2009. Get yourself a personal board of directors, mentors to walk through this life with…it makes all the difference. 🤍

#transitions

#mentors

#personalboardofdirectors

#thebestisyettocome

I have a lot of words and thoughts and feelings about my childhood, my lineage. A good deal of those I spent a good amount of money, time, and energy in a therapist’s office unwinding and finding healing from…

But where there is pain or trauma, let me tell you, there are always bright spots. Hope is resilient in humans. I don’t understand how, but trust me, it is on my list for God to address. {I have questions. 🙋🏻‍♀️}

Some of the best and shiniest memories I have from my childhood and my adulthood, are wrapped up in this man. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him. He loved me so well…so unconditionally. I have reminders of him all around my spaces - in photos, things he made for me, a framed scrap piece of paper of the scorecard from one of our many games of dominoes, and in recordings I made of him telling me stories.

With every passing year since his death, I don’t know how, but I miss him even more - not less.

This morning, as I sat down with my first cup of coffee, I saw four deer 🦌 running through the woods not twenty feet from me, jumping over the creek one by one with the third of the four being a baby. I have never seen that many here that close to the cottage. It was breathtaking, and I might have squealed, but then I teared up. 🥹 It has been a difficult week for my heart and missing people I love, and it just felt a little like God saying, “I love you. It’s all going to be okay. Look at this beauty. At this LIFE before you, outside your window. That new little life.”

Grief is…well, it is the absolute sh*t. Physically, it looks like smiling and crying simultaneously with the most dumbfounding look on your face. Just me?

It is in the remembering…and the feeling of those memories…that those we love live on.

Happy Birthday Uncle Odale!

I love and miss you so much. I hope (especially today) you are playing dominoes, driving fast, and having something sweet to eat. ❤️