The Blueprint Beneath the Dream
There was a time when I lived as though life was something that simply happened to me. Constantly moved from town to town, and house to house, rooms were given, then taken. Belongings packed and unpacked. Nothing felt permanent, not even the people. We lived out of milk crates that could be carried at a moment’s notice, a constant reminder that roots were not for me.
It would be years, decades, before I learned the power of choice. Years before I understood that instability can also shape a different kind of foundation. I thought I was learning to survive. In truth, I was learning how to build.
When I started JASPER, I didn’t just want to build and renovate houses. I wanted to create spaces that hold permanence, steadiness, and memory. Homes that remind families that they belong, and that what is built with intention can last. Homes that are legacies for generations. That is the blueprint beneath every structure we raise.
The same is true for my book, Dreams That Matter. Writing it meant going back through the fragments of memory I'd left behind. I had to trace the outlines of the past to see the design beneath it. What emerged was not a story of loss, but a framework of resilience. Every chapter was a beam. Every remembered detail, a nail for the one I am building now.
What I want women like you to know is this: the blueprint is already inside of you. Even if life feels like it has been broken apart and moved a hundred times, you can choose to build with the pieces and create something new. You do not have to start from scratch. You get to design with what remains.
When I look back at the years of crates and temporary rooms, I can see now what I could not then. I was learning how to recognize what truly matters, how to carry only what could fit, how to notice what was worth building again. And in some way, I think that is what we are all called to do.
We may not get to choose the first houses we live in, but we do get to choose the life we build for ourselves and what we leave to those who come after us. And in that choosing, we reclaim the right to belong.
So when you think about your own life, I invite you to ask: what is the blueprint beneath my dream? What lessons are worth carrying into the life I am creating now? What beams from the past deserve to be part of the home I am building for my future?
Because what I have learned is that permanence is not given. It is built.
-Jasmine
