08/28/2026
Today is my 50ish birthday. 🎂
I’m the oldest daughter, granddaughter and niece on both sides of my family. For much of my life, I had five living generations of family.
Legacy has never been abstract to me. I grew up with it, and have always felt the weight of where I come from and some responsibility for what comes after me.
This is my teenage niece.
I look at her and see so much of myself. We share a bloodline and navigate life in some of the same ways. We are the same and different. And there are things I recognize in her now that I didn’t have the understanding or language to recognize in myself when I was her age.
Our collective and individual stories are woven into Hood Sensory’s fabric.
Hers gives me a chance to make some things different for what comes next. Mine gives me something to build from. And purpose is in there.
Hood Sensory is part of what I get to add to the legacy I inherited. To take what I’ve lived, learned and now understand about myself and hopefully make someone else’s experience a little better. Especially those coming behind me.
That gives me hope. There’s something about getting to see and know myself better, even if some of it comes later than I wish it had.
I can’t and wouldn’t change a lot of what came before me. But I can do something with it and leave something better behind me.
That’s legacy. 💜
