YOUR STORY · A PRIVATE MEMOIR
"What I want my children to know — even if I don't get to tell them in person — is that the small days were the real ones, and they were enough."
A chronological sketch of your life — events, people, places that shaped you. 11 milestones so far.
EditLiving relatives, ancestors, and what you remember of them. Helps Maya and Noah keep continuity.
EditThe principles you'd hand down. Written once; edited every year on your birthday.
EditGrandma's pasta sauce, the way mom made eggs. With photos and short stories of when you ate them.
Edit38 images. Each caption is the bit only you'd know — the joke, the smell, the year.
EditRecordings of you reading favorite books to the kids. Imperfect, real, irreplaceable.
EditEldest of three. My mother was a midwife; my father taught geography.
Best worst decision I ever made. Started designing books at a small press in Brooklyn.
34 guests, his dad's brisket, my dress was secondhand.
Sept 4. Eight pounds two ounces. My favorite human.
Three clients, one rented desk, no idea what we were doing.
Aug 3. Took us 16 hours. Worth every second.
The reason this app exists.
Promised myself I'd never make anyone I love sort through what I sorted through.
VALUES LETTER · LAST EDITED ON MY 37TH BIRTHDAY
Be kind on purpose. Most people are doing their best from where they're standing. Decide once that you'll assume that, and you'll be wrong sometimes, and you'll still come out ahead.
Boring is underrated. The boring routines — sleep, walking, calling your sister — are the foundation. The dramatic things take care of themselves.
Money is a tool, not a scoreboard. Use it to widen the floor — health, education, time with people you love. Resist using it to raise the ceiling on things you don't need.
Tell the truth, especially to yourself. Especially when it's unflattering. The cost of pretending is always more than the cost of admitting.
Do good work. Then close the laptop and come home for dinner.
A short list of the times I was wrong, what I would do differently, and what I'd tell a younger version of myself.
Edit · 6 entriesMy mother, my father, my husband, my sister, my friend Yara, my first boss Mr. Tomás.
Edit · 6 portraitsReleased to Maya at 18 and Noah at 18 — or earlier if Sam decides they're ready.
Edit · long letter