It Started With A 404 Error

Sometimes life has an odd sense of humor.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, my family escaped to Big Bear Lake to give our dog a break from the fireworks back home. One evening, I logged onto my website for what I thought would be a quick check. I was curious how my music page connected to my Spotify streams, but instead I found a 404 error. I figured I'd fix the broken link in a few minutes and get back to enjoying our vacation.

Three days and about eight hours later, I had rewritten nearly my entire website.

The website I had written several years ago wasn't wrong. It reflected who I was at the time. But since then, I've returned to practicing law, released songs in my own voice, and written many more songs. More importantly, I've come to understand myself a little better. As I read through the website, I kept thinking, "This doesn't sound like me anymore."

What surprised me wasn't the editing. It was what I discovered while doing it.

For years, I would have described myself as someone who overthinks. Somewhere during this process, I realized that isn't actually what I do at all. I pay attention.

I pay attention to people, ideas, conversations, research, music, and the world around me. I love learning. Once something captures my attention, I keep exploring until I understand it. Then, almost instinctively, I want to turn around and share what I've learned with someone else.

Looking back, I realized that no matter where life has taken me, I’ve always approached it the same way. I pay attention. I learn everything I can, I try to understand it deeply, and then I find myself wanting to share what I’ve learned with someone else. Whether I’m practicing law, helping families in the Down syndrome community, or writing songs, that instinct keeps showing up.

Another realization surprised me even more. For a long time, I thought my story was one of reinvention. In some ways, it is. But I think it's even more a story of becoming intentional.

There was a time when I mostly followed the path that happened to be in front of me. Wonderful opportunities appeared, and I stepped into them. Somewhere along the way, though, curiosity stopped being something that simply happened to me. It became something I chose to follow.

As I looked back over my life, I noticed something else. The biggest changes rarely started with big decisions. They usually began with a small interruption that invited me to see something differently: a conversation that challenged me to look at my life through a different lens, a song that appeared during a drive, a birthday challenge that became Music Monday, and now... a broken link.

Somewhere in the middle of rewriting those pages, I realized I wasn’t really fixing a website. The website wasn’t wrong. It was simply introducing a version of me that I’d outgrown. I wasn’t trying to change my story. I was trying to tell it more honestly.

When I finished, the website no longer felt like a resume. It felt like me. Not just a songwriter, or a lawyer, or an advocate, but someone who is endlessly curious, who loves learning, and who finds joy in sharing what she discovers along the way.

A 404 error means, "The page you're looking for can't be found."

Ironically, it led me to realize that the version of me reflected on my website couldn’t be found anymore either. It had gradually given way to someone who had grown, learned, and become more intentional.