Hi, I’m Autumn

I’m Autumn, the founder of PorchLight and author of women’s fiction novel, The Diary of Rosalie Shepherd.

As a biomedical engineer, I worked in the medical device/pharmaceutical world for years. I tried different jobs with different levels of responsibility, but I never liked it. The more I learned, the more anti-pharmaceutical I became, to the point it felt like a conflict of interest to work in the field any longer. I experienced many nights lying awake with guilt for what I was contributing toward.

After many talks with my now husband about what kind of life we wanted for our future family, we decided it was best for me to leave my job to be a stay at home wife and, one day, a stay at home mom.

I thought the SAHM lifestyle would finally fulfill the emptiness I had felt for years, but after a year went by and I wasn’t feeling much different, I realized I had a huge misconception about the SAHM lifestyle...being a stay at home mom doesn’t equate to having more freedom or time. The reality is that it requires a lot of sacrifice. It’s hard work, both mentally and physically.

I realized that the SAHM lifestyle alone wasn’t the answer to my lack of fulfillment, and I started questioning whether a person’s title or lifestyle had anything to do with their happiness.

It wasn’t until one day when I asked myself a different question that I finally found the answer I’d been looking for…I asked myself what kind of person I wanted to be.

That question reframed everything for me. The answer changed how I started living my life.

My answer was I wanted to be warm.

As a millennial girl, the concept of allowing myself to be warm always felt wrong…it went against everything millennials were taught.

Being warm means being vulnerable. It means allowing yourself to care and feel. It requires you to go the extra mile for others. To be truly present. To stop viewing relationships as transactions and start treating them as the most important part of your life. It would mean taking a look in the accountability mirror to see where you aren’t showing up for your people. It would mean taking the blame off all the systems and people around you and putting it on yourself.

Warmth feels anti-feminist. It feels anti-corporate. Anti-independence, even. For millennial women taught to value independence over pretty much everything, warmth feels wrong.

I’ve met a few women in my lifetime who’ve felt warm and they were all from different walks of life. Their warmth had nothing to do with what their title was, how much money they had or how well-styled their home was. There was just something about them that made them feel approachable, sincere, thoughtful…warm…like the kind of woman who leaves her porch light on, welcoming the people she loves whenever they need her.

That image, leaving the porch light on, quickly became like a guiding star for me. I found myself being more present with my loved ones. I started being more proactive, anticipating the needs of the people around me. I started feeling more warm and, more importantly, more fulfilled.

That image is what lead me to create PorchLight. I wanted to share my guiding star with other women who could benefit from it.

To be clear, I’m not who I want to be yet, not totally. But, I’m a lot closer than I was before.

PorchLight isn’t meant to tell you how to be perfect or that you need to be some idealized woman. We all have our flaws. It’s meant to help you make better decisions every day. It’s meant to be a tool in your journey. To support you, guide you, and encourage you. Less pressure, more support. I think that’s what we could all use most.

As the birth of PorchLight is underway, I’m excited to share more of my journey in becoming warm, and I’m hopeful that my story can inspire you to begin your own journey in becoming the kind of person you want to be.

So, what can you expect from PorchLight?

• Meaningful stories, like The Diary of Rosalie Shepherd, that dive into the real problems women today face.
• Thoughtfully designed apparel and products meant to remind you of who you’re becoming, because the things we surround ourselves with shape the lives we build.
• My personal insights on the work of becoming warm. I’m writing about: becoming the kind of woman who notices, welcomes, gives, remembers, and loves her people well; motherhood and marriage, home and hospitality, beauty in the ordinary, and the little rituals that make a life feel like yours; the cultural ideas I’m questioning about success, ambition, productivity, and what makes a life meaningful.

This began as my story, but my hope is that PorchLight becomes part of yours…a reminder that the most meaningful life isn’t built by chasing the next achievement, but by becoming the kind of person whose life brings light to others…the kind of woman whose life leaves the porch light on.

Remember, it’s not about perfection. It’s about becoming.

Dearly,

Autumn