Today marks my 20th anniversary of self employment. Feels like a lifetime ago that I started my first company and the time that has passed has certainly included several chapters and versions of me - some good and some not so good- throughout this time. It’s been a journey filled with all the “journey” stuff you’d expect: pain and pleasure, success and failure, frustration and laughter, loss and gain and has taken a fair amount of determination, blood, sweat and tears to move through. Self employment, I have found to be a path of resistance, swimming upstream on most days, and has contained little life balance with plenty of moments leaving me wondering it the rewards match the risk. (But I guess so is life when you look at it) However, I wouldn’t change any of it. Because it’s that adversity, and my response, that has molded this moment. Created those moments of growth, whether I wanted them or not (more often not). Introduced those hard lessons that came from the failures, and successes. And I certainly would not have learned nearly as much as a tradesman, and artist, had I been contained by a creative box that working for others would have existed. Today on this Lovers Day in this Lovers Month, I reflect on what this moment means beyond the milestone time marker that this is. I reflect on ALL the moments that have carried me to this one and it really is love that has carried me through it all. My LOVE of nature. My LOVE of my craft. My LOVE of independence. My LOVE of challenge. My LOVE of dreams. My LOVE of self (well, now) AND The LOVE and support of my family The LOVE and support of my friends. The LOVE of my clients and colleagues. The LOVE of the Universe (it’s out to see you win) I have been so fortunate to have this path and still be on it. am excited to see where the next part of my creative journey will take me, and will welcome the adversity and challenges it takes to move through it. It’s all such a gift. So as I reflect here on all of this, I ask the question:

Hi tribe, As promised in the call, here's a link to Johan Hari's Ted Talk about addiction. Well worth 15 min of time nmy humble opinion. https://youtu.be/PY9DcIMGxMs?si=OC5nuIKPmAPHkkGh

No question today. Watched my son complete his junior high wrestling career today. Watched my senior basketball students and cheerleaders at senior night. Day was decent.

I made a little reel of me pantomiming a song on my son's trumpet. Instagram says it's had 5k views.... I was just holding up a trumpet, pressing random valves, and knew the timing/rhythm. Then I put the song over it.

I tended to my heart today with a great colleague. Biggest thing I needed today was an adult hug, and she gave me one. We talked in my classroom for an hour. I felt so much lighter afterward. I got to reconnect with a college cross country and track teammate tonight. We both ran steeplechase in track. Missed the daily question today. Allowing ourselves to be seen by another is a good, healing salve. ❤️