Twenty years ago, I left the Ozark hills and moved to Kansas City. I became a student of massage and energy therapies at the Massage Therapy Training Institute. Fresh out of my teens, I was hungry to learn all about holistic healing modalities, herbs, nutrition, spirituality, metaphysics and magic. I wasn’t married at this young age and was known by my maiden name, Leanne Jernigan.

One evening during a class, a woman I was paired with for practice asked what my last name was. When I told her it was Jernigan, she whispered, “Jernigan…Journey Again.”

I hadn’t thought much about my surname, but after that night, I liked to think that maybe it had origins rooted in a band of traveling peoples or gypsies of sort. It made me think about reincarnation and how each chapter of our lives is a new journey.

In 2012 my boyfriend and I moved back to the Ozarks and one year later we married. I was happy to take my husband’s name, but a little sad to let go of Jernigan. When the idea for this blog was born, I immediately thought Journey Again would be the perfect name to use. Each day, week, month, season and year we Journey Again.