I have 101 unread texts on my phone at this moment, and it’s stressing me the fuck out. Early Facebook notifications never used to make me feel this way, even if it was 50 in a row of the annoying guy in my 6th grade class “Poking” me over and over. (I jest, 12-year-old-me fucking LOVED that attention lol)

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This happens probably every week or two. I catch up on texts, I get it down to zero, and then it builds back up again within a day or two (somehow?? I DON’T EVEN HAVE THAT MANY FRIENDS). I care about and love all of these people I’m texting, but I cannot keep up constant conversations. I feel like text conversations pull me out of living my life in the present and makes me have to pick up my phone when all I want to do is leave it in a drawer for hours.

Makes me wish we could go back to the first years of phones when we would text but also save conversations for in-person hangouts. my bright red Sony Ericsson knew what was up, with its tiny screen that barely responded to touch and keys that you had to press MUCH too hard to want to carry on an hours-long conversation. I’m living in a cycle of “sorry I didn’t text you back,” then responding quickly to make sure the person knows I love them and care about them, then “sorry I missed this again” over and over and over.

I can’t be the only one who feels this way, right? the constant demand of energy and time and attention, from social media to texting to the need to constantly available via my inbox no matter how many boundaries & office hours I set, is i think what’s most exhausting about modern life and the online world. we’re not meant to handle this.

(^I’m practicing illustrating little pieces of my posts, inspired by ! <3)

8/13/26

I shot a shot… and the shot landed!!

I’ve been incorporating a few trades/barters into my business this year, something that I’ve never given much thought to in the past. A few days ago I reached out to an insanely talented artist whose work I’ve admired for months now. they have this one exceptionally gorgeous piece that I’ve been eyeing, but just isn’t at the top of my spending priority list right now when practically my entire budget is going toward $6 gallons of gas and exorbitant strawberry prices.

So when I was browsing their website last week & noticed an area of their marketing I felt I could really support them with, I figured… why not reach out? Off I went to send a voice memo in the DMs (I’d done the same months ago, pretty much just telling them how obsessed I was with their art lol), except this time proposing a trade. And what do you fucking know?? The energy I received back was reciprocated and so beautifully aligned in EVERY WAY.

We chatted in the DMs and by the end of the day, we decided on a trade that would support us both beautifully. I could not believe it!! It’s fucking scary to put yourself out there on a limb and be vulnerable with someone, whether it’s just to share your admiration, to plant a seed of connection for the future, or to open up an avenue of potential collaboration.

This is the second time now this year that I’ve gotten do work with an INCREDIBLY cool and talented business owner via a barter/trade of services, and it feels amazing to know that we are supporting one another in our own unique and valuable ways. Fuck the greedy billionaires, fuck AI, fuck the capitalist economy: as long as there are cool and generous creative people out there like us who do good things for the world, and for each other, I think we will be just fucking dandy.

8/14/26

This is the first morning of the Seattle summer that’s had a delicious twinge of fall in the air.

And although I despise being one of those people who looks SO forward to the next season that they can’t be present in the on they’re in (although maybe that has something to do with the fact that every big box department store started carrying fall decor as soon as the 4th of July was over…), UGH it feels warm and cozy to think about.

I’m not fooling myself; it’ll get to 80 degrees later today and turn our apartment into a sweltering sauna, with only one air conditioned room to escape to — but right now, with the 64-degree weather perfect for a sweatshirt & shorts, the cloudy skies, and the (stuffy) warmth of this coffee shop I’m sitting in that I frequent more often in the fall/winter, with smells of Nutella crepes and cinnamon dusted coffees lingering in the air… I’ll let myself embrace it.

Reminds me of a couple chilly February mornings this year, of the day the Seahawks wone the Super Bowl & the celebration parade that followed – when we stopped here to grab hot coffee to warm our hands with as we hopped on the subway to go downtown. Good fucking times. The best, actually.

Laughing because the lady at the table next to me sipped her flavored mocha (the same one I’m waiting on) and immediately proclaimed “that’s a week’s worth of sugar right there.” Indeed it is, and a third of my coffee budget for the month too!

8/15/26

We are heading off on a camping trip with friends today, and I am equal parts nervous and excited! It’s only one night, but I have historically been miserable sleeping on the ground with my recurring back issues and seeming inability to get warm when I’m in a tent. I think I may need a better sleeping bag than the old one I dug out of my parents’ garage 10 years ago. We’re going on a hike that I’ve been wanting to do for years, but I’ve been working myself into a tizzy (I want to use that word more) over the possibilities it may bring – will my back act up this time? Are my trekking poles going to lessen the impact enough? Is my asthma going to rear its head the moment I start climbing uphill? Will all my friends hate me and think I’m embarassing if I have to take a break?!

To soothe these delightfully spiraling thoughts, I’m reminding myself of a few things: I have no expectations of completing this hike, I will go slow and steady, I will listen to and respect my body no matter what my ego shouts at me. Luckily I have the most wonderful friends who are kind and understanding and who I know will support me in whatever ways I need. All I want to do is enjoy nature and I can do that whether I make it to the top of the mountain or not!

In the spirit of this wonderful article by , I am ASSUMING THE BEST!!

8/17/26

I already want to go back. Fuck, it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Even though I feel tired and sore from sleeping on the ground (even with my $100+ highlighter-yellow sleeping pad from REI), even though I was so cold in the night and my god did the dirt at the campground FILL everything we owned with dust, even though the road to get there was slightly terrifying and made my sensitive little tummy nauseous as hell… it was without a doubt one of the prettiest places I’ve ever seen. Turquoise blue water, perfectly calm and still minus the tiny jumping fish, lush greenery covering the mountains around us, purple wildflowers sprinkled among the grasses, blueberries that tasted so rich and delicious that I questioned my usual dislike for them!

The hike turned out to be my favorite one I’ve ever done – classic. I asked for breaks when I needed them, I stretched and took photos and looked at the insane beauty of the world around me, and lo and behold: I made it to the top!! We wrote our names in the guest book, admired a pretty little drawing someone had hung up inside of the fire lookout at the summit, took a few celebratory swigs from a silver flask of rum, and took silly photos in front of the layers of endless mountains, the fog mingling with the orange smoke in the distance, the gold & orange hues of the sunset that I could’ve stared at forever.

Dinner that night was sausages, burgers, and boxes of Kraft mac n’ cheese strained through a paper plate with janky holes poked through it because we forgot a strainer. We sat around the nonexistent campfire (forgot to account for the burn ban when packing layers, biiiig mistake) and stargazed, trying to separate shooting stars from the satellites that flitted and floated through the sky. They felt dystopian and weird and interrupted the natural beauty of it all.

After a fitful night’s rest we spent the morning devouring pancakes and breakfast sandwiches, picking blueberries, and paddleboarding across the lake in a scene that felt too beautiful and peaceful to be real. I could’ve sat on that board with my best friends forever, the sun I felt burning my shoulders despite the sunscreen I’d slathered on; the water that was much too cold for an accidental fall, trying our best to stay stable and afloat; the knowledge that in this moment everything was pretty damn perfect and I wanted to grasp onto it, squeeze it in my fingers for as long as I could. Washington is so goddamn beautiful.

8/18/26

6pm

Uh ohhhh I found myself jamming to Taylor Swift on my walk today!! Something I really haven’t done GENUINELY since Lovers or Midnights – and it was only because a few bars of another song I was listening to reminded me of the Fate of Ophelia chorus. Had to close the loop in my head. I admit that I’ve been through my own “not like other girls” phase with Taylor in recent years, but I can also admit that a few of her latest ones are BOPS, even though I don’t love any of her latest albums as much as her older ones. Is she shedding some of her internalized misogyny and allowing herself to actually enjoy popular girly things as we speak??

9pm

Happy to announce that I am well on my way to being the internet’s newest homemaking sensation (a la Natalie Heller Mills, pro(an?)tagonist of one of my favorite books of the year – Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear). Yes! I, the infamously picky eater of my friend group – with many ultra specific food preferences who barely cooks because it overwhelms her and usually doesn’t turn out well enough to repeat – tried a NEW recipe today.

(a recipe made almost entirely from pre-packaged and/or frozen ingredients, to be fair, but still – it was a lot more effort than I’ve been putting into most of my meals lately!)

Not only did I try out a NEW recipe… I also baked a batch of biscuits, fresh from the Trader Joe’s can. I forgot how much I loved biscuits until we went camping over the weekend and I ate 3 mini breakfast sandwiches made up of biscuits, perfectly-crisped thin sausage patties, and a quarter of a slice of cheese. 10/10, tasted incredible after a shitty night of tent sleeping while sitting in the fresh mountain air. Looking very forward to recreating those sandwiches tomorrow morning with my latest Trader Joe’s haul, but I’m keeping my expectations low since, inevitably, nothing will taste as good in the comfort of my home kitchen as it did outdoors. Sigh!

8/19/26

10pm

I’ve spent the past 48 hours deep into an email marketing project for one single client/brand, and it’s reminded me how much I fucking THRIVE when I get to work on one, focused project on a condensed timeline, with a client who gives me their all their trust to take the reins.

I’ve wanted to play around with a broader copywriting scope for a while now; I’m passionate about the writing words part, obviously, but I might be even MORE passionate about crafting the strategy around it. Helping a client take a step back and realize how fucking cool they are and the impact they make with their art, offers, products, etc. I thrive when I get to help people brag about themselves and remember what sets them apart, and show that off to the world. It’s terrifying to tell people how great you are at what you do, I get it; so the work I do to help people with THAT is almost more gratifying & fulfilling than any pretty words I write.

11pm

Oopssss I technically already plugged my phone in for the night. But as I was brushing my teeth, I was thinking about ’s latest Wild Geese episode that I listened to earlier today. It was all about finding yourself through the choices you make. As I put on my little pink butterfly acne patches, I realized, hey! This is a choice I’ve made that gets me closer to myself: the choice to swap out the regular pimple patches for cute little butterflies.

(They are actually terribly made and barely cover any surface area so I will NOT be buying them again… but you get my point. Maybe I’ll go for the trendy lil stars next time.)

I think about every pivotal decision I’ve made in my adult life thus far, and how each of them has involved some level of disappointment from others: dropping out of college, deconstructing and separating from Christianity altogether, getting tattoos, getting a nostril piercing, getting a SEPTUM piercing (my god! Satan has gotten to her!)… all in the name of creating my OWN life. Feeling beautiful and joyful and passionate in the way that makes sense to me.

Through all the times I may have disappointed others (god, family members, friends, adults in my life), I have yet to disappoint myself. And it feels good to remember that in the times I doubt what I’m doing, doubt my confidence, doubt my opinions or preferences or desires. Every decision I’ve made, every opinion I’ve voiced, every preference I’ve stated and every desire I’ve followed in the last year or so, in particular, has brought me closer to myself; made me feel more myself than I ever have, and I feel/hope that it will only compound from here! <3

My Monday started off with a much-needed massage that felt wonderful, but also made me feel guilty for not immediately beginning the week by working. Yikes. I gotta do some more work on that.

My masseuse told me to try doing some gentle yin yoga stretches to relieve the pain my back is currently in, and I met a very cute & silly looking cat at the front desk!! Apparently one of the massage therapists brought her in, and she was a delightful surprise as I re-entered the world in my drowsy post-massage state. Her giant eyes were the best, I wonder what goes on behind them (hopefully nothing, bc she deserves to be treated like a princess and never deal with a single stressful thing).

Because my back felt loose & I wanted to take advantage, I stopped at a little neighborhood park on my way back home. It ended up becoming my Artist Date for week 9 of the Artist’s Way! A group of kids was picking blackberries along the park fence overlooking the water, so I walked back to the car to grab the empty Ziploc I knew was in my center console and made a little Artist Date out of my own blackberry picking time. They tasted delicious in the sunshine, so sweet and fresh and a little sour when I picked one that wasn’t quite fully ready.

My friends told me I probably shouldn’t have eaten them because sometimes they spray the bushes at city parks with pesticides, but I relied on the judgement of the groups of strangers who were eating them before me. I threw the rest away because I got nervous and started to wonder if I would die from pesticide poisoning in the middle of the night, but happy to announce that I have not perished yet!

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Remember how I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I remembered batch working exists? Well today I put it into practice and WOW - it really does work! Imagine that! I got into a GREAT flow this afternoon, thanks to a series of “quiet writing” playlists on YouTube and 50/10 Pomodoros in Hank Green’s Focus Friend app (my savior lately). My goal was to prep four Instagram carousels for the month, one a week, and I successfully wrote out the copy for all four & designed/scheduled two. Will put the next two together in Canva tomorrow.

It feels so good to be AHEAD of schedule and not frantically throwing a post together at the last minute because when I realize I should probably post something… crazy that I can be sooo much more efficient and actually - dare I say - ENJOY creating content?! when i’m in a good flow and have space/time to actually think through it all.

Ended the day with a couple episodes of Love On the Spectrum, a scary YouTube video breaking down a true crime case, and back stretches (very proud of myself for actually doing them & not just wallowing in the pain like I did all of last week!!).

8/4/26

Some CRAZY synchronicities happened today omg, one especially big and weird one. My friends and I went to book club at a romance book store near us, the second monthly meetup we’ve been to so far. The book club’s theme is “Women Winning,” but sadly the two sapphic sports romances we’ve read so far have been awfully written with characters who were increasingly irritating and difficult to fall in love with. :(

Anyway, I got there late and missed the group introductions – but halfway through I noticed this girl across form me looked SO familiar. As we sat and chatted about the terrible sex scenes and a completely unsexy use of the word “cunnilingus,” I realized I was 99% sure I knew this girl! We randomly met through a podcast listener group on Facebook years ago (those were the days!), when she posted that she had an extra ticket to see a singer I had started listening to and I decided to be VERY brave and claim it. We met up twice in Seattle that summer three years ago, for the concert and later for a comedy show, both of us living hours away at the time and losing contact pretty much immediately afterward. She was cool, but long-distance friendships are hard.

And now, here I was realizing that it was her?! Once book club was over she called my name, and we shared a what-the-fuck-are-the-chances moment together! Came to find out she only moved here TWO MONTHS ago and that she randomly decided to come to this book club to try and meet people. It was fucking insane and definitely blew both of our minds.

Another lovely moment from today: I drove a slightly different way home from therapy in an effort to break up my routine – and by “different” I mean a couple of wrong turns around a very small neighborhood that even a girl who is terrible with directions (me) could remember – and I found the most INSANELY beautiful, brightest, pretties pink lilies I have ever fucking seen. I increased my surface area for magic, and I found it!!

My therapist reminded me to be kind to myself because I am in pain, not just to feel better – so I am going to use my new heating pad and do some gentle back stretches tonight. Not because I expect to get better immediately (because I won’t), but because I am giving myself relief from the pain and something that feels good.

The orange sky and wildfire smoke feels so foreboding and apocalytpc right now. It always does, but it feels even worse this year because the worst fires are happening in my own state this time. But even in the glow of the fiery sky there are so many things to be grateful for.

8/5/26

Currently sitting at the library, hoping nobody tries to sit next to me. I love public libraries, but these small neighborhood branches aren’t the best if you want alone/interrupted quiet time… there are too many quirky people and not enough workspaces for that. Oh my god there is somebody loudly coughing or sneezing or clearing their throat every goddamn 30 seconds right by me!! I can’t stay here for very long, I want quiet right now lol.

My allergy shots stung more than usual today, who knows why, but it’s making my arm sore as I write this. There’s one lady who always seems to get them in just the right spot to not hurt very much; she wasn’t working today. I’ve been answering some journal prompts from a recent piece from ; here are some of my the things I wrote that I’m curious about and might want to think about more…

— what comes effortlessly to me? excitement and joy, experiencing a wide range of emotions, noticing beauty around me, long-form style writing, optimism, taking risks, trust

— experiences that reshaped the way I see things: leaving Christianity, growing up abroad, dropping out of college and building my own career, giving myself permission to be mediocre, building self trust and inner confidence

— I struggled with the prompt “is it just me who…” – i feel like i have no original thoughts sometimes with the endless supply of voices and opinions on the internet to consume 24/7.

8/6/26

I can’t really find a comfortable way to sit on this couch without my back and hips hurting… bleh. I should do my back stretches or a quick Yoga with Adriene mobility video before I go to bed soon. This morning was our August women in business meetup, which is a lovely monthly get together set up by a very cool fellow Seattle business woman. I got connected with her earlier this year after meeting her at one of her events, and something made me want to reach out afterward to connect further… and I am so glad I followed that little inkling and did it!

It is so fulfilling and inspiring to be around talented, ambitious women who are all carving out these unique paths for themselves – and contributing to their communities in such meaningful ways with their own gifts. Even if they do something completely different than me (which they all do; makes it that much more fascinating to talk to them!). It reassures me that there are so many other people in this world who are dedicated to living beautiful, whole lives and creating a better world all the while!

I feel good about today; got all of my business admin tasks done, and scheduled (in advance!!) my final email newsletter for August. (What’s the definition of “newsletter” these days? I keep wondering if mine counts as one bc I still sorta think of newsletters as colorful pamphlets with tacky ClipArt designs, upcoming event announcements written in Comic Sans, and dedicated sections. mine are just a whole lot of me rambling and telling stories and connecting them back to business or life lessons in silly ways). I also got a text from a return client asking if I had blog post openings, and I am going to say a big fat YES to that opportunity even though I haven’t been taking on as much blog writing lately.

8/7/26

Only worked for about 45 minutes today, and by “worked” I mean “yapped on FaceTime with a friend/past client who needed some marketing advice (and I gave her some) but once again made me wish we lived closer, because we’d be besties IRL.” Then we drove down to the airport to pick up a friend who is visiting for the weekend! It’s always fun to see friends from our college years (well, I only had a single college year… so more like Mat’s college years that I tagged along for), and come together for shared moments of how the fuck has it been so long and how are we getting so old already jesus christ??

We grabbed lunch at a sandwich shop by the lake near us, and walked around complaining about the 80-degree weather when she had just flown in from 100+ degree Arizona temps. Thank god we live in the PNW. Walked past a pretty garden and wished I had my camera with me, and talked about our plans for the evening: order pizza, get high and play a shitty horror video game, then laugh at the god awful writing/dialogue/graphics while we try our best to react to the quick-time events.

Happy to say we made good on our plans, and the horror game was, in fact, even shittier and better to make fun of than we expected. I’m not even fucking with you when I say that the writing included a character saying “Blam!” as a serious exclamation, and another proudly saying “Skill” when he opened up a window to jump through all macho-man like. I wonder how they convince these actors to offer up their voices and likeness for shit like this.

8/8/26

Today had all the elements of a fun, silly, and light hearted day with friends: time spent at a piercing shop, PB&J’s and bags of chips in the sun at the beach, survival reality TV shows, cheap Mexican food, and a 5-hour-long session in a private karaoke room with endless amounts of ABBA hits, 90s-2010s throwbacks, and raps we thought we knew but ended up being way too fast to even attempt.

Our public transportation options end at 12:30 here (lame), so we had to get an overpriced Lyft to take us home. The driver was kind but strange; he had an alarm going off on his phone for probably 3 minutes (at least 3-4 rounds of the alarm itself) before he turned it off? We were all squished in the backseat trying to hold in our giggles, because it was so late and we were exhausted and it was so confusingly funny. I was just glad the car had air conditioning (why do rideshare drivers never use AC?? are they asking for nausea-prone riders to vomit all over their leather Tesla seats??) and didn’t smell like cigarette smoke like our last one did.

8/9/26

If there’s one thing I know about myself, it’s that I do NOT do well after a night of drinking, or even a night of staying up late and exerting energy way past my bedtime. I am a 50 year old in a 26 year old’s body. Had one singular shot last night at the beginning of our 5-hour karaoke session and I still feel hungover, though it’s likely because I went to bed at 3am instead of my normal 11pm. It was a blast, but goddamn my throat is sore from belting out the most insane playlist we made of karaoke hits… it was NONSTOP all night.

I feel proud of myself because younger me would have never done karaoke, even in a private room with no strangers watching – and now I feel completely comfortable and confident trying to hit the high notes of Defying Gravity into a microphone with no intoxication to support me in my efforts. She’s growing!!

We all slept in, ate breakfast at lunchtime, and finished the season we were watching of Outlast on Netflix. Last night we somehow got on the topic that our friend hadn’t seen Shrek 2, so this afternoon we lounged around on the couch and watched the first hour of it while we tried to regroup & gather up energy for the night to come. It’s nearly our fourth year living in Seattle and we still haven’t gone to Capitol Hill Block Party, a music fest that rolls around in the late summer and crowds the narrow streets of our most lively neighborhood for a few nights. But that changes tonight – we got tickets to see a band we have both loved for years (Parcels), and a band that we’ve been newly introduced to by multiple friends (Wet Leg)!

I’m slightly concerned about how my back is going to handle the hours of standing/dancing that are on the itinerary for tonight, and to make matters worse I started my period this afternoon… energy is already low from last night, and now I’ve gotta add my day 1 period fatigue onto it?! Rough. I’ve got my Midol and Ibuprofen in hand for when the cramps inevitably kick in right in the middle of the setlist tonight, when my back will probably already be stiff and achy from standing on concrete. I’m excited for the music, not excited for how sore I’ll probably be tomorrow!

11am

Concert day!! My third of the summer, the most I’ve ever gone to in a year and it’s been fucking fantastic. Picked Marla up with Starbucks and a snack-filled Trader Joe’s canvas tote in hand, road-trip ready with a few songs queued up and a Spotify jam ready to be taken over by my passenger princess. She’d already seen Young the Giant four times, which is wild – I’ve never seen an artist that many times, but I wish I had been more dedicated to doing so throughout my life!

We jammed to the YTG setlist on our drive down to Oregon, both agreeing that we were okay not being surprised by the setlist if it meant we could be prepared (especially myself, since I wasn’t as familiar with their discography). The vibes were glorious, driving along to the kind of music that is perfect to get high to at an outdoor concert on a warm summer day; we were looking so forward to bringing that vision to life later that night.

3pm

One bathroom break and food stop later (sushi for her, Wendy’s for me because I was craving a particular flavor of over processed spicy nuggets), we arrived at our Airbnb – the cheapest we could find for a single night less than 10 minutes from the concert venue, and it ended up being such a lovely stay. It was tiny and cozy and full of quite the amalgamation of artwork and styles of decor; a photograph above the couch of what we guessed was an alleyway in Italy, a confusing and slightly unnerving painting of three intertwined horses, and a bedroom with various paintings, portraits, and artistic renderings of Prague.

At one point I walked out to grab something from my car and ran into who I presumed was the Airbnb host, a woman leaning against her car who I’d guess was in her early 60s, chatting to another woman who wore a silver cross necklace. I was so proud of myself – instead of quickly saying hi and trying to escape small talk, I told her how delightful the place was and let myself be open to conversation!

Thank goodness I did, because we ended up chatting for 15 minutes about all sorts of fascinating topics: how sad it was that you could no longer bring your own drinks into the concert venue (but don’t worry, we could just stuff some drinks or other goodies – wink wink – in our pockets, pointed out the cross-bearing elderly woman, whose name, I learned, was Marcia); along with the host, Marianne’s, childhood growing up in the Mediterranean and her lifelong travels that inspired the home’s decor. We were correct about the Italy photograph; the living room was full of art from the Mediterranean, the bedroom Prague as that’s where her husband lives, and the bathroom designed in an “art deco” style, because, as she informed me, Marianne thought she should have born in that era.

She told me about a trip she and her husband once took to Athens, right after he had unexpectedly lost his job. He worried that they shouldn’t be taking such a frivolous vacation during a stressful period, wondering if they should still go, but Marianne reminded him that “Life is for living,” and I immediately noted that down in my memory to write about later. I shared about my childhood growing up overseas and we spoke about the importance of experiencing other cultures, and how difficult it is to have friendships with Americans who have never traveled outside of their home state and seen the world.

Marcia hinted that she needed to get going, and they asked if we were driving to the concert; I said no, that we were Ubering, and Marianne said good girl, then you can drink and not worry about it and just stumble inside at the end of the night! She reminisced on the last time she went to a concert at this venue and how the guy singing was high as a kite. I loved her and am so grateful I decided to be open to a conversion with these two lovely women.

Trigger warning for the rest of this entry – mention of gun violence in the news. Please read with care or skip it entirely!

6pm

The openers were fantastic, Common People and the Cold War Kids; I didn’t know either going into the evening, but both were so fun and extremely talented. It almost felt like Common People, an indie rock band of 5 kids who were probably in their mid-late twenties, were a younger version of the Cold War Kids, also and indie rock band of 5 guys who started out in their 30s and were now in their 50s. Both bands rocked the fuck out and looked like they were having a great time, so it was equally a great a time for us.

All was going perfectly until we were sitting down on the dusty gravel pit after the openers finished and I saw a text on my phone from my aunt – “You weren’t at Seattle Center today, were you?” Assuming she might have been in town and seen someone who looked like me, I responded “No!” – but got a weird sinking feeling in my stomach when she texted back “Ok good.”

Immediately my mind went to the worst: fuck, what happened, what have I missed? I nervously typed “Seattle Center” into a Chrome tab and there it was, headlines that all said something along the lines of “mass shooting at Seattle Center.”

There wasn’t much news out yet at the time; now we’ve learned that it was less of a mass shooting and more of a targeted dispute of some sort that took place at a local event where innocent people got caught in the crossfire. But in that moment, when all I saw were the words “mass shooting” at a place that I go all the time, a place that I’ve been to for at least 3-4 events already this summer, a panic started to rise up inside of me. This is my nightmare. I am supposed to be looking forward to the band who is about to come on stage and all I can think about is what was going on back home in my city.

I knew I had to do my best to put it out of my head for the time being and force myself back to the present moment. So I quickly checked my boyfriend’s location just to be sure that he hadn’t spontaneously gone to that event today out of the blue, and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw his little dot at home.

Took a few deep breaths and tried to pay attention to the things I could see, feel, hear; the stage and the people dancing around me, the blazing sun on my skin and the slight buzz of the overpriced mojito we’d been sipping on, the playlist over the loudspeakers that kept everyone entertained while we waited for the main show to start.

It was easier to immerse myself in the music once YTG came on stage; the expired edible I’d taken kicked in just enough to let me enjoy myself without making my anxiety worse, and I danced and sang and brought myself back anytime my mind began to wander to the news.

How did it unfold? When did they realize something was happening, when did they drop everything and realize their worst nightmare was occurring right in front of them, when did they run into the food court for cover? Where did they hide; under the chairs at the MOD pizza I’ve eaten at before multiple concerts this summer or behind the bar at the cafe?

8pm

“Life’s too short to even care at all” echoed in the background during a gorgeous rendition of Cough Syrup as I worked hard to bring myself back down mentally, away from the scary thoughts and what if’s and fuck, life is too short to NOT care actually. My hands shook as I double checked my boyfriend’s location one more time and brought my phone back up to take videos, using all my self-control not to sabotage myself by looking for a news article.

Back to the music… deep breath, I am safe, my friends are safe, my boyfriend is at home, I am so fucking lucky to be alive and to be here and I will not let this ruin the happiness I am otherwise feeling in this moment. I could find out more information tomorrow but not in this moment, in this moment I will do everything I fucking can to be back in this magical experience with my best friend and the people around me.

Before I’d seen that updated news notification, I wrote down something that the lead singer had said over beautiful instrumentals, talking about how the band had believed in themselves so much that nothing else mattered; how when you get into a state of pure joy, everything else will work itself out.

I am carefully tucking both that & Marianne’s “life is for living” comment, and carrying them forward with me as beautiful little memories from that night. Along, of course, with the Wendy’s feast we enjoyed once we were back at our Airbnb later that evening – more spicy nuggs, multiple Frosty’s, and fries that, when dipped in said Frosty’s, tasted like the best fucking thing I’d ever had in my life. I took what is now probably one of my favorite Polaroids ever to capture that perfect moment for eternity. Fell into bed and passed out without a single nightmare, which I was sure I would have after the news of the evening. The expired edibles did their job and for that, I was grateful.

7/27/26

We drove back from Portland the next day and I was sad the weekend was over. I swear something has been unlocked in me ever since I started really letting myself listen to music that I LOVE and that tunes my frequency higher, as would say – instead of just forcing myself to listen to whatever is popular, or what I think I should listen to. Silly, I know. It all started with letting myself become re-obsessed with 5SOS, which led me to discovering The Band CAMINO and other pop rock bands like them, and now I’ve been listening to indie rock bands for basically 48 hours straight before, during, and after the YTG concert.

This music is fucking doing something to my brain and my body and my ability to let go and just enjoy. It makes me feel like I can do ANYTHING, like I’m so present in my body and in the moment and I look around me and the world is so beautiful and the music is so good. I am loving discovering more indie or less well-known bands like the two openers for the YTG concert, Common People and Cold War Kids, because historically I have been terrible at discovering or actively searching for new music and I would automatically listen to whatever was “popular.” It was never terrible, probably enjoyable for the most part, but it never made me feel so ALIVE and myself.

7/28/26

6pm

Why am I so fucking bloated?? I finally did my 20 minutes of PT exercises after months of being terrible at doing them consistently, and of course it wasn’t that hard. the hardest part that I’ve been struggling with is getting myself to the gym (a 3 minute walk from my front door) because I resent the fact that I even HAVE to do them, and I dislike going to the gym if I’m not going to leave feeling strong after a good workout.

my therapist gave me a good reframe today though, to tell myself that “I’m kind to my body because I am in pain” and not “I’m kind to my body because I want to get better.” So it wasn’t hard, no, and I’m proud of myself for taking care of myself without expecting to feel better immediately, but also I was bloated and cramping the whole time for who knows why. maybe all the Wendy’s I ate this weekend before and after the concert Marla and I went to lol. worth it.

10pm

Earlier today I sent off my largest copywriting invoice & contract to date. Eek! I’ve sent out proposals with high dollar amounts before, but they’ve always been for 6 or 12-month contracts that spread out over longer periods of time – but I’m about to book my highest copywriting package yet, and I am so fucking thrilled and slightly imposter syndrome-y about it!

I have been wishing I could take over someone’s entire launch copy for a while now, so last week on a whim I pieced together a few of my package/a la carte options into one big ol’ Launch Bundle. I was already in talks with one of my all-time favorite, most loyal return clients about sales pages for two upcoming offers they’ll be launching this fall, so I threw the concept of the greater Launch Bundle out there (complete with sales page copy, SEO research + optimization, AND a big set of 14 nurture + launch emails)... and what do you know? As my oracle reading for the week told me yesterday, “What I seek is seeking me.”

Turns out that this client who I adore just so happened to be seeking full-scale launch copy as much as I was seeking to write it. And booked not just one, but TWO of them. I am eternally grateful to be able to partner with such fucking great people who make me enjoy what I do; the more I step into the role of copywriter and strategist instead of simply a blog writer, the more I feel like I can deeply get to know each brand I work with and turn it into a creative collaboration. I can’t wait to show myself and my client what I can do (though she’s already got at least 5 other sales pages and a full website written by me at this point… I think she’s got a good idea).

7/29/26

7am

My grandpa recently discovered this thing called Postcrossing, where you send and receive postcards to random people all over the world – basically his dream as somebody who thrives on connecting with people everywhere; he’s the kind of person that his entire town knows and loves. He’s gotten my mom and I into it, too; I truly can’t recommend it enough if you’d like to remind yourself of all the unique and fascinating people thre are out there in the world for you to connect with if you just look for them.

one of the last postcards I sent was to a woman in Germany who’s bio said she liked to crochet. I told her in my postcard that I’m learning to crochet myself, and I just got a thank-you message from her in my inbox: she told me she crochets a lot of little “worry worms” and gives them away at hospitals, doctors offices, on the street or in shops, “simply everywhere” she said. She’s crocheted 500 of them. PEOPLE ARE SO COOL AND WONDERFUL! I want to know what a worry worm is and how I can make some myself. I think I’ll respond and ask her for a photo.

12pm

Update: she has responded with photos of the worms!! With an email that made me fucking laugh out loud when I saw it in my inbox:

😭😭 this are the worms indeed! I hope she doesn’t mind me sharing since I haven’t given out any of her identifying information, because they are too precious not to:

6pm

Found a nice little shaded bench to sit on, I’ve been on a walk with *very good vibes* and felt a little twinge in my left hip that usually signals I am pushing myself a little further than I should and maybe it’s time to slow down. I’m trying to get better at listening to my body’s signals rather than ignoring them, because I’m tired of this cycle of 1. My back hurts 2. I’m going to go to spin class/revise anyway 3. why does my back still hurt/hurt more 4. I don’t want to do my PT exercises, they make me feel weak and I resent having to do them 5. My back still hurts, why?

No more. I’m done getting in the way of my own recovery and I am taking better care of myself. I have a massage next week and I will slow down on my walks and I won’t tell my friend I can do spin class and push through the pain even if I really want to. It is exceptionally frustrating and discouraging that I’ve been dealing with this for a whole year now. I haven’t run since last August. I’ve been going to PT since September. I’ve had to pause strength training again. But I will take care of myself as best I can because that is the only way I can set future me up for safer and stronger movement that feels good and doesn’t lead to pain.

I published my first series of diary entries to Substack this morning, yay!! I’m honestly surprised I hadn’t been doing this sooner. It has been so good for me and makes writing feel like a fucking breeze. It’s also helping me figure out my writing style more than writing anything else ever has.

Also signed a contract for my biggest copywriting project yet! And delivered a blog post to a client! And read week 9 of the Artist’s Way!Making more room for my creativity and projects other than client work has been so fulfilling and also stressful because this is the lowest I’ve been on monthly client retainers in years. It feels scary to do that on purpose but every time I book myself up for the sake of money, I end up resentful and burned out and have no space for anything other than due dates and deadlines to keep up with.

I’m trusting this; I’ve been needing to lessen my client load for years but it is terrifying to not have the cushion in my business bank account that I’d like to. It is so tempting to just give in and take on more clients so that I feel secure financially, but this is the only way I can truly expand in the way I want to - business wise, creatively, and in my life as a whole. And so far it HAS indeed been working!!

7/30/26

Felt a little meh when I got up this morning, my back hurt and people were being loud outside and I didn’t want to work. Showered, went on a walk, listened to my favorite playlist, and immediately felt better. My perfect cure. Procrastinated doing the client work I needed to get done today because I had a call at 11, and if I have anything happening mid-morning then it completely interrupts my few-hour chunk of focus time, so it has to be pushed till another time of day when I don’t have anything coming up on my calendar. Asked my accountant a million questions and thanked her equally as many times for saving my ass and helping me understand what it means to be a business owner, even nearly 8 years in (what the fuck 8 years?!?!).

Heated up leftover burnt pizza and ate it for lunch while I started a new book, The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, which I’m already loving and goes beautifully in tandem with my second time through the Artist’s Way. Though reading it just made me want to quit working entirely and devote my entire day/week/month/life to creative projects that don’t require deadlines, obligations, or bills to be paid. A girl can daydream!

Though I am proud of how I’ve been so intentional about making space for creativity lately – speaking of which, I got my first roll of film scans back from the lab and I was so thrilled! They came out quite magenta, but they bring me so much joy to look at. Like a little 36-part highlight reel from the past month, except not just sitting in the middle of 1000 other photos in my camera roll.

Spent the evening at my new favorite beach park in Seattle that I went to for the first time last month; we sat in the sand on a mess of picnic blankets with our friends, listened to Bad Bunny, and drank ciders and champagne as the sun set behind us. So many seagulls on the beach, sailboats on the horizon, and bright yellow volleyballs flying through the air that we had to constantly avoid as we played our card game.

The ocean air got chilly so we transitioned to a seemingly family-owned Italian restaurant up the road; I ordered spaghetti with mizithra cheeze (oh my god I don’t know why I typed CHEEZE but I’m leaving it), thinking it would be like my favorite Spaghetti Factory dish; lo and behold, what I got was a giant plate of spaghetti noodles drenched in melted butter and a dash of cheese that I could’ve eaten at home for $0 instead of $18. Oh well, the waitress was lovely, I’m happy to support a local spot, and I will gladly pay $18 for an overpriced kids’ buttered pasta if it means fun time with friends.

7/31/26

3pm

Nothing makes me feel more independent and free than taking public transportation on my own, especially when I get to walk around downtown. I feel like a hot city girl and felt especially cute today with my sunglasses and new bag, pretending like I’m strutting down the busy streets of New York on the way to somewhere cool and mysterious.

I forget how beautiful our downtown library is! Probably the coolest building in the city, honestly. Neon yellow escalators that make you feel like you’re heading up to the severed floor, ceilings made up of windows that allow in warm afternoon sunlight, and a cafe I didn’t know existed. As I sat at the little cafe waiting for my friend to show up, I couldn’t stop thinking about how gorgeous this color combo was – the blue of the cafe table with the red of their logo and the deep brown of my bag!

5pm

Usually I don’t mind the lightrail at all but today my ride back from the library had like 5 guys in my car wearing 5 different colognes that all gave me the ick and made me nauseous, think it’s cause I have a slight stomachache from the coffee I impulsively bought because the vibe was too good not to get one; sunlight streaming through the windows down onto the coffee shop tables, wearing a cute outfit with my new purse that I’m obsessed with and my Kindle out. How could I not purchase an overpriced $8 latte that didn’t even taste that great?

6pm

Took my 8 minute walk around our apartment building to close my Exercises ring for the day and now I’m off to get high and watch superhero movies with Mat! My brain needs this.

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Since I started doing this in a long-ass Google Doc that is now bookmarked to my Chrome forever, it has already come so naturally to me and the style I enjoy writing in: noting down minuscule moments of my day and turning them into something teachable or inspiring, probably with a slight twinge of sarcasm and self-deprecation here and there. It’s been a wonderful practice that helps me write more consistently, without feeling overwhelmed by the pressure to turn it into anything more. I just write what the fuck I want, and now I’ve written the most I have in months!!

(plus I’m a memory hoarder and I LOVE to capture all the teeny little moments of every day & stuff them in a capsule for future me to come back to!)

And now, I hope it’s at least a little interesting for someone else to read :)

7/9/26

My afternoon walk today was lovely, and is the reason I wanted to start writing diaries of my day more often like this. With all my work done for the day (I have trouble being fully present during walks if I know I have tasks lingering on the to-do list), I headed outside in my tanktop and shorts (my favorite attire of the entire year!), pink sunglasses on my eyes to match my basic bitch but cute hot pink Lululemon crossbody (that I actually don’t really like??), and my phone playing the Florence Given Show through a single Airpod in my right ear. It’s about balance, you see: one ear receiving beautiful and magical words from a woman I admire like hell, and one ear open and alert to any strange men that may be prowling around me at any given moment.

I’ve enjoyed ‘s words and creations for a few years now (her book Women Living Deliciously is akin to the Bible for me), but lately her podcast has really been shining light into my life and helping me grow in ways I never thought I could. In tandem with finding a therapist I love and who is helping me grow into myself, her episodes have been a really wonderful weekly feature for me as of late. Especially her “Morning Joy INJECTION” ep, which I’ve listened to at least 30 times now!!

I’ve come to love living right next to a retirement community, for many reasons: one, the elderly folks come out with their wheelchairs and walkers every Friday afternoon to hold up their signs and spread hope to younger generations; signs that read messages like “Seniors against fascism” and “Proud daughter of immigrants.”

I try to get out to see them whenever I can; they remind me of my grandparents, who still, in their 80s, take every opportunity they can to attend rallies with their “We march for the dignity of every human being” sign. I feel fortunate to have such inspiring people to look up to in the midst of this time when it’s easy to lose hope and focus on the shitty ones.

Something I’ve been practicing is giving out compliments when I think of them, and it’s been a wonderful way to regularly have small impacts/conversations/interactions with people around me. Florence remarked in the episode I was listening to that “When you feel love in your chest, don’t hold it in” – so when I noticed the pretty earrings that an elderly woman was wearing as she walked past me, I instantly wished I had commented on them.

Luckily our paths crossed again on my next lap around the neighborhood; as she walked toward me dressed in a white & blue floral blouse with a stylish pair of coordinating pants (were they blue? white? I can’t remember.), I worked up the nerve and mentally figured out what I was going to say: “I have to tell you, I absolutely love your earrings, they’re so pretty! I noticed them when we passed earlier!”

She told me that they were from her daughter; that they had traded earrings, actually, swapping a pair of tulip earrings that she had found at a local market for the dangly ones she wore today. I said I hope she’d enjoy the sunshine, and off we went in our opposite directions. On my next lap I saw her again from afar, taking a seat on a bench nearby which made me decide to also take a seat on a bench a few minutes later to pause & bask in the sunshine.

Moments like these make me feel proud of myself, make me feel brave for reaching out and sharing love and being vulnerable, and connected to the people and world around me even if it’s in such minuscule ways as compliments about accessories!

(skipping ahead a week because there was a trip in there that I want to publish a separate entry about!)

7/17/26

Had the yummiest meal at the ramen place by us earlier, I actually ate and enjoyed my entire meal which is RARE for me as a picky eater who always orders more than she can finish. Mat and I sat a table in the sun, sipping blackberry mojitos, and I felt so satisfied and grounded. I’m currently on a sunny evening walk after dinner in the perfect 72 degree temperature with the kind of gentle breeze you dream about during PNW summers.

Why am I sucking in my stomach as I’m walking because I’m worried people can tell I’m bloated after eating?? Must be because I briefly saw my reflection in a building and started being conscious of it. Lovely. But I just smiled at someone before they smiled at me (brave, I know) and they smiled back!! I’ll take the win!

Can’t get Have U Found What Ur Looking For by Ashton Irwin out of my head, it’s been such a good vibe lately. I got a “good evening” from an old man who walked by me and that is a sign that I’m giving off the right energy tbh.

7/18/26

My second day of solo hiking this year!! I did two different trails up in the North Bend/Middle Fork Snoqualmie area: Oxbow Loop, and then part of the Pratt River Trail.

I arrived at the Oxbow Loop trailhead around 10am, it was a short and easy loop so I did it twice - first counterclockwise, then clockwise. I saw 4 snakes, pink & purple flowers, berries (though I was only able to find one edible blackberry, the rest were either not ripe enough or had been picked by previous hikers), mossy trees, baby frogs, birds, slugs, and a very marshy swamp that I would barely consider a “lake.” I felt so grounded and peaceful the entire time; I fucking love being outside alone and having complete freedom to do whatever I want.

The weather was lovely, though not as sunny as I’d hoped; cool air with a breeze, clouds, and a few surprise raindrops here and there. Not much was on my mind except that I wished I’d brought bug spray because I was getting eaten alive; admiration for the beauty and quiet around me, and Don’t Forget You Love Me by Calum Hood on repeat in my head.

I’m learning that I enjoy gentle trails like this that are easy and grounding, especially with the back injury I’ve been dealing with off and on for the past year; I feel no rush or pressure to reach a destination, and I can go slow as fuck to let myself enjoy everything.

Met an older couple on the trail when I saw them struggling to take a selfie and offered to take a photo of them, and I’m so glad I did; they recommended I keep driving down the road to explore trails near Middle Fork Campground, and I got to do my FAVORITE thing in the world: go with the flow and follow wherever the day takes me because I had no plans or time frame. I wish every day could be like that.

Trail #2 was a portion of the Pratt River Trail, near Middle Fork Campground. Arrived around 12pm off the recommendation of the couple from Oxbow Loop, without cell service or any knowledge of where I was going, so I just wandered around the parking area and headed down a trail until I found a sign with two options: Middle Fork River Trail or Pratt River Trail. Didn’t know anything about either, so I went with the option on the right!

It was actually WONDERFUL not knowing how challenging or long this trail was… if I’d looked at it on a map and seen that it was a difficult 13+ mile hike in total, I wouldn’t have even considered checking it out because I knew I wouldn’t be completing it, so what’s the use? Exploring with no destination or goal other than enjoying myself was glorious.

After exploring about a mile of the trail, I turned around because I felt satisfied and wanted to end on a good note - instead of pushing myself too hard and leaving with my back in pain. Walked around near the campground and found a tent with two nice people working a wildlife conservation table; they had a cute whiteboard where you could share your wildlife sightings, and gave me a sticker!!

Wandered around the campground to look for the bear the lady said she had just seen, but to no avail - I did, however, find a lovely picnic table by the river where I gobbled down my Uncrustables and journaled about my time in the area. I HAD SO MUCH FUN.

7/21/26

I think I’ve realized that the solution to my current problem – flying by the seat of my business when it comes to sharing any business-related/sales/marketing content, and managing to feel constantly behind (even though I think I do a PRETTY great job at keeping up with my socials and audience??): getting back to some good ol batch working!

I feel like “batch working” (accidentally typed bath, maybe there’s an idea in there) has become such a hustle culture-esque term that I associate with the bros who tell you to grind from 5am onwards and constantly be searching for the best way to optimize your schedule… but there’s some validity to it.

Here’s what happens: I add “Write this week’s newsletter” to my to-do list every Monday in the hopes that I get it done bright-eyed and cheery first thing for the week, inevitably push it to Tuesday because it doesn’t have to be done till Wednesday!, then get to Tuesday night and realize I’ve done it yet again. Somehow I’ve managed to turn this thing that I actually, genuinely enjoy into a frantic task I wake up and feel I urgently need to complete on Wednesday morning by 8:30am sharp because my audience absolutely will never forgive me if it’s a minute late.

Anyway, I just went on a quick 6-minute walk up and down the path outside our apartment to close my Exercise ring for the day – the ring showed no progress for some reason, btw, but I’m still checking the box off my habit tracker because I DID IT even if my dumb watch didn’t realize it – and quickly added 3 batch days to my calendar during the first week of August. (Carefully, while VERY aware of my surroundings, because being a girl on her phone walking around in the dark is not a very smart thing to do in this world).

I am ready to become a WHOLE NEW PERSON once I re-incorporate batch working into my regular schedule, and probably inevitably fall off of said schedule after a month or two. Watch out, world, she’s about to become a #girlboss #millionaire!!

7/23/26

Why must it always be SO freezing cold inside every Starbucks? (yes, I’m breaking my rule of not supporting Starbucks, because I received a gift card a few days ago. I’m not rich enough yet to shop my values all the time, unfortunately. But I do my best!)

7/24/26

“I love being a woman!” and “I love being a girl!” until I remember that being a woman means you have to get a pap smear every few years, then I don’t love being a woman and actually I’d much prefer being a man right at this moment!

Currently sitting in my car outside of the doctor’s office after getting my second pap smear ever, with a bad taste in my mouth and a slight air of nausea, taking a few minutes to recover from the experience before I go into the Starbucks down the street to start working. Funny that I thought I’d be able to go straight into focused work after my appointment, I forgot what it feels like to have a speculum placed inside of you and an oversized q-tip swabbing the sides of my cervix, something that even the most gentle of doctors (mine is lovely!) can’t make feel any better.

I keep reminding myself that it’s nothing compared to my awful experience getting an IUD inserted years ago, because that was TRULY horrible, but still – I feel crampy, exposed, and my mouth tastes like it does before you throw up. But I will not throw up because I did a great job of taking deep breaths during the whole thing, trying to focus on keeping my breathing steady rather than the nauseating feeling of a cramp so deep inside of my body that I wonder how anybody could get in there. If you’ve experienced it you know the cramp I’m talking about and the way it lingers for a while afterward, I’m about to walk into Starbucks and act like I’m fine even though I swear I can feel my uterus cramping up inside of my body.

Oh well, such is life as a woman.

In the moments when it sucks, I do force myself to remember the wonders of modern technology and the fact that this momentary pain/discomfort/intrusivity (is that a word?) is actually very helpful, and I would like to please keep doing it if it means making sure I don’t go undiagnosed with a potentially life-threatening disease.

Thank you for being gentle when you explored down there today, doctor, even though you gave me a momentary freakout when you asked me “if I had one of those cervixes that’s tilted the other way” and I thought I have no fucking clue, you tell me, and even though I might have to come back in for another one because you weren’t sure if you got ENOUGH cells to test because you couldn’t get a good “view from the center.” Grand.

I also weighed 5 pounds more than the last time I weighed myself, and that gave me a nice little panic about how I haven’t been working out as much because my back is in a lot of fucking pain and wow maybe I shouldn’t have drank half of that regular Coke can yesterday. I was hoping by now the nauseous feeling would go away but no, time to go get my mocha while I ask the universe to pretty please let there be enough cervical cells for her to test so I don’t have to go back for a redo!

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Maybe it’s true what they say—they as in the scientists who do, in fact, know what they’re talking about: that once you hit 26, your brain fully develops.

I’m not sure if it’s the evolution of the gray matter in my brain or simply the fact that I’ve finally found a therapist who is making a visible difference in my life & self-development, but I feel like I’ve finally unlocked something.

Like my planets are in sync or my stars are aligning, I’m not very well-versed in astrology but I’d like to be one day. It could be the amalgamation of quotes I’ve saved on Instagram, nestled within carousels of pretty Canva graphics, typed out in fonts with names like “(Mary) Poppins” and “Coolvetica.”

(Would the latter have made my AP Lit essays a bit more appealing?)

Or maybe it’s just the pure fact that the older I get and the more I work on building trust within myself, the less I give a shit about the opinions of others, the more I am able to question the beliefs I hold and dissect them like a poor little frog in a middle school science classroom. My inherent curiosity is one of my favorite things about myself, and I’ve let it take the reins this year—really, ever since I deconstructed my religious beliefs in my early twenties and realized that I was allowed to change my mind or question/doubt things without massive guilt of being a SINNER.

Why do I believe this? Where did this come from? Does this actually do anything for me or is just something I’ve been holding onto for years?

I believe it’s this curiosity plus a good dose of the aforementioned quotes that helped me come to the realization that I AM, in fact… just like other girls.

Oh god, I know, 13-year-old Danielle would be cringed the fuck out hearing me say that!

13-ish is the earliest age I can trace back to where I REALLY remember starting to be aware of myself and my status among the people around me; the way I looked, the way I spoke, what I liked and what I didn’t like and how I would be judged. More importantly, how all of this impacted the way my friends the group I called the “popular girls,” paired with the group of cute boy crushes I cycled through depending on my mood – probably determined by a $2 mood ring from Claire’s – thought of me.

What I wanted started mattering less, and what would make me look the coolest became imperative to every decision I made. The way I cut my hair (god-awful side bangs that should’ve never seen the light of day). The music I listened to (One Direction, sprinkled with a little Twenty One Pilots and 5SOS to make me seem a *tiny* bit edgier than the “normal” boyband fangirl). Every outfit I wore (see: the rhinestone snapback hat I bought because I desperately wanted to look as cool as my cousin, who seemed to have boys flocking to her on the daily).

The way I lived my life all throughout middle school, eventually high school, and my early twenties was pretty much all dependent on how I would be perceived. And when you live for the perception of others, the person you really are gets jumbled up with who you think you should be, who you want to be, who they want you to be.

Cool is a cage

A phrase that has really resonated with me in my 27th year of life, and helped me break out of the “cool” image I tried to hold onto for so long, is this: COOL IS A CAGE. Or COOL IS A PRISON, depending on how much you’d like to your language to support the prison industrial complex we pride ourselves on here in the great ol’ US of A.

(I kid, but I do like “cage” better because it feels more like something I can actually escape from, without having to laboriously dig a secret tunnel for nearly 20 years, à la Shawshank Redemption. I don’t know if I’m committed enough for that.)

Anyway, GOD is it the truth. Ever since I started allowing myself to slowly, gently take baby steps toward re-discovering what I actually like, independent of the opinions or judgment or perception of others, I have never felt so fucking FREE.

Except for maybe the day I realized I could freely choose to not be Christian anymore—that was undoubtedly the sneaky little spark that ignited the flame of curiosity about everything else in my life. If this is what I thought I believed and it’s disappeared into thin air… what else can I challenge, examine, interrogate?

As soon as you stop feeling like you have to be cool, you immediately create SO much more space for genuine, wholehearted fucking joy.

For pure childlike excitement and curiosity and wonder, the kind that 8-year-old you felt when she kicked a soccer ball in the backyard with her friends; the kind that 10-year-old you felt when she zipped up that godawful neon green Aeropostale hoodie without an ounce of shame; the kind that 13-year-old you felt when she showed up to school with bright pink nails drenched in sparkles & glitter.

Before “being like other girls” became something you aspired to avoid for fear of blending in (or, more honestly, for fear of standing out); before you realized your true personality needed to be dimmed, your interests unique and edgy because conformity was your worst nightmare; before the boy in math class laughed at your girly outfit or silly music choices.

As much as those formative teenage years were about trying to “stand out” and prove your “coolness” because you weren’t like the rest of the crowd, they were really about re-shaping yourself to appeal to an audience you deemed superior… often dulling the parts of you that made you YOU, every decision made through the lens of what will get me the most approval?

Following your excitement

Another wonderful combination of words that has guided many of my decisions this year: FOLLOW THE EXCITEMENT. Religion may have led me astray but my excitement never has. Every decision in my life that I remember most fondly and most proudly is a decision I made based off excitement, be it something as big as deciding to drop out of college to run my business because I had never felt more excited about anything, or something as small as adding a song to my Spotify queue because I am SO excited to blast it in my car.

This Substack article was right that being an adult is coming back to who you were at 13, but liking her at this time. When I remember this, focus on breaking outta the “cool cage,” allow myself to be like other girls, and follow my excitement… it all adds up to my perfect delicious recipe for finding myself in my mid to late-twenties.

Because you know what?

I AM just like other girls.

I DO like the color pink, in fact I love it and it brings me so much more joy than the neutral aesthetic ever did. Pink and purple have slowly started seeping into every aspect of my life, and I’m not longer opting for the default choice of neutrals or blacks or grays when I buy a piece of clothing, or pick flowers at the grocery store, or buy a new notepad. I’ll take the squiggly pink one that makes writing to-do lists just a TINY bit more fun and whimsical, please! (it’s my absolute favorite)

I DO get excited about dressing up, getting ready, trying on outfits and playing around with makeup and putting glitter on my face in front of the bathroom mirror next to my best friends. For years I’ve worked on building up my confidence without much makeup or putting in effort with my outfits, under the guise of “not needing all that frivolous stuff to be confident” – when really it was just a lack of confidence and the fact that I had zero clue what I wanted expressing myself to look like.

I actually DO like wearing pretty jewelry, and doing my nails, and playing around with my accessories. No longer for the sake of others or in fear of the way I’ll be perceived, but for the sake of my OWN confidence, my well of joy, and the immensely kinder, more loving/generous energy I put out into the world when I am feeling my best.

I DO like listening to pop girlies and fangirling over my favorite boybands. Ever since I went to the 5SOS Seattle concert I have been blasting their albums over and over nonstop every time I get in my car (my friends and boyfriend are probably over it but I do not care!).

I DO like having girl best friends who I feel completely myself around, and who, in fact, help me return to my true self in such beautiful ways. For the first time in my adult life I feel like I finally have friends who are filling my cup and allowing me to experience the beauty and love of reciprocal, committed female friendships. I used to think I’d never friends like that and that maybe, a good group of girlfriends just wasn’t something that was on the table for me. It overwhelms me sometimes to think about!

I DO like putting cute stickers on my water bottle and laptop, and having pretty things all around me, and reading cheesy romance novels that remind me of the beauty and love that exists all around us if we simply look for it.

10-year-old me knew all of this, yet somewhere along the way the world dimmed all that light for the sake of fitting into the cage of “cool.” And I’m fucking done with it!

I am just like other girls, actually… and what beautiful company to be associated with.

TL;DR:

COOL IS A CAGE, escaping it will set you free

All chalance has been thrown out the fucking window

With excitement as your true north, you can never make a wrong turn

13-year-old you probably knew what she was doing

It’s time for our family picnic at the park again, the same park along the Oregon Coast where my cousins, little brother and I grew up pushing each other on tire swings, scrambling across the monkey bars (“who can do it fastest?”), and climbing that same tree next to the plastic tan slide, the one that used to fit me three times over but my legs are now as long as.

We walk a familiar path to get to our table, the table that we randomly picked one day and turned into a monument of our annual trips to the coast. Through the little wooden gate we go, the kids running across the dew-covered grass until we find ourselves seated on the same benches as always; setting Mama’s scratchy yellow picnic blanket down on the same slivers of wood as every year before. Our legs stretch longer and voices speak a little deeper than before, yet with all that has changed since we last sat here, it seems that somehow, almost nothing has.

The adults unload the tote bags, hold open the wrinkled grocery bags from the local market down the street as we run over to the bark with the playground that holds our dearest memories from childhood, the scratches on the metal bars of the creaky swingset growing as we do with the years.

Lunch is ready, a voice calls through the screams of summer-drunk children around us; our little feet sprint back to the table as we ready for another round of Mama’s famous picnic foods. We know we must wait for a moment, gathering together to hold hands and keep in giggles as Baba shares another year’s worth of gratitude; barely heard over the grumbles of our little stomachs, begging for the square-cut cubes of Tillamook cheddar cheese and Clifford apple juice boxes we know await us atop those wooden slivers of our favorite table.

Just as quickly as the sun comes out from the clouds does it pass behind them again; I’m glad I wore this sky blue Cannon Beach sweatshirt we bought at the gift shop yesterday, if only we could see the blue sky that inspired it.

Impatient eyes burst open the moment the “n” is sounded in Baba’s “amen,” tiny fumbling hands overwhelmed by the choice of what to grab first. Noses fill with the scents of peanut butter as the jar is opened; is the label red or blue, creamy or crunchy this year? Ears perk up at the the long-awaited hiss of the lid to the skinny green chip can—sour cream and onion, everybody’s favorite—but I know can only grab them if I add an equal (if not larger) amount of strawberries, blackberries, raspberries to my plate; each as bright, fresh, juicy as they get all year.

Plastic knives smooth peanut butter across saltine crackers and wheat bread, can someone pass the jelly and a spoon please? Cars drive by on the other side of the fence, past the pink-and-white-striped candy shop we’d spend all of our family’s money on if we could and past the colorful kite shop that marks our entrance into town every summer.

A mid-meal snack comes in the form of Dixie cups filled with Goldfish, the precursor to the dessert we look forward to all year: the sprinkle-covered, pink and white frosted animal cookies that are very likely melting in that bag over there as we eat our sandwiches, drink our ice water poured from the giant plastic bottle, sip our juices through miniature straws, but it makes no difference to our sugar cravings.

Us kids eye each other as our plates start to empty, are you ready to go back to the playground yet? Mom and Dad, Aunt and Uncle, Grandma and Grandpa clean up as we hop back on the tire swing and push each other forever and ever without getting nauseous from all the frosted animal cookies we ate; those were the days.

The years pass as everything changes but nothing changes all at the same time, summers never feel like they’ve started until we’ve sat down on those same benches, eaten those same sandwiches, scarfed down those same cookies—the ones we could certainly buy ourselves at the store any time but that never taste quite as good as they do at our picnic table.

We grow taller but our legs still fit underneath that table, we get older but we still swing on those swings and climb that tree, we move away from our homes but we still come together at that picnic table in between the blurry days of our adult lives.

Eventually the picnic at our picnic table turns into a picnic in the backyard of the new Airbnb we rent a town over, then a picnic at another park nearby because we’re farther away from the original one now but the tradition still holds and always will.

The picnic evolves as we do but the same scratchy yellow blanket stays our table cover, the same Dixie cups carry our Goldfish, the same hands squeeze each other and the same throats hold back giggles during Baba’s seemingly endless speech of gratitude and his prayer, the hands are just a little bigger now.

We pass around the plastic peanut butter knife, the green can of chips, the crinkly bag of melted frosted animal cookies and this time, the kids help the adults clean up.

Suddenly it’s time to go, the picnic has been packed up, the little wooden picnic table by the park is back to empty and open for the next family who comes by, but save our seats we say—we’ll be back next year.

January 1, 2026:

Day one of my “Walk-A-Day” goal for 2026 was here and I was ready to go. It would only be 8 minutes—the approximate time it takes to walk around my apartment complex if I don’t fast-walk like a lunatic—but it would be enough for the day.

I hadn’t been hungover in a hot minute, forcing myself to get off the couch and put on real warm clothes (see: sweats & a rain jacket) even with a lingering stomachache. After all, January 1st was much too early to abandon my one goal for the new year, no matter how tired I was from staying up way past my bedtime the night before!

Knowing that the cold air and the lilting yells of the unhoused man around the corner would wake me up instantly, I grabbed my tennis shoes and regretfully left my AirPods on the counter. I’m trying to be more mindful on my walks and appreciating the silence instead of filling my ears with podcasts about serial killers and the toxicity of Christian Nationalism, okay? Headphone-free and ready to discover the secret to happiness through the peaceful sounds of nature, I stepped outside and started my “Outdoor Walk” on my watch without skipping a beat. I would not miss a minute for my first Strava workout of the year!!

The very first breath I take outside always feels like, well, a breath of fresh air—like all of a sudden I’m reminded of the existence of the external world and immediately pulled out of my own anxious head. This walk was no different. Past the pub and along our little manmade city waterway I went, taking a left instead of a right because the ~14 minute walk past the medical buildings was a little more than my champagne headache could handle.

I can’t remember which neighborhood characters were out and about that day… maybe the stout man with the cute spotted dog, or the elderly woman with another stylish winter beret? Who knows, but I probably smiled at them and attempted a meek but friendly “hi.” Sorry Seattle, I know I’m a psycho but I’m trying to warm people (and myself) up to more tiny social interactions!

As I walked around the corner, I saw a potentially sketchy man hovering on the sidewalk, and as a woman walking alone in the dark, in a city, I took no chances—so I scooted over into the road to keep a few more feet between us. If I’m being honest, I’d rather face death by an oncoming car than an unpredictable man.

Usually these precautions aren’t needed (surprisingly, there really aren’t as many murderers out there as my true crime podcasts would have me believe). But to my shock and offense—though I really shouldn’t be shocked nor offended at this point—he yelled out as I walked by. “Keep walking by me and I’ll burn your fucking eyes out.”

“Excuse me?”

I turned on my heel, making my way back toward him as rage bubbled in my stomach, the fiery rage of all the women before me who have been made uncomfortable by a man who simply must insert themselves into any situation where a woman is enjoying herself.

“Who the hell do you think you are, threatening an innocent woman as she walks by, alone, in the dark, with nothing but a couple of dim streetlights and the neon red glow of the Red Robin across the street to keep her safe?”

He looked up at me, shocked, lighter in hand. “Oh my god, you are so right. I should have never done that.” Holding out a spare cigarette, “Forgive me?”

Just kidding—I did not, in fact, confront a scary man and inspire him to suddenly apologize and change his ways in the middle of the street. That probably would have actually gotten me murdered. Instead, I let the rage simmer like every other woman has done before me, ready to burst into my apartment and incredulously ask my boyfriend if he could believe it (yes, he said, he unfortunately could).

Little did I know that walk #2 of the year the next day would also consist of an unstable man (a different one! the nerve of these people!) yelling at me as I minded my own damn business on a fun little afternoon jaunt to the library. Maybe next year my resolution will be to yell back at the angry men who interrupt my walks, but personally, I’d like to see past January this year. I should probably start carrying my little purple pepper spray again, though. Oh, how I love being a woman!

My grandma used to take my brother and I on “outings,” as she called them, when we were younger (and probably when my parents really needed a break). Outings often involved visits to the library to thumb through the latest books added to the shelves, walks to the park to dangle from the monkey bars, or trips to the local coffee shop to sip on a kids’ hot cocoa flooded with mini marshmallows.

I never used to believe her when she’d tell me about the importance of the little things in life like these. The importance of going outside, of drinking enough water, of going on walks and to the libraries and to the coffee shops. Why would I, when everything about life was so simple and there was no need for 5-year-old me to fill my time with any of these foolish things? Silly old grandma. Who needs to go for a walk when I’ve got a brand new edition of Littlest Pet Shop waiting for me at my sleepover tonight?!

I have been cynical lately, I will admit it. And I don’t like it. I have never been a nihilistic person, never one to think that the glass is half-empty or to approach life with a pessimistic perspective, but I’ve felt closer to it than ever lately.

Every day I am trying to find the balance between recognizing the negative things in the world that need change and reflection—capitalism, consumerism, social media, loneliness, lack of connection, productivity, food security, the list could go on—and not getting bogged down by them. I want so badly to be offline on a more regular basis, to bring my focus back to my own life and the parts of it that matter most, but I feel overwhelming guilt over even thinking about it. I know what a privilege it is to be able to log off just because I feel like it, so I must continue to bombard my eyes with repulsive AI images, fill my ears with the screams of children dying of hunger in Gaza, shatter my heart with devastating headline after headline about the descendence of our country into fascism. Right??

When I consume too much online (whether it’s positive, negative, or neutral), I forget that there are still good things; good things everywhere I look, in fact, as soon as I look up from the screen that has become an ever-present and immovable fifth limb. I forget that I have the ability to make an impact in small ways, in my everyday life, that may not solve the world’s problems but may change the course of a person’s day.

I forget that the sun still sets in the sky, that the sounds of music and chatter and the smells of beer and cigarettes still float in the breeze from the pub next door. That the woman I see on my evening walks is still strolls into the gym with her yoga mat, that the neighbor still walks his polka-dotted dog, that the train across the street still moves hundreds and hundreds of people through the city who are living their very own lives that I know nothing about. How cool!

I forget that all it may take to ground me is a colorful sky, a cool breeze in the warm air that hugs my skin, a bright red leaf glistening with raindrops on the cement, an acorn falling from a tree in front of me to remind me that everything is still moving, still existing, still beautiful if I’m only willing to look at it that way. That a compliment to a stranger or a held door may be just what a person needs to feel hopeful, to feel optimistic, to continue swimming upward through whatever may be pulling them under just as we are all trying to do.

I forget that all it may take to shift my perspective for the next minute, hour, month is a trip to the library or to the local cafe, a walk through the park, a phone call with a loved one or a deep inhale of fresh air that I never wanted to take as a child but crave more than anything now when I can’t bear to stare at a screen for a second longer, at another news story or at another headline. That all it may take to give me the hope and the strength I need to make a small difference, to put my energy toward something that instills hope rather than cynicism, is a momentary exchange with the neighbor as we pass by each other on the doorstep.

It annoys me to admit that the little things do make a significant difference. Because for some reason, we are just desperate to overcomplicate everything and prioritize anything else other than the basic ways that humans have always made themselves feel better. Water. Food. Sleep. Air. Nature. Community. Connection. Stories. Movement. People. Truthfully, it pisses me off when something so seemingly simple and obvious can turn my day around in a second, but it also reminds me that beauty and joy and hope and good can be found as soon as I give them a chance to exist in front of me, can help me come back to life in that very second. Maybe through a drive to the library to be around people and books, maybe through a five-minute walk around the block to feel the air and hear the sounds and see the sights of the world in motion around me, or maybe to the coffee shop up the stairs from my apartment to taste the warmth of hot cocoa.

Maybe it’s not actually so complicated, maybe grandma was right after all.

So I thought, why don’t I do the same? So I documented my day yesterday as a full-time entrepreneur who is currently dealing with a lovely bout of anxiety about everything going on in the world, intending to simply reflect on the flow of my day—but I ended up really enjoying the way it helped me notice my thought patterns and where my brain tends to flit off to on a regular basis.

It feels silly now, to be sharing it publicly because I don’t have a large audience like Amie does. I’m not very important and nobody really asked for this. My day wasn’t full of extraordinary, revolutionary thoughts or moments, but I think that’s what feels so refreshing to me about this type of content right now: it brings me back to the grounding reminder that everybody I see online is just a normal fucking human who is doing their best every day. So here it is, silly and minute and mundane and all.

6:30am - My first alarm goes off but I snooze until 7:10. I thought I would be ready to get up since I went to sleep around 10pm, but I’m noticing that I need more sleep than usual to feel refreshed, and that it feels a little harder to get out of bed lately.

7:20am - As I do my eyebrows I think about how nervous I am, because today I am writing my first ever page of website copy for a paying client! I wonder if I will discover that I’m actually terrible at writing website copy, and will need to cancel all of the projects that I booked this winter that clients are relying on me for.

7:52am - I eat my overnight oats that are just a little too liquidy and listen to my cat scream at my boyfriend, impatiently waiting for his fancy wet food to be warmed up. He’s spoiled and he knows it, good thing he’s so fucking cute.

8:00am - I tell my boyfriend that my baseline mood feels a bit lower than usual, and wonder if it might be a good time to up my meds. I’ve taken antidepressants since I was 19 and have been on a lower dose for a while now, but I’m feeling a bit less motivated than usual about things I am typically excited about—a good sign for me that it might be time to consider it.

8:23am - All I want to do right now is stay cozy in my apartment but I know that’s typically not helpful when I feel like this, so I get myself out of the house to the cafe next door. I’m trying something new today & not checking my email or social media until the afternoon, once I’ve finished my client work for the day, to minimize distractions and stop my energy from being pulled elsewhere.

8:28am - I tap my card to pay for a $7.73 mocha, which is usually too expensive for me to justify when I have good coffee at home, but right now it’s worth it to get me out and in a more focused space to work, around people and in a new setting.

8:33am - I watch a video from a copywriting course about how to write better headlines, my allergies and reflux are acting up a bit and I clear my throat as I try to not focus on my breathing that feels a little bit congested.

9:13am - I realize that part of the reason writing this page of website copy feels so scary is that I don’t have any workflows set up yet. I don’t know my processes yet, therefore I’m just dropping shit into a disorganized Google Doc and learning as I go—which is challenging!!

10:00am - Stretch and bathroom break, I’m actually really enjoying writing this copy and I think that with every sentence I braindump, I’m getting closer to the core pain point that I want this page to address for my client.

10:11am - Oh my god best bathroom break ever?? I walked to the bathroom past a man who has brought his MAINE COON to the cafe on a leash. His name is Zeus and the man kindly let me hold him and take a picture with him so I could show my boyfriend, who loves maine coons!! Zeus’s dad lived to be 31 years old, how?! My day has been fucking made.

11:00am - I join an coworking sprint and get clear on what I want to finish in the next hour. It feels good not to be on social media or email, my energy feels more focused and I’m not stressing over what other people need from me.

11:11am - I eat the Kirkland croissant that I brought with me in a Ziploc bag because it’s cheaper (and probably better) than the $5 croissant I’d be tempted to get up at the counter lol

11:28am - I am losing focus and normally right now I would pull out my phone to scroll for a minute, but we are not doing that today! Instead I’m looking outside the windows at the people walking by and trying not to dance as Hips Don’t Lie comes on the cafe speakers

12:06pm - Lunch break!! I eat a chicken caesar salad while I watch Masterchef and have a little midday cuddle with my boyfriend because he knows I’ve been stressed, and it’s moments like this where I really appreciate that we both work from home.

1:21pm - Back to work at my desk, I’m hoping I can finish this first draft today while I eat a cup of protein mac & cheese I found at Costco

2:31pm - Formatting my first draft and rewriting the headline a million times

3:05pm - I think the first draft is done?! Oh my god how does 7 hours of work result in what looks like such LITTLE copy in an 8-page Google Doc, I really hope my client loves this and I know it’s miles better than what she currently has.

3:32pm - Putting that away for now, I may read it again tomorrow before delivering it for review. Now time to deliver the first draft of another sales page I wrote yesterday, I am terrified and all of a sudden all the words I wrote yesterday sound dreadful, even though I know they are fucking great and really elevate this product for my client!

3:50pm - Opening my inbox for the first time today, WOW it feels good to know that my client work is done and now I can take care of other admin tasks!

4:47pm - Lost in tasks and inboxes but at least it's only for an hour today and I can actually afford it because I’m done with client work and am about to log off for the day!

5:09pm - LOGGING OFF goodbyeee world

5:32pm - Parboiling potatoes because I have enough time/energy to cook a little bit tonight yay! I don’t know how people cook for every meal but I’m proud when I can do it for one or two dinners a week.

As I wait for the potatoes to boil, I’m thinking about how one of the reasons I'm afraid to dive deep into website copy is that it's going to take such a long time to build it up to my high standards. I think of other copywriters I follow who already offer great site copy. I’m one of the only ones who offers blogging the way I do, so I never really doubt myself. How can I stand out in a sea of writers who are already miles ahead of where I’m at? I feel like a baby again starting from the beginning.

6:00pm - I go out for a headphone-free walk (a la ) while my potatoes are cooking. I can’t go on runs right now or do much intense exercise since hurting my back, and it SUCKS.

We recently moved out of a rental house and into an apartment in a more urban area, so I’m not walking through pretty residential neighborhoods with little free libraries anymore, but around medical buildings and retail plazas instead. I’ll admit that I let that stop me from going on walks for a while but I'm reminding myself that I can find beauty anywhere, and that walking is an important part of taking care of myself no matter what the view is like!

Instead of walking by a green park I walk by a pub to the sounds of people laughing and cheersing, I make myself notice the singular purple flower I find amidst the trees, way the shadows reflect against buildings at sunset, and the way the soft sunset light glints off the greenery. I think that being in an area that’s not naturally as “pretty” forces me to seek out more beauty and it reminds me of why I fell in love with photography as a teenager, to notice the moments and views that I wouldn’t normally pay attention to.

For the rest of the night I enjoy a glass of wine, play Stardew Valley and watch a podcast with my boyfriend, then eventually go to sleep at 10. Before bed we have a discussion about how to be off social media while also staying up to date on the news. . . but he challenges me and asks how up to date I really need to be all the time with a news cycle that is constantly changing? I don’t know but if you’ve figured it out, please let me know.

Sincerely,

A multi-passionate, 25-year-old entrepreneur doing her best in an overwhelming world!!

Welcome to Learning to Be A Beginner: An 8-Week Experiment in Overcoming Perfectionism! This is a recap of Week 5, where I had to postpone the half-marathon I’ve been training for. You can read more about why I decided to do this experiment here, and subscribe for free below to follow along for the ride :)

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I was supposed to run my first half-marathon yesterday, buuut guess what I didn’t do? Run my first half-marathon! 🙃

Here’s the thing: I like to think I’m fairly adaptable, flexible, and resilient like I was as a kid. I really do. I spent my childhood moving around the world and changing schools, homes, cultures, and friend groups every few years, for god’s sake!

I like to think that I can go with the flow, and a lot of the time, I can! Until I can’t.

Until my perfectly laid plans go awry, until a wrench is thrown into the works that I can’t control, until something happens out of the blue that begins to make me question my self-worth, something that hits a nerve a little deeper down than it should.

It sounds silly, doesn’t it? To think that even the tiniest change in plans could make you doubt yourself, your confidence, your value as a human being? Fucking yikes. 😬

But that’s exactly what happened to me this past week, and it’s forced me to do a ton of reflection. Not what I wanted to be doing this weekend when I was supposed to run a beautiful course in the mountains of Washington & complete one of my life’s biggest achievements!

As I’ve trained for my race this summer, I’ve been dealing with lower back pain after my long runs, and the occasional insanely painful tweak on random days. 3 days out from my half, I was—frustratingly—still in pain. I told my physical therapist that it was significantly better, but the pain wasn’t gone. Even though, internally, all I wanted to tell her was that I was totally fine, the pain was gone, I’m ready to run!!

I think that was the first of my smart, mature, annoying decisions in this sequence of events—being honest about the pain, and knowing that when my PT said it wasn’t a good idea to run, she was probably right.

Here’s the part that reallyyy made me take a step back and reflect:

When I decided to postpone my race, I took it as a reflection of my work ethic, my ability, my inherent sense of worth and potential.

Of course this happened, I knew I could never actually run a half-marathon. It was silly of me to think otherwise.

You didn’t train correctly, and that’s fucking embarrassing.

Pride and ego quickly joined the party; the inherently competitive parts of me that I’ve worked hard to push aside in service of a more joyful, delightful life independent of outcomes/results—but that still rears its head in moments like these.

You can still do it, you can/should just push through the pain.

Your back doesn’t hurt THAT much anymore. . . you’re totally fine to run, even though your PT says otherwise.

If you give up now, it’ll prove that you could never do this in the first place.

Everything you’ve done, all the miles you’ve run are a waste if you don’t do this.

God, that all sounds so MEAN when I write it down and get it out of my brain! I could never say that to a person I love. . . and it hurts to know that I’m willing to say it to myself.

It’s fucking annoying to listen to your body and not your ego.

To listen to your gut. To accept that your decision is right even though your ego still screams at you, the competitor and overachiever and hard worker and perfectionist inside of you screams at you to run it anyway, to do it anyway, that you’ll be fine, you can deal with it, nothing was worth it if you give up now, that’s embarrassing and you’d look like a failure.

What’s most interesting to me from all those feelings is that above all else, I’m so worried about looking like a failure, even though inside, I know I don’t feel like one. At all! Why is that what I’m so worried about? How people will perceive me and this achievement, or lack thereof?

It went against everything inside of me and my brain to make this decision, and I think that’s how I knew it was right. I knew I wouldn’t regret prioritizing my long-term health and my body—and that is key.

Ughhh, how ANNOYING though. And sad! It kinda sucks to make the smart decision for your long-term health rather than a short-term sense of achievement, satisfaction, or success.

But here’s what I had to remind myself, what I wrote down on a sticky note when I was making my decision:

I am doing this to feel GOOD. If it doesn’t feel good and will not feel good in the long term, then what’s the point?

And you know what else feels good?

All the hard work I’ve already put in to get here! I’ve already run farther than I EVER, ever, in my wildest dreams, thought I could! I’ve already found such an amazing sense of confidence in myself, discovered an ability and a strength I didn’t know I had to challenge myself, to be willing to be a beginner, to prioritize my body and feeling GOOD over speed, or miles, or numbers.

Even if I were to never run a half-marathon from here on out, I will forever be so fucking proud of that.

So with all that said, I guess the thing I was a beginner at last week was listening to my body above all else. Something that doesn’t feel inherently easy to me (shoutout to Christianity & purity culture for that one), but that is beginning to feel a little more natural with every decision I make like this one. With every decision to prioritize feeling good, prioritize my body, and prioritize caring for her, even if it means letting go of outcomes, expectations, and control.

Now, I’m planning for a half at the end of September since there aren’t really any good ones happening after that in Seattle, but I also know that I might not be able to run the whole thing depending on how my back feels. Currently figuring out how to find peace with the unknown of it all, but that would be a whole other post.

I am adapting and adjusting my plans in service of my best, highest, healthiest self (even though it’s ANNOYING), and I am proud of myself for that! It feels mature, it feels intentional, and that feels good.

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As I sit down to reflect on weeks 3 & 4 of this series, I have to remind myself that not everything I write needs to have a major lesson or takeaway in order to be “valuable” to anyone who reads it.

Don’t get me wrong: I do love using writing as a way to reflect on lessons learned, but it’s not everything I love about it. I enjoy writing because it allows me to document moments of my life that I don’t want to forget!

People I met, activities I did, places I visited, moments of joy and happiness and inspiration that didn’t necessarily come with any so-called “value” for me to share with you, but made a difference (big or small) in my own life.

Or, on the opposite side of things, moments of my life that are difficult, tough, challenging and that I’m able to get perspective on through writing about them.

That maybe, in writing about what I’m going through without trying to turn it into an inspirational teaching moment, I’ll be able to help someone else feel less alone in their struggles.

I know that I find stories, experiences, and real-life moments to be just as valuable as reading a revolutionary thinkpiece with life-changing takeaways, so I’ll try my hand at that today!

I’ll be honest with you right off the bat and say that the past couple of weeks have been hard. We moved into a new apartment which has been SO time and energy-consuming. And on top of that, I’ve been dealing with back pain that’s stopped me from running and exercising like normal, and random spells of anxiety that are impacting my mental health.

As for why I was late on week 3 of my experiment, and decided to just combine it with week 4. . . I think my expectations are still too high when it comes to writing a post on Substack.

In my head, it needs to be perfectly written, well-thought-out, and somewhat lengthy in order to have “value”. . . which is definitely why I procrastinated week 3 until I had “more time to sit down and write it.”

But oh well, we’re learning as we go here! Shall we dive into what the last two weeks of my 8-week experiment looked like?

As a reminder, each week I’m finding a way to be a beginner at something so I can force myself through the discomfort of being new + not achieving perfection on the very first try.

Week 3: Homemade tortillas, tacos al pastor, & yummy guacamole! 🌮

Back in January, I went on a trip to Tulum that didn’t go quite as planned, where I dealt with major homesickness and bouts of anxiety for some reason or another. I also realized I was SO tired of trips that consisted of constantly taking photos and doing things for Instagram!! (and then I wrote about it, of course 🙂)

One of the memories I look back on most fondly from this trip was a cooking class my friend and I took with a local woman named Lily. We arrived at her home on the outskirts of town and sat down with a group of around 10 other visitors, plus a multitude of cats that wandered around the home the entire time. I immediately felt the relief of being out of touristy parts of Tulum, doing something that felt a little bit more local, intimate, and laid-back than walking around the booming nightclubs filled with glammed-up tourists—who I felt very insecure around in my little old Amazon tanktops and cheap jean shorts from Target.

Over the next 3 hours, we learned how to make homemade tortillas, tacos al pastor, guacamole, and a whole host of other local dishes! Truthfully, I don’t do a lot of cooking from scratch, so it was really fun to learn to make these things with my hands and be a part of the process from start to finish.

Since leaving Tulum, I’ve made that heavenly guac multiple times, as well as the tacos al pastor (with chicken instead of pork!), but not the homemade tortillas yet—so I decided that this week, I’d try my hand at it!

I stopped at a nearby Mexican market to grab a few ingredients that my local QFC doesn’t stock, and finally picked up a tortilla press that I’d been putting off buying for months because I “didn’t need” it. No, I don’t need to buy a tortilla press when I can just go to the store and buy a big pack of tortillas, but hey—I try my best to create a budget for myself that encourages both practicality AND fun!!

And I’ll be honest with you: I’m pretty damn proud of how this first batch of tortillas turned out. I started by following the directions on the bag of Maseca corn flour, but the first few tortillas ended up sticking to the plastic when I tried to remove them—so I experimented adding more water and flour until I found the right consistency.

The first few tortillas were a little wonky, with edges I’d accidentally folded over when dropping them on the pan, or small pieces ripped off when removing them from the plastic.

Eventually, though, I got a perfect circle of a tortilla and was THRILLED!! You should’ve seen my face when I got it off the plastic and onto the pan without messing it up along the way.

I’m not really sure if the tortillas were supposed to be quite as bubbly as they were (it’s been too long since that cooking class and I don’t remember, sorry Lily!!), but they tasted amazing and holy shit, it felt so cool to know that I’d made them myself! And that I’d made that guacamole that tasted so good! And the marinade for the chicken!

I’m really proud of myself for putting in the work and enjoying it along the way, and it really encouraged me to try and cook more meals from scratch. Trying new recipes typically overwhelms me because I can never get them quite perfect, or I mess up and then feel it was a waste of time/money/ingredients. . . but I’m going to release that need for perfection or fanciness and just try dishes that are simple & that I’m already familiar with eating.

Week 4: Pottery & painting! 🎨

When was the last time you went to one of those little stores where you can pick a piece of pottery & paint it to your heart’s content? You know, the ones you’d find at the end of the hallway of your local mall when you were a kid.

I haven’t been to one since I was 17, when my boyfriend and I first started dating and the mall was the only fun place to go in eastern Washington—but recently I heard MJ mention it on Internet People and thought oh my god, I need to do that soon!

So when we had a couple of friends come into town this past weekend, I (somewhat aggressively) suggested that we go to the nearest paint-your-own-pottery place. Off we went and after 3 hours of waiting around for a table to open, we sat down and were suddenly flooded with a world of colors, shapes, and opportunities that had me feeling like a little kid again!

You mean. . . I get to choose from any of these paints? I can use all these brushes and tools you’re providing me? There are no limits on what I can do?! It felt like magic to pay just $26 for my mug of choice + to be able to use endless painting supplies, in this capitalist world where everything is so fucking expensive and companies upcharge for every little thing.

I scrolled through pages & pages of “pottery painting ideas” on Pinterest, eventually landing on a design featuring bright pink and orange flowers on a white mug. This color combo has been my obsession lately, so I grabbed four paint shades off the shelf and got started:

🌸 Cotton Tail for the white base

🌸 Orange Peel for the orange flowers

🌸 Pink-A-Boo for the pink flowers

🌸 Leapin Lizard for the leaves.

Oh, and I later pulled Seabreeze on a whim to cover the inside of the mug in a pale blue!

We spent the next 3 hours intensely focused on our painting and oh my god, IT WAS SO MUCH FUN.

Again: the fact that I could spend just $26 for hours of quality time with friends, infinite painting tools and supplies, and a world of creative opportunities in a lovely space outside of my home, plus I’d get a physical, tangible item at the end of it—without needing to buy any pottery supplies or appliances myself?!

I’m convinced that this is one of the best activities you can spend your time and money on right now, and I will absolutely be going back again soon. Maybe with another friend, maybe on my own!!

I’m crossing my fingers that my mug turns out once I pick it up this Saturday, and I can't wait to add it to my mug collection, or maybe use it as a pencil holder on my desk to match the joyful pink, orange, and purple vibe I’m working on creating :)

Oh, and here’s where the title of this post comes in!

While we painted, I heard two little girls talking: one looked at her pottery choices and said “I’m waiting for inspiration.” Her friend responded with “You can’t just turn creativity on like a faucet!” Are you kidding me with this DEEP line from a girl who couldn’t have been older than 10?!

She was right, and this is something I’m learning as I try and open myself up to more creative expressions.

I can’t simply turn my creativity on and off when I feel like it; I have to trust that it will come, and that I’ll flow with that energy when it arrives.

I guess this would be a good topic to write about in the future!

All in all, I’m really happy I was able to get back into somewhat of a routine last week—minus the fact that I tweaked my back again, and now my half marathon this coming weekend is up in the air. That really fucking sucks, and is something I’m currently working through mentally and emotionally.

But at least I made yummy tortillas and a full meal with my own two hands, and at least I got to paint flowers and pretty colors on a mug with my friends!

Stay tuned to see how the mug turns out next week🤞🏼

P.S. I’m already behind by a week—whoops. Moving into a new apartment sorta took over my life last week, but I am not letting one missed week stop me!

God, I wish I knew what to do right now.

As I sat down at a trendy Seattle coffee shop with a friend, I found myself staring at the watercolor palette I’d bought at a local art store, wishing desperately that I knew where the fuck to begin.

That a Disney-esque fairy godmother would just magically appear and tell me what I was supposed to do. Would show me how I should get started. How to fill the empty page in front of me, how to pick the right color, how to use the brush properly.

But deep down, I knew what I really wanted was to somehow be “good” at it as soon as I started. The very moment I picked up the brush, I expected myself to be the next goddamn Picasso! How wild (and unhealthy) is that?

One of the reasons I started this experiment in the first place was to challenge myself to sit with the fact that I wouldn’t always know what to do—and that it was up to me to do it anyway. To force myself through the discomfort of being a total beginner, to allow myself to push past the perfectionism that, previously, would have stopped me from going any further.

And you know what? I think I successfully managed to do that yesterday with my little watercolor palette, my sketchbook, and the $8 iced white mocha that ended up giving me terrible acid reflux!

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Serious question: why aren't we taught that we can be objectively “bad” at something, and still enjoy it?

I’m not sure whose job it was to clue us in on that during our younger years, but clearly our standardized, elementary school curriculum skipped over that part. Or maybe I just ignored it, being the good little teacher’s pet, the perfectly-behaved eldest daughter, the toxically hardworking straight-A kid I was 😅

It has literally taken me 25 years to realize that I don’t have to be the “best,” or naturally “good” at something to find joy, pleasure, delight, or inspiration in it.

Which is why when I sat down with my friend yesterday, I almost immediately told her how overwhelmed I felt looking at the blank page that held infinite opportunities—the classic double-edged sword of I could do ANYTHING with this page! and oh my god. . . I could do ANYTHING with this page. The second side of which usuallyyyy leads to nothing being done with the page, lol.

So I thought to myself: how the fuck do you get started with something when you have absolutely no idea where to start?

And this is what worked well for me this time around!

1. Start with something familiar

Instead of trying to find something brand new to draw, I started with something I already knew how to do: sketch a flower that I’d recently learned from a YouTube tutorial. I picked up my pencil, drew a few circles to loosely define where I’d be drawing, and sketched the shape I was already confident putting down on the paper. Only from there did I allow myself to bring out the watercolors and make an attempt!

This is also what I do when I’m feeling nervous about going on a run, or bumping up my mileage as I train for my half marathon! Instead of trying a new running route, I stick to the place that I’m most comfortable with (aka where I know the mileage by heart, know exactly where to park, and know where the nearest bathrooms + water fountains are).

2. Do it with a friend

But not just any friend—a friend who will encourage you and give you the inspiration you need to do whatever you’re trying to do. NOT a friend who you’re worried might judge you, or make a comment that unintentionally makes you feel self-conscious/critical. I’m too sensitive to have friends like that around when I’m trying something new 😅

This is why my friend, Kiersten, and I met up yesterday! We’ve both been trying our hands at drawing recently, and know that we can trust each other to provide encouragement, inspiration, and motivation if we’re feeling stuck. She just so happens to have also started a Substack recently called Unwritten Postcards, which I highly recommend checking out if you love to travel :)

3. Get out of your regular space

I simply cannot allow myself the space or freedom to be bad at something if I’m at my own desk. I’m not sure why, but being in the place where I do my work, where something nearby always needs cleaning, or where my cats are running around, loudly playing with their jingle ball toy, does NOT always foster creative freedom for me. I’m often much more successful at zoning into a creative task + letting myself experiment when I’m at a coffee shop, a park, a library, or pretty much anywhere else!

4. Don’t look up a tutorial (or do)

There are two types of people in this world: one who finds tutorials very helpful for getting started, and one who will watch a tutorial, only to get incredibly frustrated when they can’t follow it perfectly. I alternate between both, depending on the day.

I think you’ve just gotta see for yourself whether it’s helpful or harmful to your creative process to look up instructions, or watch a YouTube video—does it inspire you and help you find a place to start, or does it leave you feeling frustrated when you can’t immediately replicate what they’re creating?

5. Don’t take any photos!!

I am TERRIBLE at this one. As a lifelong lover of photography (and serial entrepreneur), I tend to take photos of literally everything I do—and I’m trying to work on letting myself enjoy things without snapping pictures. But hey, I needed photos to include in this Substack post!!

I find that when I take a photo of something I’m doing, it immediately puts pressure on it to be “good enough” to show off—mostly on social media. Even if I never were to post it anywhere, it makes me feel like whatever I’m doing has to be aesthetic + camera-ready. . . and usually that’s just not the case when I’m trying something new.

However, I will occasionally send photos to my mom or grandparents to show them what I”m doing, so I’m okay with taking photos for that purpose! Orrr just keep them in your camera roll for you to look back on :)

All in all, I’m very happy with how my watercolor florals turned out yesterday—I learned that the paint did pick up some of the pen ink, and I didn’t leave nearly enough room on the page for the purple flowers I was trying to draw, but that’s okay! I’m reminding myself that the purpose of doing this was to sit down and enjoy myself with a friend, while trying something new creatively, and that I did :)

We’ll see what this week brings!

🩷 Danielle

P.S. I’ve had an inkling lately that I may want to get back into playing the piano, which I quit when I was in eighth grade. . . so I just reached out to three local piano teachers about lessons. Maybe this will become one of my experiments in the next few weeks?! 👀

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“It’ll be just like riding a bike!” I told myself as I pulled my (literal) bike out of its hiding spot in the garage for the first time in two years.

It was time to make good on my promise to find one way to be a beginner. . . but little did I know how humbled I would be along the way 😅

At first, I couldn’t quite decide what I wanted my first “beginner” task to be. I opened up a note to start listing ideas, and something fascinating happened almost immediately: I noticed that I wasn’t putting limits on myself or what I might want to try out, like I usually would. . . all because it was under the guise of an “experiment.”

It felt almost how I assumed Nathan Fielder wanted his subjects to feel in his latest season of The Rehearsal, when they were put into the role of an “actor:” as though all of a sudden, because I’d given this the label of “an experiment,” a world of opportunities opened up in front of my eyes!

So I started thinking about things I’d wanted to do but hadn’t yet: taking a dance class. An art class. XYZ workout at that studio I’d been eyeing.

I mean, never once have I had an inkling of a desire to try out ballet, until this sense of separation was created in my head: because this was all part of an experiment, it didn’t matter if I failed! I could simply go on ClassPass, find a random class that looked interesting to me, and give it a shot—because it wasn’t tied to my sense of worth, or a desire for “success.”

All of a sudden, the potential outcomes & results weren’t correlated to my value as a person: they were simply part of a silly little experiment. 🧪

It wasn’t until a few days later that I realized, oh! I’ve been saying I wanted to get my bike out of the garage for a while. . . maybe now’s the time.

So I considered what had stopped me from doing this earlier:

• I was irrationally afraid that I wouldn’t be able to ride a bike anymore

• It would require me to fix any issues that the bike might have after two years of non-use

• I don’t have any experience biking in a city and all the cars kinda scare me!

• I’d have to remember how the gears worked (silly but it was a real obstacle in my mind)

I figured there was no more perfect time to push through whatever silly barriers I’d created in my head than now, when I have the excuse of this Substack series/experiment to kick my ass into gear.

Sure, getting my bike out wouldn’t require me to be a total beginner—but after two years, it sure felt like a new and slightly scary thing to do.

In classic perfectionist fashion, the very first thing I did was go to Google and search “best bike routes in Seattle.” Because why would I simply just. . . hop on my bike and take it around the neighborhood when I could, instead, spend hours trying to find the “perfect” route to make the effort worth my while?

I caught myself immediately, trying to turn what was supposed to be a playful, curious exploration into an activity I could only do if I did it the perfect way, right away.

And guess what? I said no, fuck that, we are keeping things EASY and fun!

You don’t have to strap your bike to your car & drive 30+ minutes through traffic to the prettiest park in Seattle in order to get started!!

I put my pride aside and set out with one simple goal: get the bike out of the garage and ride it around the neighborhood. That’s it!

So I braided my hair, laced up my tennis shoes, and put on my favorite hot pink set that makes me feel like I can do anything.

But not even five minutes in, I realized my tires were totally flat (which, in hindsight, makes complete sense after two years). . . and I swear to god I truly almost gave up right then and there 🙃

How silly is it that, in this world of efficiency, speed, and automation, we have become SO accustomed to instant gratification that we want to give up as soon as we run into one tiny little problem?!

It was very humbling to recognize that about myself, but I guess you can’t change things until you’re aware of them, right?

A lovely little spiral of anxious thoughts proceeded to swirl around in my head:

“Oh god, what do I do? Where’s my portable air pump? I’ve never used it on bike tires before. . . what PSI should they be at? What if it doesn’t work and I feel stupid?? What if the pump explodes in my hand because I chose the wrong setting?!”

Within mere moments, I had literally turned the tiniest technical issue into a determining factor of my self-worth, value, and confidence. Crazy! I was so damn annoyed at this that it spurred me to figure this shit out on my own.

Because despite the anxious spiral in my head, I knew I was capable! I knew I was smart! And I knew it was a much easier fix than I was making it out to be.

Ten minutes later, I’d successfully pumped up the tires (without blowing them up, lol) and was on my way to being the silliest-looking biker in the neighborhood, fumbling around to push off and get my foot on the pedal in my hot pink getup.

Shocker alert: it was fun!!

I immediately remembered how much biking brings me back to my childhood, how the wind in my face as I speed down a hill calls my body back to simpler times, how the scent of freshly-cut grass as I pedal around a park transports me right back to the cul-de-sac I rode around as a kid.

And what do you know?

I successfully managed to bike 5 miles around the neighborhood without totally embarrassing myself, falling on my face, or believing I was a complete and utter failure of a person simply because I felt like a beginner.

Sure, I may have almost biffed it going too fast down a hill (oops), and I may have almost given up as soon as getting the bike out became just a tiny bit difficult. . . but I HAD A BLAST! And I was very proud of myself by the end.

Because without the pressure to go a certain distance or reach a certain speed, the only outcome to aim for is enjoyment—and that’s the shit that matters.

I have yet to decide what this week’s experiment will be, but I know it’s going to be busy AF—so I’ll probably keep it fairly low-effort.

I’m thinking that going to a park with a set of colored pencils & a sketchbook sounds nice (and like a great way for me to challenge my ego/feel like a total beginner)! 🎨

READ WEEK 2 HERE

It is physically painful to be at the back of the pack at a run club, embarrassed that you can’t keep up with your friends when you used to be able to run a 7-minute mile in PE class.

It is so fucking uncomfortable to show up to a 200-hour yoga teacher training you spontaneously signed up for, and realize you’re the least experienced yogi in the room.

And god, it feels absolutely awful to try your hand at painting because you would love nothing more than to be an artist, but you can’t draw a goddamn circle to save your life.

💭 I’m embarrassing myself.

💭 Who do I think I am?

💭 I have to get out of here before anyone realizes I’m a fraud & have no idea what I’m doing.

Except that when I look at the last two years of my life. . .

All of the best things I’ve done have started with the courage to be a beginner.

🤨 How the f*ck did we get here?

In my last post, I wrote about how difficult I’ve always found it to, well. . . be bad at something. How my inner teenage perfectionist still haunts me to this day, and comes out every time I try to start a new hobby, or learn a new skill.

Ever since my days as a kindergarten student toting around a brightly-colored Jansport backpack, I’ve made it a point to do my best at all times. But not only to do my best—to be the best.

Completing homework assignments on time (if not early), and to an A+ level without fail.

Practicing my saxophone for hours and making sure I was always just a little bit better than the 13-year-old next to me.

Coming home with a report card shining with straight A’s, and always an extra little note from my teacher about how great of a student I was.

This is where I found my worth. In my ability to exceed expectations, go above and beyond, and impress the adults around me.

Which is why now, when I try something new as an adult, and realize I’m not inherently gifted at it, I either:

a) give up before I really even start,

b) assume that if I’m not good at said thing right away, I never will (or could) be,

c) break down into tears of frustration and snip away just a little bit more of my sense of self-worth.

(or d, all of the above)

The worst part of it is that, when I shut something down because I’m not immediately the best, I am throwing away SO many opportunities to discover things I might actually love! New hobbies, new passions, new ways to express myself or be creative—even if I’m not objectively “good” at them.

If I hadn’t pushed through the initial shame of being “slow”. . . I would’ve never experienced the joy and community that running has brought me.

(I’m still slow, btw, I’m just not embarrassed about it anymore. Being slow has allowed me to run 10 fucking miles without feeling like death at the end!!)

If I hadn’t pushed through the inherent sense of failure for not being able to keep up during my first spin class. . . I would have never realized how much I actually love it.

If I hadn’t been willing to start a business with absolutely no knowledge, experience, or degree to back me up. . . I wouldn’t have been able to drop out of college and go full-time with it!

And most importantly, I never would have started to find my sense of self-worth, confidence, and pride outside of achievement, success, and end results.

🔬 8 weeks of exposure therapy

So! In keeping with this theme of trying new things, forcing myself to be a beginner, and pushing through the discomfort—whether or not it turns out to be something I enjoy long-term—I’ve decided to do a little 8-week experiment, and take you along for the ride with me.

Every week for the next two months, I’ll be choosing one thing to be a complete beginner at. Because honestly, exposure therapy has been the absolute best way for me to get rid of my pride, build a new sense of self-confidence, and recognize when my ego is stopping me from doing really cool shit in life.

These might be small creative tasks, like going to the park and attempting to draw a landscape in my sketchbook, without giving up three minutes in when I can’t perfectly replicate the tree in front of me.

Or they might be trying things that feel intimidating, like writing a vulnerable poem, or going to a brand new workout class without a friend by my side, or signing up for a community event/activity where I don’t know anybody.

🧪 My 3 big goals with this experiment:

1. To try new things & learn more about myself (what I like, dislike, might want to do more of, etc.)

2. To practice getting out of my comfort zone & doing things I don’t feel naturally “good” at

3. To stop worrying about what the end result will look like, and be okay looking/feeling like a beginner

And who knows—I might discover a new passion along the way that I never would have thought about trying, in fear of being “bad” at it :)

At the end of each week (or the beginning, who knows), I’ll write a little reflection on how that week’s experiment went: what I learned, what challenges I ran into, what I enjoyed (or didn’t enjoy), and anything else that pops up.

✍🏼 A few loose guidelines that I’ve set for myself:

• Keep spending to a minimum: I’m actively trying to lower my spending right now and find ways to maximize what I already have available to me, so I’ll keep additional spending low where I can! I’ll use art supplies I already have, sign up for classes through the ClassPass subscription I already pay for, find free activities, etc.

• Be open about the challenges: Eeek this one is going to be hard, but I’ll do it for you. I promise to be very transparent as I write, reflect, and share how each week goes, not just the good parts but the frustrations, the challenges, and the discomfort.

• Do things twice: It’s easy for me to give up on the first try if something doesn’t go perfectly, so I’m going to be intentional about giving things a second chance where I can (and where my budget/time allows)!

Julia Cameron said it best in the Artist’s Way:

“It is the willingness to once more be a beginner that distinguishes a creative career.”

I may not have completed all of my Morning Pages (shoutout to @Internet People for the Bare Minimum approach to the AW). . . but I will listen to Julia on this one ;)

Come along for the ride with me, will you??

READ WEEK 1 HERE

READ WEEK 2 HERE

Not by getting in trouble, or causing problems in the classroom—no, I wasn’t a troublemaker, or a disruptor to my teachers. In fact, I was probably the very definition of a teacher’s pet.

My biggest issue wasn’t skipping classes or turning in my homework late: it was completing every assignment to sheer perfection, staying up late to make sure I showed every ounce of work on my math worksheet and that every word of my social studies essay sounded as if it were written by someone no less than two grades above me.

No, my school troubles lay in the fact that any time I received anything less than an A- on a project, a note of constructive criticism marked in red ink on a language arts paper about an inconsequential novel, or a wrong answer on a science test that I’d worked myself into the ground to study for. . . I broke down sobbing, beating my little 12-year-old self up for being a total and complete disappointment—though only to herself.

It wasn’t a teacher that sent me to the counselor’s office; no, it was my very own father—who just so happened to be my middle school principal at the time. (My dad, the principal, sent his daughter to the counselor's office!! Nice.)

Except none of the pressure I felt to achieve, to be perfect, came from him or my mom, who only ever told me they wanted me to do my best: it all came from myself. I’d always seen being an “overachiever” and a “perfectionist” as a badge of honor, as a gold medal that increased my value and worth as a human being, and whenever my work didn’t match up to that, it meant I was a failure as a human being.

Why? For what reason?

Where it originated, I’m not sure, but that perfectionism (or whatever annoying trait it is) has continued to show up in many ways as an adult, even though I’ve improved a whole lot since that day in the counselor’s office, when an adult who I admired and respected bluntly told me that it was okay not to be perfect. That it was okay to get a bad grade (though in my eyes, “bad” equated to a B+), to fail a test, to turn in an assignment late. . . the world wouldn’t end, and I wouldn’t immediately be perceived as a disappointment to everyone around me. That actually, the grade I received on a paper in middle school didn’t determine my worth.

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Now, at 25, that perfectionism still comes out to play when I decide to start a new hobby, to grab a set of watercolors from the local art supply store—and have to intentionally restrain myself from buying the highest-quality set that everyone on on the internet recommends, because I believe I can’t possibly succeed without it; when I sit down with the cheap tubes of acrylic I just brought home and begin to swipe my brush across the page, only to be disappointed that with my little experience from middle school art class, my minimal supplies, and my lack of years studying the medium, I can’t perfectly execute my vision on my first try.

It shows up when I realize I’d like to try and overcome my lifelong loathing of running, setting out on what should be a simple, easy mile through the neighborhood—only to give up when I can’t immediately, perfectly match the 7-minute mile pace I could reach effortlessly during my middle school years.

Like shit, when did it become such a deeply ingrained belief that to enjoy something—a creative activity, a craft, the learning of a new skill or the practice of a new hobby—I must be the best of the best right off the bat? That to find joy in creating, exploring, following my curiosities, or feel worthy, I’m required to have intrinsic talent; a natural instinct present since birth that guides me and effortlessly transforms me into the next Van Gogh? It’s EXHAUSTING.

Just a few nights ago, I found myself getting incredibly frustrated that, despite having literally zero real experience with acrylic paints, I couldn’t accurately replicate the painting in the YouTube tutorial I was following along with. Every bit of me wanted to stop and give up, and felt like there was something inherently wrong with me for being unable to flawlessly execute the perfect painting right off the bat.

I shared a quick note about this on Substack (mostly for myself, to find some humor in it and see how silly it was), and the responses I got showed me that I’m not the only one who runs into this as an adult:

“I want to pick up a new hobby. But I want to be good at it immediately. Oh wait, I just spelled delusional.”

“Literally me as I purchased a water coloring course. Have I touched the supplies? Nope. Too nervous I’ll be terrible at it.”

“My sketch book and watercolors are sitting in front of me. And have been for months. A former skill and I am afraid I can’t do it again.”

My immediate reaction to seeing these was oh my god, you guys—that is so silly and you should absolutely get your watercolors out and try again!! Who cares if you’re bad at it?!

But would I ever give myself that same permission to try something and fail at it, to enjoy something even if I weren’t objectively “good” at it (at first, or ever)? Hell no.

I mean, I won’t lie: it feels GREAT to be naturally, inherently “good” at something with minimal effort. The applause you get from being a natural artist, creative, singer, musician, athlete, or academic makes you feel like you’ve done something right; like you will always have something to be proud of. It feels like, from your very first breath, you’ve had an intrinsic sense of value and merit worth praising.

And I think we all do have those talents and skills within us to varying degrees—for me, running a business and being in charge of my job comes naturally, and feels like something that I was able to do without much resistance. For others in my close circle of family and friends, this might look like being naturally gifted at teaching, sports, mathematics, writing, or even putting on magic shows for classrooms of young children (looking at you, Baba).

But I’ve realized over the last year or two that the things that feel best to me are the ones I’ve worked hard at to achieve; the ones I’ve had to practice, and the ones that have required me to put my ego & pride aside to accomplish. (annoying as hell tbh)

Running, for example, is something I would say I’m NOT naturally talented at. Sure, in middle school I could run a killer mile and achieve a pace that would get me that lauded Presidential Fitness award (lol, what was the point of those?), but I was also 100 pounds and not yet weighed down by the pressures of being an actual human adult. When I tried to run for the first time as an adult a few years ago, I immediately realized I couldn’t do that anymore—I was exhausted and out of breath after running for 5 minutes, and absolutely could not fathom myself running farther than a mile.

This past weekend, though? I ran eight miles without stopping. . . and I felt GOOD at the end. EIGHT MILES, a distance I could never, ever have imagined being possible for someone like me, who running didn’t come naturally to. Throughout my running journey I’ve been forced to put my ego aside, build confidence in myself no matter my pace or how fast I was going compared to the person next to me, and practice going slow. And I’m not sure anything has ever boosted my confidence more than seeing this real, concrete progress, and realizing that I’m capable of SO much more than I ever believed!

So that’s why I sit here and wonder on this Monday morning. . . why is it so fucking hard to sit down with a god damn pencil and sketchpad and just doodle for the fun of it? To kick back with a set of cheap acrylics and drag a paintbrush across a piece of (non-high-quality, expensive cold pressed watercolor) paper and simply make a shape? A pattern? Swivel the brush hairs around to see what different textures you can create, how the colors mix together, how much fun it is to just play around?

It feels impossible to me; it makes me feel physically uncomfortable in my body and makes me feel incredibly resistant. . . yet when I’m able to push through that intrinsic need to create something perfect on the first try, that is where I find the joy in it. That’s where I feel the excitement of creating, the curiosity of playing around, the happiness in freely doing whatever the fuck I want without expectations or pressure I’ve put on myself.

I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s something I’m getting better at slowly and slowly, and even though it’s hard to give myself the permission to do it, I find that writing about it like this reminds me of just how silly it all is! If I can tell some random stranger on Substack to stop fearing imperfection and just get the damn paints out of the cobwebs of their closet & fuck around a little, maybe I’ll be able to do it myself, too :)

I sat down wanting to write about what my life has looked like lately—moments that have brought me joy, inspiration, and gratitude; my half marathon training progress; media I’ve been consuming. . . but then I remember what’s going on in the world and it all feels completely, totally irrelevant.

My immediate thought when I came here to write was who gives a flying *fuck* about the little drawing I made the other day, when our (already broken) system is collapsing around us?

Who am I to talk about how excited I am to be training for a half marathon when our government is dropping bombs on innocent families, kidnapping people from their homes, and stripping away more and more rights as the minutes tick by?

The moments I wanted to write about feel insignificant. Unimportant. Selfish.

It feels selfish to write about the incredible run I had yesterday when running, being outdoors, and moving my body is such an immense privilege—and something that many of my fellow humans around the world don’t have the freedom to experience.

It feels selfish to share that, on Saturday, I attended a rally to fight against authoritarianism in this country; to fight against the overreach of power we’re all currently witnessing under this administration—and at the end of the day, I was able to freely go back to my safe, comfortable home without worrying about violent retaliation from the people who are supposed to be protecting us.

It feels selfish to tell you about the beautiful flowers I saw in my neighborhood the other day; to write about the poppies I found blooming beneath a tree in the most beautiful, perfect, pale shade of pink.

And then I remember that those pink poppies are exactly what continues to bring me hope. That somehow, some way, even in the midst of what feels like a chaotic and overwhelming (and dangerous) time for many, those little pink poppies still sprinkle their little bit of magic into the world.

That the run I went on yesterday wasn’t a selfish way to spend my time—it helped me feel grounded, grateful, and energized to continue fighting.

Truthfully, it feels unfair to be experiencing these moments of joy, peace, and safety right now when so many others aren’t. It makes me feel guilty.

But I think it’s our job to delight in these moments as much as we possibly can while we have the opportunity—to find the magic in the pink poppies around the corner, to find the gratitude in our freedom to move and appreciate nature, to find the power in being surrounded by thousands who are just as ready to fight against the bullshit.

Because only then can we take that energy and bravely turn it into something productive; only with that energy can I use the fight, the anger, the rage inside of me to attend a rally, to table with Planned Parenthood at an event, to speak out against the increasingly fascist government, to say fuck ICE right on my business’ Instagram story, to donate to causes that are able to help in ways I can’t.

I don’t know how to write eloquently on this subject; I don’t quite know how to translate my feelings into words yet, I fear saying the wrong thing, and I worry that my writing won’t be “good enough” to mean anything.

But I do know one thing: that I’d rather try to find the bravery and the courage to speak up and write imperfectly, than stay silent about the things that really matter.

I’d rather continue to share the little moments of beauty and hope that I find in my daily life, than keep them all to myself out of fear of seeming ignorant, selfish, or out of touch.

So I guess I’ll continue to try and find that balance; to navigate the confusion, and the overwhelm, and the privilege that it is to feel confused and overwhelmed about such menial things. Thanks for being along for the ride with me! :)

On another note: I’m going to start playing around with new little newsletter formats these next few weeks, organizing my writing into sections that I’m excited to write about. I’ll keep this week’s brief since I’ve already rambled quite a bit!

Half marathon training updates 🏃🏼‍♀️

Have I even told you yet that I signed up for a half marathon?! Fucking wild—and something I never thought I’d say. I’ve got 10 weeks till the big day and my long runs are slowly increasing, with a 7-mile run yesterday! I thought it was going to be an awful run (wasn’t feeling too hot on day 1 of my period), but it ended up being my most effortless, best long run ever other than the Bloomsday race. The universe likes to surprise us like that sometimes, I guess :)

I’ve also been thinking about keeping a little running diary here on Substack, because I love reflecting on my runs as I do them—pretty flowers I saw, songs that hit just right, where I ran, how I felt, etc. We’ll see if I start that this week!

One thing I’m f*cking around with this week 🎨

Watercolors!! I’ve been learning how to draw fine line flowers through YouTube tutorials recently, and I got a set of watercolors for my birthday that I’ve been playing around with. This week, I want to try making little paintings in a notebook without worrying about them being perfect—giving myself permission to be messy, bad, and aimless with ‘em. I’ll update you with little Substack notes as I go!

Media I’m consuming 📺

Screens

My boyfriend and I have been going through a nostalgic kick lately, lol. This past weekend we watched Kung Fu Panda 2 & 3, Shrek 2, the Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay part 1. And GOD I always forget how much I love the Hunger Games series. It was without a doubt the book & movie series that most shaped my middle school years and defined my love for reading, and I’m watching them in a new light right now as an adult—especially as Panem’s rebellion against the Capitol is feeling more and more relevant to the current state of our country.

Books

I just started Brandon Sanderson’s Tress of the Emerald Sea, and I have to say: so far it is absolutely delightful!! As much as I adore the smutty cowboy romance series that I was reading before, it’s been very refreshing to read a book with such beautiful writing, imagery, and visuals; I’m not too far in yet, but it feels so lovely and magical and fantastical so far.

I rarely listen to audiobooks, but after getting an Audible gift card for my birthday, I’m starting Rich Girl Nation by Katie Gatti Tassin. Katie (Money With Katie) has been one of my FAVORITE personal finance creators for years now, and I cannot wait to get into her brand new book. 10/10 recommend following her, listening to her podcast, and buying her Wealth Planner—it’s *orgasmic* for spreadsheet lovers. Not an affiliate, btw, I just fucking love her!

Substack

Just this morning, I read Sarah Noack’s “soft girls in fascist times” and I must say: it had me feeling extremely vindicated, angry, and ready to fucking fight. Highly recommend reading.

The world doesn’t need more polite women. It needs more of us fully awake, fully pissed off, and absolutely unwilling to play along. It needs more of us to remember who the fuck we were before they told us we’re here to please them.

OOF. How fucking good is that?

Thanks for reading my many rambles today—I’m so grateful to have over 100 of you here (!!) and to have this space to figure out what’s going on in my head + share updates about things I’m passionate about! Stay safe :)

I’m not talking about modern-day travel blogs written by influencers who promote certain brands, airlines, and tour companies . Nothing against them, of course—that’s honestly the dream, and probably exactly what middle school me was dreaming of when I started writing!

No, I’m talking about the travel blogs that 10-year-old me used to write on BlogSpot, where I’d toss together a few awkward selfies, ramble on about my favorite moments from a trip, share every miniscule detail of my life, and use WAY too many exclamation points.

“i am ssssssooooooo excited for sunday because we have an airplane flight at 8:00am to atlanta georgia and then we fly to orlando to go to disney world!!!!”

Good to know that some things never change!!!

These were the days where I didn’t care how many views my blog posts got, or if I posted too many times in a single day—all I wanted to do was share my experiences and adventures as a girl whose family was moving out of the country, thrilled every time I got a comment from one of my grandparents who were, by far, my most avid readers.

Fast forward to 15 years later and here I am, sitting down to write a travel blog once again. Because while I was exploring Olympic National Park last week, I couldn’t stop thinking about how FUN it would be to share all about it in the same format I did in middle school.

I’m not going to care about formatting perfectly, sounding intelligent, or writing “well”—this is just going to be a fun lil’ itinerary showcase + a reflection on all of my favorite moments of the trip that I want to look back on in the future. With lots of photos, of course!

I’m fortunate enough that my grandma actually reads this Substack, and I’ll be forwarding this travel blog to my other grandma to check out—so this one's for you and the endless support you’ve given me, Grammy and Mama (and Gramps & Baba, of course)! :)

Olympic National Park: May 25-29, 2025

My boyfriend, Mat and I planned this trip with one of our good friends (who prefers to keep things private, so you won’t see photos of her in this blog!) as a little celebration of our 25th birthdays, and to take advantage of her coming to town for a few days. Neither of us had ever been to Olympic National Park (I know—wild for native Washingtonians), and after writing blogs about it for my clients for years, I was THRILLED to finally see everything for myself!

Sunday: Edmonds → Kingston Ferry & Elwha River Trail

Ferries have become my new favorite form of public transportation ever since taking one to Orcas Island earlier in May, so I couldn’t wait to make this journey. Getting to Kingston was easy peasy via just a 30 minute ferry ride from Edmonds, and from there, we drove to our adorable Airbnb in Port Angeles! I fell in LOVE with this place—it was filled with stunning plants, cozy furnishings, and everything we needed to cook very luxurious Italian meals (spaghetti & garlic bread) for the next two nights.

We had a little time before the sun went down, so per a recommendation we got at the park visitor center, we headed to the Elwha Overlook Trail for a brief evening walk. The greenery was GORGEOUS everywhere we looked, and we ended up climbing down the hill to a little beach that was totally quiet. With nobody around, we explored the shores, looked up at birds through our binoculars, and skipped plenty of rocks :)

Monday: Hurricane Hill, Mount Storm King, & Marymere Falls

Monday was our biggest hiking day, and to preface—I have barely hiked these last few years, so I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. Especially with the amount of mileage and elevation we were planning to cover!

Our first hike was one I was super excited about, Hurricane Hill via Hurricane Ridge. We had to hike an extra 1.3 miles each way from the parking lot due to snow on the final stretches of the road, but it was ABSOLUTELY worth it for the insane views along the way. We passed a herd of deer grazing on grass down the hill, tons of chipmunks, a few marmots, and the cutest little gray jay birds that seemed to be perched atop every tree!

We started this hike in the freezing morning wind, and ended up sunburnt and sweaty—so grateful for the gorgeous sunshine and blue skies we got to enjoy from the route. Every single tree clearing deserved a quick stop to admire the incredible mountain views—I can’t recommend this hike enough!

Our second adventure of the day was the one I was a little scared of, the Mount Storm King trail—one that covers nearly 2,200 feet of elevation gain in just 2 miles. You’re literally climbing directly up a STEEP mountain for an hour straight, so we took our time (and many breaks) getting to the top 😅 Once we got to the end of the maintained trail, I was a little shocked to see that we had to then rely on ropes to get up the steep rock faces, and then fully climb on a (narrow) rocky ledge to get to the final viewpoint. I won’t lie, I was actually terrified—but I’m proud that we did it, and the views were absolutely worth it!

Oh, and on the way back down we took a little detour to Marymere Falls. Gorgeous, of course :)

Back at our Airbnb, we enjoyed a lovely (and very fancy) dinner of spaghetti, garlic bread, caesar salad, and a bag of cookies from Safeway—perfection after a long and exhausting day in the mountains.

Tuesday: Ozette Trail/Cape Alava & Rialto Beach

Our plan for this day was to hike the full 9.3-mile Ozette Triangle Trail, but we had a little bit of a late start and didn’t end up making it in time for low tide on the beach section of the trail. So instead, we hiked the first segment to Cape Alava and enjoyed plenty of time exploring the beautiful beach area, before heading back through the muggy rainforest for a picnic lunch!

Walking around the tidepools at Cape Alava was by far one of my favorite moments of the trip—because back at the visitor center, I’d bought a Mac’s Field Guide to Olympic National Park for marine & land life, and this was the perfect time to use it. I found so much joy in trying to identify as many animals as I could throughout our trip, and it really forced me to be present, take in my surroundings, and keep a much keener eye than I normally would.

Manitou Lodge was our next stop, the cozy lodge we booked at the last minute in Forks due to forecasted rain at our campground (of which, by the way, there was none of). This was the cutest little lodge in the woods with a super welcoming communal room/lobby area, board games and books, and even a sweet kitty on the property that we made friends with! We stayed in the Sacagawea room, and I’d love to go back one day to stay there again.

When I say we lucked out with the weather, I really mean it—we couldn’t believe we had completely clear skies and sunshine, so we took advantage and watched the sunset at Rialto Beach down the road. Our friend mentioned that she loved that moment where everyone walks away from watching a sunset (all the tourists & locals who came to the beach), because everyone is leaving just a little happier and more relaxed—and I absolutely loved that.

Wednesday: Hoh Rainforest, Forks, First Beach, & Second Beach

By Wednesday we were VERY ready for a more chill day (my quads simply could not take any more uphill hikes), so off we went to the Hoh Rainforest for yet another change in climate/landscape. We were, once again, shocked to find that it was 70 degrees and sunny in what we knew to be one of the rainiest forests in the country, but hey—I’ll never complain about sunshine in Western Washington!

The Hall of Mosses and Spruce Nature Trail were breathtaking, full of lush green moss (duh), chirping birds, and massive downed trees along the way. My favorite moment of our time here, though, had to be the ranger talk we managed to catch in between trails. We learned all about the Sitka Spruce, Western Hemlock, and Big Leaf Maple trees that filled the Hoh Rainforest, as well as the Roosevelt Elk that we (sadly) didn’t see any of. I quickly realized that I appreciate a place SO much more when I have the chance to learn about its history, and what makes it so special (besides being beautiful)!

Now I’m afraid to admit this. . . but somehow, I’ve made it my entire life without watching the Twilight movies all the way through. I know—it shocks me, too, seeing that I was an avid Hunger Games/Divergent/Harry Potter girlie back in middle school. Yet somehow, Twilight passed me by!

But our friend is a MAJOR Twilight fan, so we, of course, had to take time to explore Forks and visit the Forever Twilight Collection. Don’t worry—after seeing the outfits that Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, and Robert Pattinson wore, Mat and I will be watching the movies ASAP.

We couldn’t wait to get back to the coast, so after a low-quality pizza dinner in Forks, we made a brief stop at La Push/First Beach, home to the Quileute Tribe, and then hiked to Second Beach for sunset. The sea stacks, dramatic cliffs, tidepools, and foggy views were the perfect way to wrap up the main itinerary of our trip—although I loved all the sunny days we got, there’s something so uniquely magical about moody PNW weather on the coast.

Thursday: Rialto Beach & Kingston → Edmonds Ferry

Our final morning (my birthday morning!) was spent enjoying a little bit of time at Rialto Beach, and heading back home to Seattle. Mat and our friend wrote a sweet little “happy birthday” message in the sand as the perfect send off (before grabbing a drink from a local coffee stand called the “Vampire Bite”).

This is one of those trips that I know will stick with me forever, and has already made it to my list of all-time favorites. The opportunity to be so present with Mat and our friend who we hadn’t seen in years, with limited cell service and an intentional social media/email/work break; the spectacular views and trails; the variety in weather and landscapes; the difficult hikes and the easy walks. . . this trip had all the elements we could have asked for, and I’m so grateful it all worked out so well.

It was one of those trips that really remind you of what’s important, and get some much-needed perspective away from daily routines, busy city life, and neverending to-do lists.

Already looking forward to going back to Olympic National Park for a second time 💖

P.S. Quick reminder that it’s so important to be supporting parks & rec organizations right now like the National Park Service so that we can continue to have access to magical places like these! :)

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I don’t have formal art experience.

I don’t have academic knowledge about art or what it really means to be an “artist.”

Or at least I didn’t think I did. . . until I started reading the Artist’s Way ten weeks ago, and quickly realized that I, in fact, did not have to have what I perceived as “natural talent” in order to call myself an artist.

I didn’t have to be born with the ability to create a beautiful painting out of thin air, straight from the womb.

I didn’t need to have some intrinsic gift that, if not present in me from the moment I arrived on this Earth, meant I could never be an artist.

Shocking, I know!!

A couple of weeks ago I sat down and had a talk with myself:

You’ve always believed you just “weren’t a runner,” and look at how you’ve been challenging that. Shattering that. Disproving it step by step, minute by minute, mile by mile.

What if you did the same thing with drawing? Painting? Coloring??

What if you became simply unwilling to believe that you “just can’t draw” and started, well, drawing?

So that’s exactly what I did—and it’s been so fucking freeing!

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Instead of sitting down in front of a blank page, forcing my inexperienced mind to spontaneously come up with a brilliant idea that would inevitably become the next Mona Lisa, I went to YouTube and typed in “how to draw flowers.”

A lot fucking simpler, I realized, than trying to stick to whatever romanticized idea I had of this natural gift of being able to draw; this pure ability I desperately craved to magically intuit a brand new idea, transfer it to paper, and be seen as the creative genius I was born to be.

Creative genius—yes; world’s next art prodigy who would have a piece of work framed in the Louvre within months—no (unfortunately).

It’s a classic case of that all or nothing mindset that a lot of us just seem to love SO much, and that I personally allow to hinder my every creative desire, urge, and idea.

I would love nothing more than to be able to create a gorgeous composition full of delicate flowers, blooming petals, and vibrant watercolors—but if I can’t do it right this second, it’s not even worth it.

Pffff. Saying it out loud (or writing it, for that matter) makes it feel so fucking silly!!

But that’s what our minds do, isn’t it? Convince us that if we’re not intrinsically gifted at a skill, a hobby, a craft, that we simply cannot and will never be able to do it?

I don’t know about you, but I’m over letting that silly notion rule my life and my desires—so I went to my local art store (trying my hardest not to support Amazon when I have the choice!) and picked up the SIMPLEST supplies I could.

(I have a habit of buying hundreds of dollars worth of tools for a craft I only spend two weeks on and then never touch again, and I just can’t be doing that in this economy tbh. Plus, you know what they say: constraints foster creativity!)

A set of drawing pencils. An eraser. A sketchbook.

And what did I do next?

I know what you’re thinking—no, I did NOT sit down at my desk and magically develop years worth of drawing skills as soon as I gripped a pencil in my hand!

I went to YouTube, and I spent an hour following a beginner’s tutorial that taught me to draw six varieties of flowers. And guess what? I had a fucking great time. I ended up with a beautiful page of flowers that I couldn’t believe I had actually drawn—even though my mind was screaming at me that I cheated by copying somebody else!!

(yikes, there’s my past as an A+ teacher’s pet coming out to bite)

The next night, I found another lovely channel that helped me learn how to draw a few different leaves, so I drew leaves and leaves and leaves as an outdoor camping video played in the background (shoutout to Outdoor Boys).

Instead of putting my pencils and sketchbook away in my well-organized drawers, I kept them out on my desk—because I’m slowly realizing that if something is out of sight, it is very well out of mind and I will NEVER touch it again.

And instead of walking right past the free coloring pages I saw at Trader Joe’s later that week, I grabbed one (after nervously asking if adults could take them) and spent the next morning coloring it with the pack of markers I’ve barely used since I bought them.

I even ordered an empty scrapbook on a whim, because I used to LOVE adding photos and little mementos to a scrapbook in my early high school years—I just never gave myself permission to do it again. Because every time I tried to start one, I inevitably messed up the pretty letters I tried to make, or glued a photo off-center and gave up immediately.

I realize that none of this is revolutionary. In fact, a lot of these little moments seem very obvious to me now that I look back on them:

Duh, you can follow tutorials when you’re fucking learning a new skill.

Duh, you obviously don’t know how to draw flowers if you’ve never. . . drawn flowers.

Duh, you’re allowed to be bad at things when you first try them.

Despite my judgy brain that seems to love telling me I’m not an artist because I don’t have that “natural talent,” it has been SO fun to explore these little creative urges and ideas that come to me.

I even created a Pinterest board full of art that I find really beautiful and magical and lovely—art that I would love to be able to recreate or take inspiration from in the future when my skill eventually matches my taste.

Because WOW—if I keep working at it, I can get there! It is possible to improve! Crazy epiphanies to have a few weeks before I turn 25, right??

It may take more time and patience than my Gen-Z, optimization-craving, efficiency-crazed brain can handle at first, but I’m going to keep working at it and see what just might be possible :)

(feels like I’m 12 years old writing “dear diary” again lol)

Last time I saw you, I had recently signed up for my 10K running training plan to prepare for an upcoming 12K.

I had never run more than three and a half miles at that point. You'd find me ecstatic every time I managed to hit three miles without feeling like I was about to keel over.

I had been working up the courage to go to run club every Monday night, hearing the leader run through the three and five-mile routes every time—never once considering that I could be someone who chose the latter. Never once believing I could leave with that first group who headed off on a five-mile run that seemed so long, because I felt I could barely keep up with the three-milers.

When I wrote a post in February about how I stopped hating exercise, I was feeling the nerves of going to that same run club after 6 weeks of a winter break.

Could I still run? Would I embarrass myself? What if I couldn’t even finish the shorter route, and everybody laughed at me?

I never believed I could run further than that 3.5 miles. This was a cap I had put on my abilities; a ceiling that I knew I could hit with an immense amount of effort. Once I hit that point, I would hit my limit and tap "stop" on my watch.

So when I all of a sudden ran five miles for the first time two weeks ago, I unknowingly shattered every belief I held about myself in the span of a single hour.

It was as normal a run as any—in fact, I almost didn’t put on my running shoes and take that first step that day. I felt super low-energy thanks to being on day 2 of my period, so I didn’t go in with any high expectations.

I finally managed to put my shoes on, though, once I gave myself permission to take it really slow and only aim for 10 minutes.

10 minutes, and I would be proud of myself for getting outside when I didn’t feel like it; 10 minutes, and then I could come back home, take a hot shower, and relax for the rest of the night.

The run started off as usual, transitioning from a walk into a slow jog as I passed the blue Little Free Library up the hill from our house. I allowed myself to start slow, and continue slow, running through the neighborhood instead of laps around the park that typically make up enough distance to complete my short runs.

Hints of spring finally started to show around Seattle, so I decided to count all the different colors and varieties of flowers I saw along the way to give my mind a task to focus on—I ended up distracted partway through, but I think I hit a whopping 28! The temperature was perfect, warm enough that I could breathe fully and deeply with my slow pace (hello asthma!), cool enough that I wasn’t sweating a minute in.

As I continued my slow pace and noted all the beautiful flowers and trees around me, my plan to run 10 minutes turned into “maybe I could do two miles!” All of a sudden, a crazy idea popped into my head: “What if I could do FOUR?”

What if I could somehow hit my longest run ever today, and go back to my house on cloud fucking nine to tell my boyfriend that I did it, I did it, I did it?

Two miles passed. Three miles passed. Four miles passed. And I kept going. The crazy idea had come to fruition, and now, what about an even crazier one—five?

Somehow, I was still feeling. . . good?! A feeling I don’t often feel by the end of my three-mile runs, when I’ve pushed myself harder than I should to keep up with a friend, or the pace I had in my head that I believed to be “fast.”

Four became five, and somehow, in that last hour of my life as I ran around the quaint blocks of my neighborhood, I’d completely ripped apart every belief I had about myself and what I could achieve.

Five miles had felt MONTHS away—and yet, by allowing myself to run slow, breathe deep, and take the pressure off, I hit that milestone in a way that felt effortless.

I felt GOOD. I enjoyed it. It felt like I could keep going; like I was unstoppable. Like a goddamn demon had possessed my body somewhere along the way and turned that one little run I almost didn’t go on into an out-of-body experience.

As soon as I got back home and shared the news, I went to my journal:

“I JUST RAN FIVE MILES and that felt life changing.

I want to bask in this feeling of confidence, pride, and disbelief. In no fucking world did I think I could run five miles without stopping when I could barely run three. I’ve never known what runner’s high meant or felt like, but I think that was it. I can barely believe it’s true.”

Even when I looked at my watch and saw the “5.00” on the screen, a part of me didn’t believe it was accurate—how could I feel this good, strong, and in control and have run five fucking miles?! These things were mutually exclusive in my head.

A friend told me afterward that something about hitting five miles on her own running journey changed everything—that she finally started believing in herself—and that’s exactly what happened for me.

I told her I felt dramatic saying that it was life-changing, and she responded with something that’s really stuck with me since: “We put such limits around ourselves and to see yourself effortlessly crush through them transcends into everyday life, too.”

All of a sudden, I believed I could do anything. I finally believed I could run the 12K in May that I’d been dreading, not knowing if I’d be able to hit that mark soon enough.

All of a sudden, three miles was no longer some arbitrary limit I’d put on myself, and neither was five, apparently. Because last week, I turned it into 6.2—and, yet again, said holy shit. My first time hitting that 10K mark when just a couple of weeks ago, I was struggling to hit 5K.

Part of me wishes I’d challenged this three-mile limit I’d put on myself sooner, but part of me also knows that I wouldn’t have been able to suddenly add another 2 miles if I hadn’t been practicing running slow; if I hadn’t been intentionally building up my stamina; if I hadn’t been purposefully inching my way toward it in order to leave every run feeling good.

If you would have told me two weeks ago that I would soon go on a 6.2 mile run and end it feeling great (minus the blisters and sore calves, because my poor feet had never gone that far at once lol), I would have fucking laughed in your face.

But once I hit that five miles and, like my friend said, effortlessly crushed through the limits I put around myself, everything changed. It sounds dramatic, but the way the possibilities expanded immediately in front of my face was unreal—something I thought I wouldn't see for months (if not longer).

And now here I am, excited for run club tonight—I’m not sure if I’ll do the three or five mile route yet, because I still feel a little self-conscious about my slow pace around other people—and EXCITED for another long run this week!

Now I just have to make sure I don’t push myself too hard, and that I actually stretch enough for somebody who runs six miles at once. . . I still kinda don’t believe that’s me, but it is!!

“I think I’m in a dream right now??”

-the first line of a journal entry as I sat in a hammock by the beach last Monday

I spent the better part of last week on my third annual private retreat with my business coach, Chelsea, set on the dreamy beaches of South Kona. This has turned into one of the most special parts of my year, and the area I stay in has quickly stolen a piece of my heart—I’ve gotten to know the beaches, parks, coffee shops, restaurants, and nothing makes me feel more grateful than a sense of familiarity in such a beautiful place.

Chelsea and I spent two days dreaming up what this next year might look like for my business, Defy Creative Co., with breaks in between planning sessions for yoga flows on the beach, trips to the local farmer’s market, and yummy chicken quesadillas from Shaka Tacoz.

Now if you read my post from last month about abandoning the desire for an Instagrammable life, you’ll know that I recently took a spontaneous trip to Tulum. This was a trip that should’ve been dreamy, luxurious, and recharging—but all that the endless Instagram-ified buildings and activities made me feel was. . . inauthentic.

I look back on that trip and—besides the general anxiety I’d been dealing with that probably made it all worse—all I remember is how NOT present I was.

So I set an intention for my Hawaii trip the moment I arrived at my Airbnb: I wouldn’t be touching social media, emails, or even Substack until I got home. (shoutout to my trusty Brick for blocking all the apps for me!)

And I won’t lie—this felt intimidating at first.

Four days in paradise without. . . showing it off on my IG stories?

What would I do in my down time if I couldn’t scroll?

How would people know I was having the most amazing and desirable trip ever?!

But god, did it turn out to be one of the most incredible trips of my life.

In Tulum, I felt nothing but pressure to capture every moment perfectly for the ‘gram, finding myself not being present in the moment all for the sake of how the moment would look on my social media feed.

In Hawaii, I felt nothing but space and expansiveness as soon as I landed; space to be creative, to do whatever the hell I wanted, to have all my energy coming back to me and not being scattered across my email, my clients, Instagram, TikTok. . .

It was wild how quickly I realized that having your energy all to yourself is such a privilege.

When it’s not being zapped by the opinions of people in my DM’s, emails that need my attention, or news stories that pop up on my feed when I’m not in a state to see them, I actually have a lot of energy and space to give to myself. To recharge, to come back to earth, to ground myself in the now and nothing but the now.

I even told my coach that upon arriving, I realized I didn’t want to do a headshot session like we normally do—I knew I could get gorgeous photos of myself to use on social media for months to come, but I kind of wanted to just. . . not give a shit about what I looked like. I knew that it would take me out of the moment, and that I’d be worrying more about my hair all day than sitting in the moments I’d soon be wishing I could go back to.

Tulum felt like a blur—but Hawaii felt like a dream; a series of days I was so fully present in that I can now look back on with such immense love and gratitude.

Here are a few of the moments I got to immerse myself in + fully enjoy because of my decision to log off:

• Making pretty pink & purple leis by the beach, setting an intention with every petal

• Doing yoga by the beach in my bright pink matching set

• Walking around the farmer’s market and drinking fresh-squeezed lemonade from a cup the size of my head

• Reading in the most perfect hammocking spot to ever exist

Now would I be posting photos and videos of all these moments after the trip? Absolutely—my business does rely heavily on social media, after all.

But I’m slowly realizing that for me, there’s a huge difference in sharing photos while I’m experiencing something versus after.

Snapping photos on my iPhone at the beach doesn’t take me out of the moment (as long as I don’t spend too much time trying to get the “perfect shot”)—it’s sharing them mid-moment that removes me from being present.

This trip was just what I needed to recharge and fully embrace some much-needed time to myself—and I will be forever grateful that my business allows me to have such magical life experiences as this.

Now for the new segments of this newsletter, where I’ll be sharing a variety of updates, reccs, and things I’ve been loving lately!

A f*ck around & find out moment

I’ve always been guilty of stopping new hobbies as soon as I start them and realize I’m not immediately good at them.

Lately I’ve been wanting an activity I could do while I watch TV, listen to podcasts, or sit at a park—so I bought a little crochet kit off of Amazon! I spent hours sitting by the beach in Hawaii attempting to crochet this tiny axolotl and it did not end up looking perfect, lol. I had so much fun, though, and am loving this zero-pressure craft where I can see real progress (my second axolotl is already SO much better)!

How I’m moving my body

• Yin yoga: I used to do yin once a week with my favorite teacher, at the studio where I did my 200hr training—and I’m realizing I need to get back to it! Yin/restorative yoga is such

• Buddhi yoga: Chelsea took me to my first buddhi class in Kona and let me tell you, it was a challenge but so much fun. You’re asking me to move my hips as if I don’t have years of pent-up tension and discomfort in there from growing up in purity culture??

• Pure Barre: I went to my first-ever barre class yesterday and I loved it?! It was the perfect blend of a super challenging workout plus good music, stretching, and exercises that felt attainable. I think I’m going to start going to barre 1-2x/week instead of Solidcore, which is just a little too intense for me :)

• (Slow) runs: This past week, I officially started my 10K training plan (via Nike Run Club) to prepare for the 12K I signed up for in May! As somebody who has always labeled myself “just not a runner,” I started going to run club this past fall and it’s been the best challenge for me. I feel so proud of myself after every run, even if it’s just 10 minutes (because running for 10 minutes is fucking hard!!).

Wise words of the week

During the yin class I went to last week, the teacher said something that really struck me:

“Lose yourself in the ecstasy of the present.”

I mean, whew—if that’s not in line with everything I’ve talked about today, I don’t know what is!

Daily delights

In the Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron says “The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.” This segment will be dedicated to small delights I’ve paid attention to lately!

🌸 The purple flowers growing in our front yard that open & close every night

☀️ The way everybody in Seattle comes alive when the sun shines, every park and street filled with people talking to each other & walking their dogs

🩷 The perfect pink hat I came across in Hawaii after deciding I wanted to try wearing hats, and the girl who complimented it a few days ago at a cafe

🐝 The delicious lilikoi spritzer I sipped on at Big Island Bees, a local honey farm and museum I visit every year

Noticing strangers

In my recent piece about book sales, people watching, and noticing strangers, I loved talking about cool people I’ve come across in my life as of late—and wanted a space to share about them.

A man named Doug Dirt came up to Chelsea and I as we made our leis by the beach, asking to take a photo of us. We learned that 40 years ago, he had a bit of a similar “visioning retreat” with his bandmates as they started their business, Banana Slug String Band—and now they travel around singing songs to children about science.

What I’m consuming

📚 Books: I just finished Off to the Races by Elsie Silver (⭐⭐⭐⭐), and am currently reading Nocticadia by Keri Lake. It’s giving alllll the magical Hogwarts vibes, except this time there’s a hot professor and wildly intelligent student who just happens to become his favorite student 👀

🎙️ Podcasts: Morbid has made its way back to my earbuds recently, and I listened to their 3-part series on Rodney Alcala while crocheting my axolotl. If you’re looking for a terrifying but super fascinating deep dive, it was such a good one! (P.S. why do all the serial killers make stops in Seattle, plsss)

📺 TV: Reality TV season is in full swing, folks—Love is Blind, Survivor, and Traitors have all been cycling through my TV this past week. On the non-reality side of things, I’ve been watching White Lotus (did you know that the dad is the actor who played Lucius Malfoy?!) and just re-started Gossip Girl because, well, #nostalgia.

📝 Substack: Here are a few posts from writers I’ve been loving lately!

Ambitious Softie

The Lost Art of Doing Nothing

When I was a little girl, I’d wake up early and wander into the kitchen to find my dad sitting by the window, staring into space, his energy thick as he sat on a loveseat with a Bible open in his lap. I always thought he was so strange for that. Now, I can see that it was probably his only moment of peace in the day…

Read more

a year ago · 14 likes · 1 comment · Anna Seirian

crystal clear

literally just do things

A few days ago, I was on FaceTime with my best friend (who coincidentally just texted me as I wrote this, hello synchronicity), telling her about a new endeavor I’m excited about. I was telling her I realized there’s one thing I’d really like to do more of in my work, and that’s creative direction—so I went down a TikTok rabbit hole of creative director…

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2 years ago · 1430 likes · 55 comments · Erifili Gounari

The Thought Spiral

Thoughts on Chronic Pain, Trauma, and Trying Your Best

Happy Thursday!! Welcome to this weekly reflection on the messy magic where hard work meets creativity—shared by a girl who’s just out here trying her best 💙…

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2 years ago · 10 likes · 19 comments · Megan Hubbert

milk and cookies

beauty of the ordinary

when i was younger, i thought life was supposed to be a movie. i wasn’t sure what kind, exactly—something sweeping and cinematic, maybe a little tragic, always interesting. i assumed that by the time i was in my twenties, i’d be the main character in a story worth telling. there would be dramatic plot twists, pivotal moments, an undeniable sense of prog…

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a year ago · 292 likes · milk and cookies

The beauty of Substack is that it feels like a space where I can play around, talk about things I care about, and write for myself—but of course I care about what you think as readers! I’d love to hear if you enjoyed these new little segments, and how you’ve been doing this past week :)

Thank you for reading!

- Danielle

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