Journal No. 1

As we turn the page on 2025 and head into 2026, I’m left in awe of how quickly time passes.

It wasn’t so long ago that I was working out of my garage studio — and before that, my dining room. Not long before that, I was driving across Houston to take my first silversmithing class, or vending at shows in unfamiliar neighborhoods. And before that, I was pregnant, rolling out clay and cutting shapes with aluminum pop cans. Before that still, I was in Hawaii, heading home from a bead shop to make my first pairs of earrings. And just a little earlier, I was once again at my dining room table, wrapping stones in wire.

None of it feels very far away. And yet, so much has changed.

When I think back to that young girl — barely twenty-three — who dreamed of seeing the world without any real sense of what the next ten years might hold, I feel deep gratitude for the meandering path. There were so many moments when I truly didn’t know where I was going. I kept leaving, hoping I’d find the thing I was missing: the love I wanted, the sense of home I had never quite known.

For a long time, that searching was real. And exhausting.

It wasn’t until the last few years that I began to settle into myself. I leaned into my interests and my talents. I learned to sit with myself. I let feelings surface instead of pushing past them. I started to loosen the limits I had quietly strapped onto my own life.

A few short years ago, I took what little money I had and spent it on jewelry-making supplies. As a new mom, I stayed up far too late creating — learning, branding, forging a path forward one small decision at a time. Now, I’m not so new to motherhood anymore. And as I rested fully into that identity, another one slowly emerged: silversmith.

This past summer, between semesters, I made a choice not to take a summer job. Instead, I committed fully to the studio. Real hours at the bench meant real learning. Real repetition. Real, well-made work.

It didn’t feel dramatic. It felt steady.

And maybe that’s the clearest marker of change — not a sudden arrival, but the quiet realization that I’m no longer searching in the same way. I’m here. Making. Staying. Letting time do its work.