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USA250 Journal Project
Personal Chronicle: July 4, 2025 – July 5, 2026
A gift for reflection. A record of now. A story for what’s next.
✍️ Janelle Hartman – “Who am I?”
I’m Janelle Hartman. Not a wife, not a mother. Just a woman who left Tulsa with more questions than answers and a hunger for stories that didn’t come from the pulpit.
I’m someone who edits for a living and rewrites herself every few years.
Who believes in the power of words—especially the ones we’re told not to say out loud.
Who sends postcards instead of ultimatums. Who loves deeply, even when it’s inconvenient.
I’m the sister who stayed close by letting go.
The aunt who folds poetry into envelopes.
The woman who learned that being “too much” is just what happens when you stop shrinking.
I don’t reject faith. I just think it should be big enough to hold mystery.
I believe in second chances, long phone calls, and the right to ask “What if?”
I am, above all, someone who wants to make space—for voices, for questions, for truth that isn’t scared of its own shadow.
✍️ Janelle Hartman – “How did I get here?”
I got here by stepping off the path they laid out for me.
Tulsa taught me to color inside the lines—to smile at church, say yes politely, marry early, and believe everything could be solved with prayer and pie. But I always felt like I was humming a different song underneath the choir.
When I left at nineteen, it wasn’t rebellion. It was survival.
Austin didn’t care what I believed. It handed me library cards and late-night poetry readings, long walks with strangers who became chosen family. I started editing small-press books—memoirs no one else wanted to touch. And in the stories I helped shape, I found pieces of myself.
Rebecca stayed. Built her life with Mark, raised two beautiful, complicated kids. I never judged her for it. But I won’t pretend there isn’t a wall between us—built from doctrine, softened only by memory.
Still, we’ve found our ways.
She sends me drawings from Lilah. I send back postcards with poems and pressed flowers. I call. Sometimes she answers. Sometimes she writes back. Sometimes silence stretches longer than I like—but it never breaks.
I got here by choosing freedom, even when it meant missing Sunday dinners and baby showers and the easy closeness of a shared belief.
What has life taught me?
That proximity isn’t the only kind of love.
That stories can outlast silence.
And that the people you leave behind don’t always stay behind.
Sometimes they follow the trail you never meant to leave.
Family
Rebecca Davis – Sister.
Mark Davis – Brother inlaw.
Caleb Davis – Nephew.
Lilah Davis – Niece.
