About Jeanine

After my mother died, it felt like the person I used to be died with her.

I remember describing it as having had a stroke. I had to relearn how to live, slowly and without a map. My chronic illnesses became more limiting.

​My son left home, and with that, my identity as a full-time mother and homeschool teacher began quietly dissolving. The roles that had held me together for years were ending one by one, and underneath them was a question that refused to leave me alone: if I'm no longer who I was, then who am I now?

For a long time, I couldn't answer it. So I stopped trying and started going along to get along instead. It required almost no effort. But it felt like I was fading into non-existence, slowly becoming less and less visible, even to myself.

The hardest part wasn't losing my old life. It was losing my own voice. It was wondering whether there was still someone inside me worth remembering.

I'd been in that in-between for years when something shifted, not dramatically, but quietly. I started noticing that all around me, women were talking about finding themselves and becoming who they were meant to be.

For me, it didn't feel like a trend. It felt like a calling. And I knew I couldn't keep waiting to become myself someday. I had to participate.

So I began to speak myself into existence.

I started imagining my future self, not as a stranger I had to become, but as someone I was trying to remember. I made small choices as her. I lived into a different story, one small moment at a time.

At first it felt awkward, almost like pretending. But over time, something changed. It stopped feeling like becoming someone new and started feeling like coming home.

For years I had believed that healing meant fixing everything that was wrong with me. Believe me, that approach never ends. There was always one more thing to heal, one more layer to excavate.

And eventually I started wondering: when do I get to just live?

What if my life didn't have to be a project?

​What if I could read a book because I loved it.

Have a cozy morning because cozy mornings make me happy. Notice autumn before it disappears. Rest without turning rest into another strategy for becoming better.

That's where I am now.

I still journal. I still light candles and create rituals. I'm still deeply spiritual. I still believe there is more to us than the stories we've been told about ourselves.

But I'm much less interested in endlessly fixing myself and much more interested in being here for my life.

And that's what The Comfort Apothecary has become, too.

I created this place for sensitive, easily overwhelmed women in midlife who are spiritually awakening—or who have been walking this path for years—and are ready for a little less striving and a little more living.

​Women who want to know themselves better, trust themselves more, make room for what they love, and create ordinary days that actually suit them.

Around here, we use tea, journaling, cozy rituals, self-discovery, spiritual self-care, books, seasonal living, and whatever else helps us come back to ourselves.

Maybe finding your way back to yourself isn't about finally becoming the woman you were meant to be. For me, it's about learning to live as peacefully as possible as the woman I am right now.