A Wider Frame

January 19, 2026

I’ve been sorting a bookcase.

Not with a plan.

Not with intention.

Just pulling things off shelves, stacking,

deciding what stays and what goes.

In the middle of that,

I found two books from my family.

One was gifted in 1938 to my grandfather and his brother.

Tucked inside the book was a handwritten note from their grandmother remembering the men who came before them. All three of the men named in the note were doctors. It wasn’t written as a declaration or a legacy statement. Just a quiet note marking who they were and the work they did.

The other was a memorial issue of a medical journal honoring my great aunt, who died in 1964 at the age of forty-four. A Japanese woman. A physician and researcher whose work significantly shaped the field of steroid research. Her family was interned during World War II. She didn’t live long, and she didn’t live loudly. She showed up and did the work in front of her.

It wasn’t a thin tribute or a ceremonial publication. The journal was more than two hundred pages long. Dense with research. Medical terminology. Cell diagrams. Abstracts, discussions, and results. Page after page of work that required precision, rigor, and sustained intellectual effort. The kind of work that doesn’t exist unless someone keeps showing up, day after day, inside complexity.

Holding those books, I felt something shift.

For most of my life, I’ve carried a narrow story about myself. That I’m a girl from a small town whose family ran a grocery store. That my role has been practical. Local. Contained.

But that isn’t the whole truth.

I’m also a woman who comes from doctors. From people who worked at scale. From one woman whose work left a real mark on medicine. I don’t say that because I’m meant to replicate it. I say it because it widens the frame I place myself in.

And then—tucked between books—I found two cards.

From two different women,

Living in different states.

Who came into my life in completely different ways,

Saying basically the same thing:

“You inspire me.”

“Thank you for adding value to my life.”

I had forgotten about them.

And that’s when something clicked.

For a long time, I’ve been stuck in a strange paralysis. I care deeply about impact—about doing something meaningful with my life. And because of that, I’ve been unable to decide what to do next.

I stew.

I think.

I wait.

I feel my body freeze.

I tell myself I need clarity. Direction. A plan.

But what I’m really doing is aiming at impact—trying to choose something important enough to justify taking up space.

And when you do that, nothing moves.

What I saw, standing there with those books and those cards in my hands, is that impact has never worked that way in my family. And it hasn’t worked that way in my life either.

My great aunt didn’t wake up thinking, I’m going to change medicine.

My family didn’t set out to build a hundred-year business.

I didn’t decide to inspire anyone.

They showed up.

They did the work that needed to be done.

They stayed in motion.

And impact followed quietly, without being chased.

The cards weren’t written because I had a title.

They weren’t written because I had a business or a platform.

They were written because I showed up as myself, without trying to matter.

That’s the part I forget.

When I’m not in a clearly defined role, a voice creeps in that says, No one will want you.

That voice has nothing to do with truth.

It’s trauma wiring. It’s conditioning. It’s what happens when usefulness gets tangled up with worth.

But the proof was already on the shelf.

Not in a vision statement.

Not in a plan.

Not in a future projection.

In evidence I wasn’t even looking for.

I don’t need to decide how to make an impact.

I don’t need a big plan or a perfect direction.

I need something real to show up for, and the freedom to let it be enough.

I need to trust that the current I come from still moves through me—even when I’m between chapters.

And somewhere in all of it, I was reminded that I am not as small as I have let myself believe.