Built Differently - Letter #0

The body knows. The mind overrides. Let's override the override. 

This isn't a highlight reel. It's context so you know who's talking to you before we go anywhere together. 

I'm sitting on my porch in the Hudson Valley, in the sun, completely at peace. I almost didn't get here.  Not here as in this porch, but here as in this version of myself. As I sip my coffee, I hear the wind chimes as tall as I am. I smell incense in the air. I see a giant Buddha head watching over the garden. No, I'm not a Buddhist, but he's my visual reminder to pause and exhale. I activate my five senses and feel instant calm. I live in the same zip code where I started, and I've come to understand that circling back wasn't a retreat...it was a return. 

I come from people who trusted themselves before the world told them to. 

I'm Patty, youngest of six. We didn't have much, but what we had was the thing most people spend their whole lives chasing: a home full of love and genuine happiness. My mom had the love and patience of an angel. My dad was ahead of his time in ways we didn't fully appreciate then...organic gardens, a spiritual path, magnesium before anyone knew what magnesium was. He didn't listen to the experts. He walked out of doctors' offices (and was "fired" as a patient many times). He listened to himself and we honestly thought he was crazy. At 91, he passed in my home, on his own terms, with me and my mother beside him. I was his death doula before I knew the word existed. 

And then there's this: somewhere between my infancy and age seven, a meditation master named Vethathiri Maharishi spent extended time being housed by our family (aka, crazy dad). We called him Swamiji. He told my parents I was different, and I had abilities that many didn't. He lived an impactful life, and India put his face on a postage stamp in 2006. Over the past five years I’ve started to connect the dots on what he meant.

I took the long way. On purpose, and not on purpose. 

Having summers off as an elementary art teacher in Key West will do things to you. I once drove to Alaska and back, camping, showering at truck stops, sleeping roadside, completely alive in the inconvenience of it. America is the most beautiful place I've ever traveled. I've also crossed Europe by rail, cruised the Nile during two weeks in Egypt, took a train through Peru to Machu Picchu, and toggled between roughing it and full luxury in Mexico. Planes, trains, automobiles, boats, and everything in between. Every version of travel taught me something the comfortable version never could. That's what happens when you say yes to opportunity, which includes risk, and stop overriding yourself. 

Every Sacred Traveler has a detour they didn't see coming. My life blew up before I turned 30. It sent me back to the Hudson Valley a different person, with a much clearer sense of what home actually means. I swore off love entirely. Loudly. ...but the universe laughed and I remarried.

I would have thrown my first wedding ring into the Hudson River except it was my mother's, and to me it represented six kids, 64 years of marriage, and the foundation I come from. What I didn't expect was a second husband confident enough in himself and in us that he encouraged me to wear my mother's set instead of the one he gave me. He understood what it symbolized and what it meant to honor it. ...and so I did. I always will. And someday, it will go to my daughter when she marries. Some people are just built different. Trent is one of them.

The life we have now wasn't handed to either of us. We built it, sometimes beautifully, sometimes barely. 

My husband Trent is fire. I'm water. Somewhere between his risk-taking and my rein-pulling, we built something real. Our marriage wasn't always in flow, but we both committed to self-work, because you can't fix anything outside yourself before you take an honest look inside. When we did that, everything expanded, including my heart which continues to expand with gratitude for him and the lessons we've taught each other. 

Inside our home: our 16-year-old daughter, our 14-year-old son, an elder rescue dog, an adopted Turkish Angora cat, and my 91-year-old mother, who has her own apartment here. One of my brothers, my sister, and two nieces live on my street. My mother-in-law is ten minutes away in the home Trent grew up in.

We've had three pregnancies and have two children. That story will come in a future letter. What I will say is that one of the greatest lessons parenthood has handed me is that it isn't about being the boss who is always right. It's about nurturing my children toward their own path, with a solid moral compass, and staying humble enough to let them teach me. ...and yes, they surely have. I can lead with love and also listen with compassion. I empower them to do the same. I believe there is no greater gift than the student surpassing the teacher. 

I've kept the same close girlfriends since junior high...loyal cheerleaders, lifters, not jealous sabotagers. All relationships require nurturing, and those women have been with me across every mile of this road. I've lost enough people to understand how precious that is. You'll never hear me complain about aging...my heart holds too many who were denied the privilege. 

For over twenty years, I had a secret that was slowly asking to be set free. 

I was a singer-songwriter in the closet. The thought of sharing it triggered a full physical shutdown... vulnerability, fear of judgment, impostor syndrome times a million. Songwriting was the one place my override couldn't reach me. The truth got written down before my mind could talk me out of it. But everything else stayed locked. 

Then 2021 stopped my world. A health scare and a grief I couldn't find words for any other way pushed me through my terror barrier, and eventually, my debut album, Divine Epiphany, was born from it. Legendary musicians ended up playing on it, which still feels surreal to say out loud. Life forced my hand, scaring me with "what if you're out of time?" ...and I'm now grateful it did. 

I've slowly learned how to take care of myself. 

I meditate. I'm spiritual. I've seen glimpses of the unexplainable. Human Design and the Gene Keys handed me a map that finally made sense of how I'm wired, how my family is wired, and my compassion expanded because of it. I read my food labels. I lean holistic, though I see the value in western medicine too. I exercise twice a week because my heart made that non-negotiable. Band practice once a week. And I've finally learned that critical self-care includes calendaring white space the way some people calendar meetings, because overwhelm is not a personality trait. It's a signal, and I kept ignoring it until I couldn't anymore. 

I also own and operate a software company, homeschool my kids, hold a real estate license, and have two short-term rentals with Trent. I share that not to impress you, but because it matters for context: I know what it is to be pulled in every direction at once, and I still had to learn the hard way that doing more is not the same as living well. 

I'm turning 50 at the end of this year. Not a crisis. An arrival. 

And with it, a burning desire to help others get back to listening to their own inner authority. To hold up the mirror so you can see yourself again. That's what The Override is. 

It's the thread running through the chapters that unknowingly taught you to think outside of your own inner knowing. Borrowing the beliefs of others. Spending years, maybe decades, silencing your core. Overriding the gut, the instinct, the discomfort that was actually trying to tell you something. We get so good at it we stop noticing we're doing it at all. 

These letters are invitations to slow down long enough to hear yourself again. Some will challenge how you've been conditioned to think. Some will feel like a mirror, a flashlight, or a deep exhale. Some will hand you tools. And some will simply remind you that your inner voice was never gone. You just got really good at talking over it. 

One letter a week. Brief enough to read on the toilet. No overwhelm, no performance, just honest conversations between fellow travelers. 

That's who's driving.  Now, buckle up, Buttercup. 

'Til next time, 

Your Fellow Traveler, Patty 

Keep on walking with me...no noise, no overwhelm, just occasional reflections for the road. I'll ping you when the next letter is published.

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The road gets clearer when you don't walk it alone. You already know if this is for you.