year ago today I was sitting on the floor of my studio apartment surrounded by boxes. Not packing boxes. Not yet. Just the regular accumulation of a life I had carefully built. I had been studying for my licensure exams for months. The finish line was close enough to see. And then someone appeared in the doorway, and I knew — before a word was spoken — that everything was about to rearrange itself into something unrecognizable.

Somehow, across every season of my career and life, the most consistent title I've held has been "Guinea Pig." I'm the oldest of six, so by default I was the first test case. That role has followed me into adulthood — relentlessly. Being first doesn't mean being helpless. It means moving forward without certainty and staying long enough to learn from what works and what absolutely does not.

"Just do it" has been the most uncomfortable — and most important — lesson of my early career. At the transition between school and the professional world, I came face to face with something I didn't expect to be so paralyzing: the fear of not knowing enough. What I've learned is that growth, especially early on, often looks like doing the thing without support, resources, or a guarantee that you're the right person for it. You might just be.

My family never seemed to be talking about what might happen or dreaming out loud about what life could be. We were often too busy doing. Growing up on an undeveloped piece of land in rural California, I watched my parents shift hillsides, run irrigation lines, and build environments out of nothing. That mindset — have a plan, then go create it — is exactly what drew me to landscape architecture. Everything we draw is something we intend to do.