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Content Warning: This email includes stories about pet loss.

Well, hello again.

I’m back in your inbox after my Silent September hiatus.

The time away was… not what I expected.

Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. I had a strong intuitive hunch that I needed to clear some space in August and September. I could feel intensity building in my life, and I didn’t want to bypass whatever was happening by doubling down on work and service—an old and familiar pattern.

So, I made the executive decision (because, reminder, that’s benefit numero uno of being self-employed) to Marie Kondo my to-do list for a few months and see what ripe summer tomatoes life wanted to lob in my direction.

I talked about my decision in the podcast mini-episode, “Giving Yourself Permission to Pause.” Check it out if you feel an intuitive nudge.

On August 18th, 10 days after I recorded that episode, my dog, Hank, died very unexpectedly of cancer.

We had no idea he was sick. He started acting a bit funny the week before. He had an ultrasound that diagnosed the cancer on Thursday, and we said goodbye to him the following Monday. It was emotional whiplash.

I didn’t share this before, but we lost my dog Joanie back in January. Honestly, I was just waking up from my grief haze from losing her. Then Hank died, and I got pulled back into the sea of sorrow by a crushing wave of grief. It felt like too much, too quickly.

A little backstory here…

Jonathan and I adopted three beagles between 2010 and 2015, when we lived in Texas. We didn’t realize at the time that the beagles were all around the same age. When you get a new dog, you don’t think about when they’ll die. You just think about how cute and fluffy and perfect they are and how damn lucky you are to have found them. But eventually, all of our stories end the same way. And unfortunately for us, that meant that one day, far, far into the future, we would likely experience a series of losses very close together.

Apparently, that time has arrived.

And it’s fucking terrible.

As a childfree couple, our beagles are our family. To lose them in such quick succession has been unmooring. I’ve been staring at a blinking cursor here for several long minutes, trying to find something positive to say, but there is nothing. The sorrow we feel is proportional to our love for them.

So, my Silent September was spent swimming in the waters of grief.

I took off the last two weeks of August (which was much easier to do since I’d already decided I wouldn’t publish new content in September). We booked an Airbnb in the forest for a family grief retreat with our remaining pup, Tripp—who, as irony would have it, is the oldest and most health-challenged of the beagle trio.

I spent hours each day sitting with the Salmon River, listening to the water, the land, and to the deepest voice within myself.

I feel a deep kinship with rivers. They are where I feel most at home and can hear my intuition most clearly. Earlier this year, I remembered that I grew up next to the river—the street was literally called Riverside Drive. Ha! It was a real “well, duh” moment. I laughed and laughed at myself for not having realized it earlier! The spirit of the river has always been an ally for me.

We spent the week talking, crying, laughing, snuggling with Tripp, watching the new season of King of the Hill, and being with nature.

It was exactly what it needed to be.

Then we came home and immediately started sharing our space with the contractors who were here to help us repair our flooded basement and leaky foundation. Weeks of jackhammering and digging and watching my mold-riddled future be carted off to the dump—symbols of this chapter of my life coming to a close.

Grief and sorrow are my loving companions in this moment.

I’m choosing not to turn away from the pain. I’m choosing to turn towards the sorrow with reverence, love, and gratitude. And while I’m still feeling the waves of disorientation that come with grief—accidentally deleting emails, forgetting to show up for appointments, finding nonsensical Post-It notes in the most random places—I’m also hearing and honoring the deeper truths being revealed to me through grief. Truths about who I am, what I’m meant to do, and what else I need to release as I begin the next chapter of my life.

To be present with your own evolution is the greatest gift.

To have the agency and resources to steer the ship of your life in whatever direction you feel called is the greatest privilege.

These are gifts for those of us who have chosen the challenging, liberating path of entrepreneurship. And it’s our duty to use them—for ourselves, and by extension, for the collective.

Many more thoughts to come. But for now, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite pictures—the beagles in the backseat of our car on our drive from Houston to Portland (which, btw, is the sweetest, quirkiest, loveliest “war-ravaged” city you’ll ever see) in April 2016.

To me, this photo is a reminder that new chapters are full of hope and possibility, and that all things—even the best, most amazing things—are impermanent.

Give everyone you love a big squeeze this weekend.