I recently accomplished one of my big, scary, hairy, audacious dreams. I just transitioned into a full-time business owner and I’m having a love/hate relationship with it. On the one hand, being able to wake up whenever I want has been one of the biggest perks and not because I sleep in (because I’m still getting up between 530 and 630 am) but rather because I can start my day slow with a run, a meditation session and home cooked breakfast. I’m able to leave whenever I want to or run any errands at any time of day, start dinner at 430 so that it’s ready by 530/545pm and stop and start work whenever I choose. The hard part of being a full-time biz owner is everything now rests on my shoulders… I no longer have a weekly paycheck to depend upon and that’s a whole lot of scary and the thing is I love it. I’m loving this challenge and this new season in my life. I’m still working just as hard as I was before but now I can focus on my work and passion. I can take time out of my day and dream some dreams. I can ask myself “ok Jessy, what do you want for your life? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? What are goals and dreams do you want to accomplish? Where do you want to travel to?” These are all questions I ask myself on a continual basis and the more I think about it the more I’m drawn back home…

Every year I take a trip back east to New England to visit family. We spend humid, muggy nights around a campfire telling stories of summer’s past next to the lake we spent all day on boating and enjoying each other. You see I use to live in Maine, every summer my sister and I would be shipped up north to spend time with my Mimi and Grampa and my dad and step family. I lived at my grandparents home tucked away in the middle of the woods on a lake. We would help my grandmother around the house with the gardening, taking the laundry to the line, cooking meals and then after a long day of work, my Mimi, sister and I would sit on the tailgate of my grandfather’s old Ford pick-up truck and we’d drive up to the dock where we’d grill out on the boat watching the sunset dip behind the mountains with pinks and purples in the reflection of the water. It was heaven and honestly still to this day my favorite place on earth…

Fast forward to October 1st 2016 and I get a message from my dad “Hey Jess, just wanted you to know Mimi and Gramps house sold…” I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing- I had just finished photographing one of my good friend’s wedding in the Pocono Mountains and I was about to fall asleep when the words reflected off my eyes. My heart broke and a piece of me died that night. So I’ll spare you all the long boring details but basically in a nutshell my grandparents home, was a dream house- their retirement home and it wasn’t a small order… Their two story ranch style home was built into the side of a hill with a wrap around deck the length of the house, 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, with mountainous views to die for on 48 acres of land. This house required a minimum of two people (my grandparents) to take care it and the grounds. It was their new full-time job. After they past it was difficult to keep up with the maintenance since no one lived there. You ask “well why didn’t anyone choose to live there,” and the catch was  that the nearest grocery store was an hour away, gas was a good 20 minutes away and jobs non-existent…. So in the truest sense it was a retirement home.

Since moving to Columbus my ultimate goal is/was to move back (go figure right) but only if I could move into my grandparent’s home.  My passion for that house, the land, and my family legacy still burns strong. I have this big, scary, hairy, audacious dream and goal to one day own the house that has brought so much joy to my family. I want the house to sustain itself and I want to live there remotely and travel for photo gigs and other business. I also want to own and restore the restaurant that my great-grandparents, grandparents and parents owned called Howard’s Restaurant ‘quality food since 1936.’ I want to be a business mogul. I want to help people but most importantly I want to help the people who helped me first and restore the Howard legacy that seems to have been mishandled over the years. Uttering these words out loud and penning them for the world to see on the internet is scary… I think because I’m afraid of potential failure but nothing big is ever accomplished by playing small.  I think when you put your intention out into the world, the universe or God or source energy starts bringing to you what you desire. The house may have sold but I still dream of owning it one day.

In about a month I’m headed back east and my family have rented cabins for a week on the lake we grew up on. I can’t wait to spend quality time with the ones I love the most in most special place in the world. That’s all for now… xo, Jessy

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