Integrity Farms (and Other Lessons From a Life I’m Growing Into)

This morning, I woke up from a dream where my teeth were falling out. Not the front one I actually worry about—the capped one that’s wiggly and uncovered by dental insurance—but some back molars I didn’t expect. I knew the dream meant something, and in a way, it was more honest than any mirror.

Because lately, I’ve been feeling the pressure. Financially, emotionally, spiritually. Just a month ago, I had nearly $7,000 in my account. Now I’m down to $1,200. I caught up on bills. I took care of some overdue needs. I lived a little. And then reality settled in again.

And it tested everything I’ve come to believe about abundance. About purpose. About whether I’m truly on the right path or just chasing a dream that doesn’t know how to pay the rent.

But here’s the truth I keep returning to: I’ve never felt more myself than I do when I’m doing what I’m doing now. Photography. Showing up for Abigail. Speaking light into spaces that are usually left dark. It doesn’t always make sense on paper. But it makes sense in my spirit. And I’m finally learning to trust that.

For most of my life, I’ve given so much of myself to things that asked me to divide. Relationships that asked me to be smaller. Jobs that took just enough out of me that I didn’t have anything left to give to my own dream. I always felt torn because I was trying to fit into something that was never built for me.

And that’s where the joke lands. Integrity Farms. A reference from South Park—Randy Marsh’s pot farm—but somehow it still hits home. In the show, it's satire. But beneath it, there's this desperate reach for authenticity in a world that’s gone hollow. That’s what I’m doing too—just with a camera instead of cannabis. Because that’s exactly what I’m doing. Cultivating integrity. Growing something real. Building a life that reflects who I am, without splitting myself to survive.

I used to think discipline meant grinding through something soul-killing. Now I think discipline means protecting the work I was born to do. Holding space for the father, the artist, the lightworker I am without apology.

I’ve realized I don’t want more children. Abigail is the center of my world. I don’t need to replicate that journey again. She’s my one, and that makes it sacred. I used to think having a partner was the goal. Now I wonder if my deepest calling isn’t about building a traditional life, but about loving widely. Pouring into others without having to filter it through romance or possession.

So maybe I’m not building a family in the way I once dreamed. Maybe I’m building a movement. A body of work. A field of light I plant every time I pick up my camera, every time I hold space for someone to be fully seen.

And that’s what integrity looks like now. Not perfection. Not having it all figured out. But refusing to abandon myself again.

Thanks for reading.

-Nathaniel