My phone broke, and I lost many contacts, all text threads, and some apps.

The USBC port on my laptop broke, and I don’t have my vertical screen.

The farm changes hands in less than a week.

Work is kicking up dust and chaos and demanding more time and attention.

I’m pushing movement on domestic projects.

Therapy is pushing me through walls that have been my “keep” and safety for decades.

My pen is full of words and urgencies that require my focus.

And I decided to take on one more thing: transition away from Microsoft Outlook to just one—and a very different—email client.

Sometimes hard times bring in the voices of mentors and ancestors, time-tested wisdom from people who’ve been through it.

Yesterday, I wasn’t channeling the voices of those past or older. They probably would have been where I felt like going: on the floor, wailing and flailing and kicking at the air. (I get it Dad.).

Yesterday, I was channeling my children and other youthful voices.

Yesterday was hard because it was different, not because it was impossibly difficult.

Who knew that I would channel my own once-impatient children for patience, for the openness that they’ve mastered?

“No, Mom. That’s not how this app works.”

I’m still opening my Outlook intermittently just to check. But deep breaths and the voices of the younger generation kept me seated and open to sorting out where to click and why, how to sort and save, how to embrace a new interface.

A New Interface

That’s what I’m facing.

Transitioning from farm to travel for retreats. Shifting from working for someone else to building my own source of income. Letting go of some familiar ways of doing things and figuring out what comes next.

It’s new.

It’s exciting.

And there will be more mornings when I’ll want to slam my body to the floor and throw a tantrum.

I’ll channel—and maybe sometimes call—my children instead.

The parent-child dynamic is changing.

And that’s okay.

©Pennie Nichols. All Rights Reserved. 2026