Hi, I'm Adelaide
My
Story
I have always had this feeling that there was more.
More to see. More to learn. More ways to live. More ways to teach. More ways to help people feel capable of creating lives that actually feel like their own.
I grew up in rural Indiana and became the teacher I had always wanted to be. I loved education. I still do.
But somewhere along the way, I started realizing that loving something and believing every system surrounding it works perfectly are two very different things.
I became more skeptical of systems than I am of people.
When a student is struggling, I don't immediately assume they don't care.
When a teacher is burning out, I don't assume they picked the wrong career.
When someone feels stuck, overwhelmed, or disconnected from themselves, I don't think the answer is always to try harder.
I want to know what is getting in the way.
And then I usually want to make something about it.
I went looking for more.
After years of teaching in Indiana, I knew I needed a change. I didn't have a perfect plan. I just knew there had to be more ways to teach, live, and experience the world than the ones I had seen so far.
So I left.
I spent three and a half years traveling the country as a teacher, much of that time living in my campervan. I taught in different states, school systems, communities, and classrooms. I spent weekends and school breaks on the road. I housesat in beautiful homes, drove across the country, met incredible students, and accepted a few teaching positions that taught me very quickly why some hard-to-fill positions are, in fact, hard to fill.
I saw schools doing beautiful things.
I saw other schools spending enormous amounts of energy solving problems I had already watched another district solve.
I saw similar students described completely differently depending on the adults, community, and systems around them.
And I started asking more questions.
Is this actually required?
Is this the only way to do it?
Who is this system working for?
Where is the person actually getting stuck?
Has someone, somewhere, already found a better way?
Those questions eventually led me to study global perspectives in teaching, curriculum, and learning environments at Boston College. I wanted to understand what education could look like when we stopped assuming the way we had always done something was the only way to do it.
Those questions still shape almost everything I make.
I believe people are more capable than the systems around them sometimes allow them to feel.
I have worked with students who felt incapable.
Teachers who felt completely alone.
Educators who were passed over for opportunities so many times they started questioning their own ability.
People in caring professions who had become so good at giving everything away that they could barely hear their own needs anymore.
I understand that feeling.
I know the inner dialogue that can come from helping professions. The feeling that you should be doing more. Caring more. Handling things better. Being more resilient. Being more organized. Being less tired.
I also know how easy it is to start looking at life through scarcity.
Not enough time.
Not enough support.
Not enough opportunity.
Not enough energy.
Not enough of yourself left.
I don't pretend that positive thinking fixes broken systems. It doesn't.
There are systems we live and work within that we cannot individually control. There are real barriers, inequities, and circumstances that require much more than a journal prompt and a good attitude.
But I also don't want the limitations of a system to become the limitations we place on ourselves.
I believe in helping people build the emotional resilience, self-advocacy, creativity, and confidence to thrive within the systems they are navigating...and, when possible, question them, change them, or find a different way forward.
Most of what I make started because I needed it too.
I have tried things.
Failed at things.
Moved.
Rebuilt.
Changed my mind.
Started over.
Made projects significantly more complicated than they ever needed to be.
Started other projects before finishing those projects.
Bought some domain names.
I am still figuring things out.
My journals started because I was struggling and needed better questions.
My educator resources started because I kept seeing students and teachers get stuck in the same places and being given vague advice instead of practical tools.
My art started because I needed covers for my journals, didn't want to use AI art, and decided I could probably figure out how to paint them myself.
That got a little out of hand.
Now I paint by the ocean, create art experiences, mentor educators, build tools for students and teachers, write about the things I can't stop thinking about, and continue working in special education.
From the outside, those things might look unrelated.
I don't think they are.
I am interested in the things that help people feel alive.
Across cultures, communities, religions, regions, and the many schools I've been lucky enough to experience, I keep noticing how much people need the same things.
Connection.
Agency.
Creativity.
Belonging.
A sense that we are capable.
A reason to believe there is still something beautiful ahead of us.
Life is so incredibly beautiful.
I don't say that because mine has always been easy or because I have figured out some secret to perfect alignment.
I say it because I have rebuilt enough times to know that the version of your life you can see from where you're standing is not always the only version available to you.
Sometimes you need a different question.
Sometimes you need practical tools.
Sometimes you need to advocate for yourself.
Sometimes you need to build your capacity and resilience.
Sometimes you need to leave.
Sometimes you need to stay and change the way you're showing up.
And sometimes you need to sit at a table by the ocean and make something simply because making it feels good.
That's what Aligned with Adelaide is.
It's the educator tools I wish more students and teachers had access to.
It's the journals I created when I needed to hear myself more clearly.
It's the art I didn't know I was going to make.
It's the experiences that bring people together.
It's everything I have learned from teaching, traveling, studying, creating, failing, rebuilding, and trying again.
I don't want to be another person telling you what you should be doing with your life.
What I can offer is a question, a tool, an experience, or a place to start.
You probably already know more than you think you do.
Let's find out what helps you feel a little more like yourself.
Welcome.
Let's get aligned.
