Someday Became Today

I’ve been posting blogs for a while now, and if you’ve read them, you know a bit of my history and how I got here.

Seasonal Echoes has always been a part of me, I think. I just didn’t know it until all the dots connected.

A few weekends ago, I poured my beginning inventory for launch.

Not test candles. Not another batch to see if I liked a fragrance or needed to change a wick.

Inventory.

That word felt different.

My candles are becoming actual inventory. There are labels and dust covers and photographs and followers asking when they can buy. People I know are telling me they’re waiting for the website to go live.

My mom has already placed her pre-order by phone.

She has been one of my biggest cheerleaders through all of this. She listens to the ideas, asks about the candles and celebrates the little milestones with me - even the ones that probably don’t seem very milestone-ish to anyone else.

And somewhere along the way, the thing I kept imagining started becoming tangible.

It’s funny because dreams don’t usually announce the moment they become real. There isn’t necessarily a dramatic finish line. It’s hundreds of tiny decisions and “I’ll try this” moments until one day you look around and realize:

I’m doing it.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about doing the thing.

The world recently lost Dolly Parton, and since then there have been stories, memories and words of hers shared everywhere. It’s hard not to read them and think about a life spent actually doing the things - writing the song, taking the chance, trying something that might not work - all while never forgetting where she came from.

No matter how far life took her, she carried her roots with her.

Maybe there’s a lesson in both.

Remember where you came from. And don’t be afraid to see where you can go.

You don’t have to know exactly where something will lead before you begin.

Seasonal Echoes certainly didn’t come with a map. There have been plenty of wrong turns, changed plans and ideas that sounded much better in my head. There have also been ideas that started as one little thought and somehow turned into something I couldn’t have imagined when I began.

But every little “I’ll try this” moved me closer to here.

So maybe someday doesn’t have to stay someday.

Make your someday today.

Maybe I feel that more deeply at this time of year.

Three years ago, on September 30, I lost my dad.

There are so many things I wish I could tell him. Things I wish I could show him. I wish he could see what I’m building.

When I was building out my candle studio, I thought about him a lot. There were so many times I know I would have picked up the phone and called him to ask, “Dad, how would you do this?”

And truthfully, he probably wouldn’t have just told me.

He would have been right there beside me helping me figure it out.

I wish he could see the finished studio. I wish he could see the shelves filling with candles and know that this crazy little idea I had is becoming something real.

Mostly, though, I just miss my dad.

And when I do, Mom is still here.

She’s the person who hears it when I need to say that I miss him. She knew and loved him too, so I don’t have to explain why a particular memory suddenly got to me or why some days are harder than others.

And at the same time, she’s here watching me do this.

That isn’t something I want to overlook.

She’s cheering me on, waiting for the launch, and making sure she gets her candle. She gets to see my someday becoming today.

And I get to have her here for it.

Not only for the big moments, either. The ordinary ones matter just as much. The conversations you don’t know you’ll miss while you’re having them. The questions you don’t realize you’ll someday wish you could still ask. The simple comfort of knowing someone is there.

Maybe that’s another thing I’ve learned about someday.

We tend to save it for the big things - the dream, the trip, the business, the thing we’ve always wanted to try.

But someday lives in the little things, too.

The phone call. The visit. The story you’ve heard a hundred times. Sitting together doing absolutely nothing remarkable.

Those are the moments that somehow become the ones we’d give anything to have back.

Seasonal Echoes was built around the idea that scent can unlock a memory. But the longer I do this, the more I realize that memories are hiding everywhere - in a scent, a song, a place, an old photograph, something someone used to say.

Sometimes even in the instinct to pick up the phone and ask your dad how he would do something.

And sometimes, if we’re lucky, we still have someone on the other end of the phone who remembers him too.

So yes, do the thing.

Take the chance. Write the song. Start the business. Make the thing you’ve been thinking about making.

But don’t get so focused on someday that you miss today - or the people who are here beside you for it.

Call them. Visit them. Listen to the story again. Let them preorder the candle before the website is even open.

Don’t save all of it for someday.

Make your someday today.