Chapters and Choices

Everyone's lives go through chapters.  I believe that is what makes the stories of our lives so beautiful. Some chapters are joyous and exciting, while others are challenging and sad.  Some chapters are involuntary and out of our control, and others are intentional.  While we cannot always control everything about the chapters of our lives, they all contain paragraphs where we can choose how we approach and walk through them.

I personally am at the start of a new chapter...and it is both terrifying and exciting.  

This is a chapter I have wanted to start for at least six years now, but the universe kept putting things in the way.  First COVID making the world go whacky, and then the unexpected birth of our beautiful angel August.  I would not change either of those involuntary chapters - chapters I am sure many would view as sad and challenging - because they both provided me invaluable personal growth opportunities.  However, I am hopeful now is the time that I get to start writing this voluntary chapter...even if it does cause me some fear and anxiety. 

After I graduated college and David returned from his last military deployment, we decided to start our own company.  We flourished with our business and in a very short time, this company afforded us the opportunity to buy our farm.  David's service-connected injuries started to rear their ugly heads a few years into our business, and I became pregnant with our first son, Alrik.  Realizing we were at a very

pivotal turning point in our lives, we chose to close our company and focus in on our family.  We intentionally put an end to one chapter so we could focus on a chapter we both viewed as the most important chapter of any life book - raising a family. 

People thought we were crazy choosing to shut down a successful business, but to us there was no doubt we were doing the right thing for our family.  We went from being very active in our industry and community to living an anonymous and private life on our farm. This was a glorious time.  We both got to be present and hands-on raising the child we had waited so long for.  Don't get me wrong - life was still challenging for a multitude of reasons, but my husband and I were walking through it together, with our little boy right by our sides. 

Our farm gave us a sacred place for David to start to heal from his military traumas. Without the farm to escape to, I am not certain that our marriage would have survived the wounds of military service.  The farm also gave our son the best environment to grow, explore and learn.  My mama heart savored watching Alrik roam that land and discover new things. Watching how this piece of land was so healing to the mind, body and soul of my family members, I realized I wanted to share this with other families that needed a respite from the noise and chaos, so they could focus in on healing and reconnecting.  Thus, the idea for The Guardian Retreat was born.

I have been picking away at developing our nonprofit over the past several years, in between caregiving, homeschooling, and one set back after another.  I have found a few amazing friends who can see my crazy vision and want to be a part of it.   But now is the time I want to focus in and really make this concept launch! 

And that is where the terrifying part of this chapter comes in...

I was good at being a businesswoman. I was the marketer and networker for our company. I would participate in community events and fundraisers, I was a part of business networking groups, I got our company and faces into industry publications, helped our team win national awards, and more.  But then I chose to stop all of it.

I went to living an anonymous, private lifestyle.  I got to control who I let into my world during this period of time.  I got to control when, where and how I did things.  And now, to truly make my vision for The Guardian Retreat happen, I have to give up that anonymity and become the face of something again...and that scares me.  Especially with how far social media has come in the decade I have been away from the business world, who wouldn't have reservations about putting themselves out there?

I choose to believe it is time for me to really make a go for my nonprofit.  Anonymity is easy and I have enjoyed that particular chapter of my life.  But anonymity is limiting.  Nothing of true societal impact can be built if one is too afraid to put it out there into the public.  So, I choose personal discomfort, hopefully only temporarily, to put myself back into the public world in order to build my nonprofit dream. 

This blog is part of how I am choosing to ease myself back into the public eye.  I am hopeful that this blog may help encourage others to seek discomfort and overcome any fears they may have in chasing the next intentional chapter in their book of life.  I am also hopeful that those who find my blog can help encourage me in the next chapter of mine. 

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous." - Aristotle