Connect What is the most rewarding part of being a mom?

There was a version of me that almost didn't make it through postpartum depression. I'm so glad she did. My kids are now 8 and 9, both gifted, both somehow the kindest people I know. They didn't get easy. They got a mom who was figuring it out in real time, through illness hard years. And they still think I hung the moon. That is the most humbling, rewarding feeling in the world.

What is the biggest lesson motherhood has taught you?

That you can be exhausted, chronically ill, and stretched impossibly thin and still be exactly what your kids need. I manage my POTS, care for my disabled father-in-law full time, run a business, and finish my degree. I have been every kind of tired. But my kids still run to me. Still choose me. That taught me that showing up imperfectly, honestly, with your whole cracked-open heart is not just enough. It is everything.

What would you do with $20,000?

Build 2 things my kids can be proud of. Blue Paper Boat is the small home-based embroidery business my husband and I funded with every dollar we had saved when he came home from Afghanistan. It's not just a business. It's what we built instead of falling apart. The other half goes toward my Master's in Social Work so I can spend my career showing up for vulnerable families the way I needed someone to show up for mine. I want to leave my kids a business and a purpose. Both feel worth betting on.