Grace in the Grit - A Tribute to Resilience, Legacy and Quiet Clarity Wrapped in Humility

Grace in the Grit - A tribute to resilience, legacy and quiet clarity wrapped in humility.

With Oklahoma in the rearview, we set our sights on the Mighty Mississippi.

Always a sight—despite the winding, converging highways that try to confuse the approach.
A major hub.
A threshold.
And in my mind’s eye, I saw myself in the rearview.
Where I was.
Who I was becoming.
All the stress, effort, the crazy “why nots”—throwing myself at life sometimes with reckless abandonment.
And sometimes, clawing through the day and night just to make it to the next.

Like when my car needed repairs.

I did all my work on the side of the street.
Gaines Street, off Friar’s Road—perched on a hill with the University of San Diego rising behind me and Sea World, Mission Bay, and Point Loma stretched out below like a living map of possibility.
No garage. No lift. Just me, my tools, and a car that demanded attention.

I already knew how to change the oil—Dad had taught me that years ago.
The trick was figuring out how to do it without the jacks.
Street-side, no luxury.
Just a Citation angled just right so I could squeeze between the tire and the fender.
It wasn’t glamorous.
It was earned.

I had no money for a mechanic on a starving student’s pay.

I had to be the mechanic.
And funny thing—I embraced the work.
Maybe it was the one place where I knew what I was doing, even if it was the first time tackling a new repair.
It was the one place in this crazy chapter of my life where I felt at home.

My skills expanded as I needed them—radiator swap, headlights, the occasional fuse.
Each repair a small triumph.
Each challenge a notch in the belt of self-reliance.
Blown head gasket.
Two lifters.
A rod.

With each fix, I learned how to turn a wrench with the best of them.
And somewhere between the oil changes and the radiator swaps, I found I liked the work.
It felt good.
It gave me something I didn’t always have—confidence.
The kind that doesn’t come from praise or perfection, but from doing.
From solving.
From crawling under a car and coming out with grease on my hands and a problem fixed.

A lot of times, I lacked that confidence in other parts of life.

But out there, on that curb, with the socket wrench in hand and Dad’s voice on the other end—I felt capable.
I felt strong.
I felt like I could take on whatever came next.

Both my parents were doers.
They embraced everything life threw at them and came out on top.
And if that wasn’t enough, they added to the heap—Girl Scout leader, Den Mother, sometimes both at once.
Weekend camping trips to Vermont, packed cars, muddy boots, and laughter echoing through the trees.
Terribly large shoes to fill.
And I wanted to try.

Maybe that’s why I embraced the work.

Why I didn’t flinch when the head gasket blew or the radiator cracked.
Because somewhere deep down, I knew that doing—really doing—was part of my inheritance.
Not just fixing cars.
But facing life with sleeves rolled up and heart wide open.

And through all the clutter—burnt relationships, the chaos of balancing work and college—working on the car gave me a way to fix something.
Something tangible.
Something that made sense.

And I knew it made sense, because the parts are true.
They’re built to go together in an exact way.
You can count on it.
Unlike so much else in that chapter of my life, the engine didn’t lie.
It didn’t ghost you.
It didn’t pretend to be something it wasn’t.
It just needed attention.
And when you gave it that, it responded.

From that hill, I could see Mission Bay with the Pacific stretched out beyond it due west.

The ocean didn’t just shimmer—it oriented me.
It reminded me where I was, and more importantly, where I was headed.

West was freedom.
East was purpose.
Yet, in that freedom, I found purpose.

Not the kind that waits patiently at the end of a road trip.
But the kind you discover—through everyday life, through the effort of getting through each day.
Purpose wasn’t just waiting.
It was revealed through motion, through grit, through the quiet work of becoming.

I thought I kinda knew who I was.

But in fact, I had no clue.
Honestly, I didn’t have confidence—I just got good at pretending.
Most of the time, I threw myself forward without a plan.
Perhaps just throwing myself forward was the plan.
Maybe that seemingly reckless jump was faith disguised as confidence.
If I hadn’t jumped… would I have landed in San Diego?

But the car didn’t let me fake it.

It demanded patience.
It required attention.
It taught me that even when you leap, you still have to land—and sometimes, you land on the side of Gaines Street with a busted lifter and a wrench in hand.

That curb on Gaines Street wasn’t just where I fixed the car.
It’s where I began to rebuild myself.
I didn’t realize it then, but it was my first workshop in resilience.
Every repair, every misstep, every leap—part of the blueprint.
The transformation wasn’t sudden.
It was slow.
Earned.
Through grease, grit, and the quiet, deliberate work of becoming.

#theprairieYankee. #FromNewEnglandtoOklahoma #ALoveStoryAcrossTheOceans #theJourneyHome

Author’s Note

This chapter lives in the rearview, but its lessons ride with me still.
Gaines Street wasn’t just a place—it was a proving ground.
A reminder that sometimes, the most meaningful growth happens when no one’s watching.
When you’re broke, tired, and elbow-deep in engine grease.
It taught me that resilience isn’t loud—it’s quiet, deliberate, and often disguised as survival.

I didn’t know then that I was building the foundation for the leader I’d become.
Or that those curbside repairs would shape how I approach complexity, grit, and grace today.
But looking back, I’m grateful for every busted part and every leap that didn’t feel like a leap at all.

As Dad always said— “Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.”
And maybe that’s what I was doing all along.

Thanks for reading.

—Janine