Groundhog Day

As a kid, I’d wake up excited to see if Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow. I always wished for an early spring so I could ride my bike to RadioShack after school, every girls dream. Snow felt like an inconvenience to my curiosity.

These days, I hope for six more weeks of winter - more snow in the mountains means less smoke in the summer, and more sustenance for mother nature. Ground hog’s day has become about climate change.

But this date goes even deeper for me.

During my freshman year, February 2nd was the day I started a new high school in Angola, Indiana. Just a week earlier, I came home from a day of Wisconsin skiing (IYKYK). Per usual, I walked past my mom’s room where she occupied the bed in her dimly lit bedroom. She had battled alcoholism my whole life and most of hers, and I tended to keep my distance.

But that day, she called me in. And that day I went in. Her face was bruised and battered, worse than usual, and I can still recall the look of her face matching the blue walls and blue bedding in that room. I still don’t fully know what happened to her that day, but I knew it was finally time to go.

I called my sister at her job at The Gap (hero status), and she called my dad. She stayed to finish high school. I left. My clothes went into a trash bag. No real goodbyes, just another fresh start. By then, it was the eighth time I’d moved schools by the age of fourteen.

On that day at AHS, I met Tony and Catter - still close friends. I joined track and found not just talent, but direction. That path led to design, to architecture, to Nike, and ultimately to founding Physical Space—a mission rooted in my past: finding sanctuary in the everyday. I wake up every day to create environments where people feel they can connect, belong, and find human connection.

For me, Groundhog Day isn’t about repetition. It’s the day everything begins again.