home

Welcome to my home page. I am so happy you’re here! 

Home. It’s one of the most universal and significant words used worldwide. Regardless of the language used to say it, we all know what it means. It’s right up there with love and family, and it’s where we can usually find both. It’s where most of us want to go at the end of a good day, and we can’t wait to get there fast enough on a bad one. Whether we live alone or share it with a lot of other people, it’s where we know we belong.

In my search for what’s next, I find myself spending more and more time researching opportunities online. Social media is the obvious and most prevalent resource today for any and everything you may be searching for. Put a hashtag in front of almost any word and you are connected instantly to a multitude of people with similar interests.

When you think of home, what is the first feeling that comes to mind? If you had to sum that feeling up in one word, what would it be?

Home is a feeling just as much as a physical location.

Home is my favorite place to be. It’s my safe space. It’s lived in and cozy, and smells like my favorite candle (buttered maple syrup). It is where I need to be to refuel. It grounds me. It’s where I can find the people I love the most. People who love me back. People who know. Really know me. People who celebrate with me when life is good and remind me to lean on all I know to be true when things get hard.

Home ultimately represents family and is our first community. It’s where we get our start in life, loved unconditionally for simply existing. We are accepted for who we are simultaneously as we are becoming who we will be. We are not defined or judged solely by our actions. Instead, we are given lots of grace and room to grow as we learn along the way what is and isn’t okay. We learn what is means to show up for one another and that we all have needs. And when those needs are met, we learn to trust.

When family operates as it should, it’s the ultimate safe space.

Like many other women my age, I have spent the past two and a half decades invested in raising a family. My husband and I got married, had three babies in four years, and they instantly became our first priority. We learned as fast as we could, made a lot of mistakes, but did our best to model love in action. They are all grown up now, deciding for themselves who they are and what the next season of life will bring.

And so am I.

It’s the first time in a quarter of a century that what I do with my time and energy has not been predestined by the school district calendar or the extracurricular activities of my children. That thought alone is pause worthy. It’s bittersweet, and the end of a sacred season of raising my children.

Being a wife and mother has fulfilled two of the most important life purposes I know I was created for. As my role as a mother is redefined, shifting from one who leads to one who walks alongside, it’s many previous responsibilities are being relinquished and and making space for a new and different purpose.

It would be impossible to spend even a few minutes online and not notice the disparity between people claiming to seek connection behaving in ways that sabotage any hopes of connecting at all. This is news to no one. There are repeated cries for authenticity and acceptance and kindness from the very same mouths that shame and judge and divide.

There are a lot of people looking for safe spaces today. People in desperate need of community. People who need to be reminded of their worth and that their God given value can never be diminished no matter who says otherwise.

Hindsight was created to be a virtual safe space for all of us to share our stories. To share our celebrations and our struggles. To reflect on all the life that we have experienced to date and how we’ve grown as a result. To seek advice from a supportive community when we need it. To find friendship and solidarity in our roles as women.

Social media will never replace true community, because it is incapable of doing so.  There is nothing more critical to our well-being than engaging in relationships with tangible, present people whenever we can. People who can wrap their arms around us and let us cry, jump up and down with us when we get amazing news, or simply show up, willing to do life with us no matter what.

What social media can provide, however, is a massive, online “living room”.  A place where the door is always open and there’s a seat with your name on it.

I want you to know you are welcome here.  I want everyone that visits this blog to know that this community will meet you where you are today.  I am for you and will do my best to show up and encourage you in your journey.