We hung out that entire summer in a towering tangle of weeds with thick water-filled trunks holding up a canopy of large bright green scratchy leaves that swayed over our young sun-bleached heads. Sprouted in a single summer from lines of tall soft earth mounds left from a new septic being dug behind our rental house, it was a secret space far away from everything. The dormant dusty-horseshit filled barn was being transformed into chic apartments by our landlord, and I wondered who would want to live in this insanely boring town behind an old 1700s rental house but then again I was in middle school and my mother drove a yellow Volkswagen Rabbit with black houndstooth upholstery so what did I know about things in fashion.

We spent nearly every day there with the neighborhood kids, playing tag and hide-and-seek which always ended in the center of the mounds where we’d cleared out a rounded spot and brought in wooden logs to sit on in a circle, dirty and spent. Catching our breath and looking up at the sky through those translucent fleeting summer leaves felt like we’d built a place where the world couldn’t find us. When the sun dipped to the horizon we’d all make our way home, legs smeared with slick green juice and dirt from the raucous games we’d played all day long with no breaks.

My mother worked nights so was home when we weren’t. She’d walk to work at the restaurant down the street after we got home from school, leaving us to forage dinner in the cupboards, which typically meant gorging scoops of lard-soaked potato chips from the metal tub we’d buy from the drive-through beer shack, drinking diet soda and whatever else our palette craved as kids without oversight. One late afternoon we climbed the steps to our apartment and received her news that our tiny black kitten had been struck by a car on the highway and she had buried it in the earthy mounds behind the barn before we could say goodbye, eager to be rid of the task. That night I had wild kaleidoscope dreams about the kitten prowling the mounds, her shadow moving through the leaves in the moonlight, stalking mice and living her best life. I never set foot in the foliage hideaway again for fear I’d be sliding down a hill in hot pursuit of friends and would scrape my thighs on her young and fragile bones.

Until next time,

Learn wildly, Connect madly.

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Her: Do you live around here?

Yes…why?

I haven’t seen you around here before.

We’ve lived here over ten years and raised our kids here (hackles up).

What is your address?

She was so terrified/rattled/annoyed at seeing two people walking by her house that she stopped the car to assert ownership over turf. I could see fear in her eyes.

What is happening to us? This was a neighborhood walk.

New World Loneliness

As a real estate broker I work with people trying to connect with neighbors or get away from them, depending on their current situation. Which direction we take together is driven by what they want to be different from what they have now, which is hopefully something better. After living in many, many different places I can say for certain: Space between neighbors doesn’t automatically bring the comfort you may be seeking. In fact, living closer might actually be better for you overall, even if it feels counterintuitive.

Life isn’t a movie set. If you haven’t figured that out yet, may I suggest removing HGTV and Yellowstone from your queue and doing some basic road-tripping for a healthy dose of reality that will do wonders for your awareness of the natural environment as well as how other people live outside your chosen bubble.

You can go back to that bubble, that’s fine. Just don’t stay there all the time.

Integrating quickly into someone’s life as a job requirement requires the finesse of quickly but softly inserting myself into their private relationships, finances and daily rhythms. A fast-moving intimate connection, it can be exhilarating or emotionally draining if personalities are out of alignment.

Is there anybody there?

In-person gatherings are having a post-Covid renaissance, and I recently realized I’ve been guilty of avoiding these and it’s not necessarily for the better. I’ll choose a Zoom sitting in my comfy house over an in-person continuing ed course any day, but it turns out I could be missing out, but not always.

I overheard someone I work with reviewing what they did over the weekend: Went to the lake house together, and I thought “lake house, how do I get in on this?”

But then I stopped myself.

I’d have to get uncomfortable, land myself into someone else’s world without control over which bedroom I get or if I’m sharing a bathroom with their kids or if they all drink a lot and like dancing to country music late into the wee morning hours. Not that I got invited, but it did get me thinking.

How bad would that be, honestly?

Some of my closest friends have been my neighbors, and also some of the worst people I’ve been exposed to.

The rhythms of the day, the patterns that make us feel safe. Until they don’t.

There’s something about living near people that reveals the true, unfiltered self. It’s not about the raggedy bathrobe worn when the cat gets out by accident (psss, psss-ing with urgency) though that part can be a strange sort of fun. It’s more about watching the flounce of everyone corralled into cars for a graduation, cologne and the scent of freshly washed hair drifting over fence lines in the still early summer air long after the car has left that connects me somehow, or the school bus that chugs up the hill at sunrise as I watch from the kitchen window years after our son ran frantically to catch it each morning. It’s being a part of something, a shared experience and we seem to be losing that at a frantic pace.

When I moved to our town it was so friendly it caught me off guard. Right after getting the kids settled in school for the day on a day off, I was at the grocery, and times were lean so I had a piece of paper to add everything up to be sure I wouldn’t go over what I had in the account. At the check out, I realized I’d miscalculated when my debit card got refused. I could feel the hot redness welling up from my neck towards my cheeks, and my head started to feel like it was in a vise. I stammered and explained I’d forgotten my checkbook, and would it be alright to park my cart nearby so I could call my husband to bring it over?

The man behind me in line said gently “I’ll pay for her groceries. Put them on my bill.”

He saw my discomfort, and wanted to help. No explanation, no furrowed brow of pity. Just compassion for a stranger. I’d never experienced such generosity from a stranger, and have tried to pay that day forward in small ways in my daily life. He will never know the impact he had on my feelings for this town or humanity at that tough moment. So, the lesson:

Stop looking, the answer is right here, next to you.

Get happier by going smaller.

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Until next time,

Learn wildly, Connect madly.

Hi there I’m Page — essay writer, ghostwriter, published poet and author of this newsletter. Here’s more about what’s going on here.

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It’s time for my August vacation, American style.

And by this I mean instead of drumming up a to-do list for the slower days so I can be productive (this month’s banished word) instead I’ve let my mind wander and amble out to the hammock each afternoon under the ash and aspen trees with Hot Dog the cat at my heels, ready to let my mind lead me astray for as long as it needs.

I’m reminded by real estate social media that whatever business I have now will dictate what money I make in two months. But what about banking memories and spontaneous creative projects for when the sunflowers are shriveled and the Goldfinches are jumping from head to head searching for the last seeds before heading south alongside the Country Cub ladies who cluck about not being able to bear the snow anymore in this place with endless winters?

Joy and daydreaming hold space equally with money-making in this house.

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My son texted me this video of him kayak fishing out on a lake somewhere this morning before 8AM. Seeing this makes me way happier than him telling me he made lots of money today. The August plan seems to be working.

August in Montana…beautiful and warm but bittersweet because once July is over the mornings are just a little cooler, the days a bit shorter and we know WE KNOW that this is really the last month we will enjoy this technicolor landscape before it’s taken away by old man winter. There’s an urgency to it all, a rush to drink in as much as possible.

The onset of spring and then summer very quickly thereafter is measured by what the plants in the yard are doing: that row of caragana is the first to leaf out in spring, followed by the blooms of the Princess Kay Plums and then crabapples take over the heavy lifting. Our largest Green Ash in the corner of the yard which was bolted and cabled together this spring after the trunk started to split has survived just fine and I’m so glad, because it’s the last tree to acknowledge fall and drop it’s leaves each year, signaling that it’s time to untie the hammock from the trees back behind the chicken coop and roll it up for winter.

I’m certain winter is coming early this year because the seed pods on the caragana hedge have started twisting and spreading seeds at least three weeks earlier than usual, and when I head out to put clothes on the line I hear the tinny pop of them landing on the roof of the pole barn below, and like it or not I know what that means.

Despite of all this I am still not completely offline because we aren’t retired and bills don’t take a vacay, but August always looks different than the rest of the year. The reward of so much time of hard work building marketing and project management systems for my business for so long pays off handsomely, meaning shit still gets done without my butt in the chair all day. What are you doing to bank happiness and memories?

Meet me in the hammock. Until next time,

Learn wildly, Connect madly.

More on letting yourself live a little:

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when i try bigger, further and stretch my arms

to you the world intervenes and tells me, no not you

not yet

but if not this time, will there be another

i’ve seen my optimism pushed into dirt

by the heel …

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Keeping Secrets

…to yourself.

When we are young it’s all laid out in front of us: in our dreams, in our doodles, in the way we played with our friends or spent time daydreaming the endless summer hours away once school was out for summer. The choices we make about where to stay or go away to college or for work and where to live are driven by these secrets we all have inside of us. That is the gift of a child’s imagination.

Everything was available inside those dreams and anything seemed possible. Then the days, the years ticked away and the secret dreams broke apart into smaller shards and quietly faded into the background, a piece of them achieved here and there. Occasionally they stir emotions through a photo or other reminder that jolt us back to that place, reminding us of who we once wished to be. What happened? Are your secret dreams still there and more importantly, do they still matter? Or do they need to be left behind to make room for new ones?

We humans, especially the American variety, place a lot of emphasis on achieving our raison d’être, believing there has to be quantifiable value for what we are doing on this earth. When the task of leaving a legacy behind is thrust upon us, it is daunting and able to crush the lightest and most ephemeral of dreams.

Office Space

I used to dream incessantly about having a really cool office, one that felt like a creative studio humming with ideas and people exchanging them, probably because the first space of my own was just that. It was a shared space with an architect, and it had a floor to ceiling window where I planted my drafting table and came up with designs for wealthy Silicon Valley clients.

The next was in a grain bin that had been made into a two-story office space. It was echoey but cool, but the landlord was nosy and the internet was so slow I was forced to move on.

The third was an old house that had been converted into offices with an apartment upstairs. I took on the master lease for the entire building and sublet pieces of it to keep my rent low. The apartment became an experiment in running an AirBnB before they were hot, so I got that out of my system.

The next was my first real officey-office with a great mountain view, and I hired an assistant to help run it, a comedian who moonlit as a marketing person writing funny website copy and someone to manage the paperwork for the real estate deals that were really cranking back then. I ordered my first official sign that wasn’t a DIY purchased online and boy did it all feel good. I was a legit professional lady-boss, even setting up payroll for myself so I’d get a weekly direct deposit, and let me tell you for someone who’s been self-employed for a gigantor portion of their adult lives that was (and still is) a mind-blowing achievement.

Once the shine wore off of that one and I simultaneously got notice of a 50% rent increase I remember sitting in my backyard early one morning drinking my coffee and thinking “if I could have whatever office I wanted right now, what would it be?” I decided it would be a combo office/art studio so I could meet with clients and train agents by day, and write and work on upholstery projects in the off hours. It felt like everything I ever wanted, and I found it within a week, but the building was old and run by a non-profit with a disrespectful witch-ogre building manager who verbally abused the tenants, so I left that one after two years. But I did make some excellent projects there.

When I left there I was in the midst of a big transition with my business, so moved the operations home, thinking it would be temporary but also feeling incomplete since…the office thing. I kept the search up, even trying to get people to partner with me when I found something spectacular that was either too big or two expensive to take on myself, but nobody seemed to have the same excitement for new spaces that I did. As I write that sentence I’m figuring out new things about myself.

It was that first summer working from home that the dream of The Ultimate Office/Studio quietly went away, and even though I kept looking, the search lacked the intensity and focus of before. At home I kept my schedule, and found the time I saved commuting back and forth and buying signs and decals and decorating another space besides my home allowed me plenty of time for

Relaxing. Swinging in my hammock. Gardening. Writing.

And then one day which felt really sudden but was actually a year and a half, having an office didn't matter at all anymore. I would drive by potential places and scoff, shaking my head and thinking “no more, you can have it,” and sometimes even giving the buildings the middle finger below my dashboard because I really felt like I was rebelling against something really big then. I can't pinpoint the exact moment I finally let go of that dream, but now it’s something I rarely think about anymore, but as I waited for the next obsession to take over, something had shifted. I didn’t want another thing to focus on. Since I had slowed my roll it turned out I was very, very happy with the new pace of things and wanted to spend any extra time and energy hanging on to this new way of living.

Your New To-Do List

Is not to have one.

Sometimes our dreams and secrets resurface during small changes: packing to move away, losing someone we love, a child leaving home…but other times they’ve just run their course and no longer serve us. My history of office hunting may seem small in the grander scheme of things, but it opened my eyes to a bigger awakening: I have always been chasing something, and that energy has been keeping me from truly sitting with myself and what I’ve already built in the background.

Ask yourself right now…

Do your secret dreams fit anymore? Because I know you’ve changed.

As for my friend who was really torn up about this question of her life’s purpose. I told her it didn’t have to be grand gestures, that it could be in the small things like the way she sent me a birthday card when I was out of town even though we aren’t that close, how she volunteers to teach pickleball to handicapped kids without sharing it on social media and how her laugh at the smallest of things is so distinct it rings through a building. This is how we are remembered, this is the purpose, for it’s these moments that define our days and then our lives. Living a good life, can that just be enough? Isn't that what you’ll reflect on and remember anyway, when it matters?

Your personal brand can wait.

Until next time,

Learn wildly, connect madly (and find your people).

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Hey check this one out:

Meet Page Huyette

Hi there I’m Page — essay writer, ghostwriter, published poet and author of this newsletter.

After years of working as a Set Decorator in the motion picture industry and then as a Landscape Architect, I decided to become a Real Estate Agent which is the world in which I dwell when I’m not writing. I’ve built business systems, trained small business owners in website design, built their brands and have tried my best to extoll the virtues of leaving behind the hot stuff hamster wheel hustle. Now I write about living a life that is genuine and joyful, but not in the consumer-focused ways our nervous systems are constantly inundated with.

Got questions? Check the About Page or just hit reply and let’s start a conversation. I’d love to hear what you are up to.

—Joan Didion from Goodbye to All That on leaving New York City.

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Should we be the same person in both our personal and business lives?

No you say? What’s different I ask?

Can you be who you really are?

All the time?

This is a continuation of the rewilding series which explores how to stay real with ourselves and others, both in our online and offline lives. I’ve removed the paywall for the first few rewilding posts here so you can catch up for the next week or until I throw up the paywall again.

I’ve also built a very mini and free(ing) set of questions for you to help unearth old memories and wishes you had for your life when you were younger, to help rekindle some joy and better define your true self. Non-writers welcome, so check out this week’s prompt at the end of this newsletter.

Let’s dive into today’s topic✨

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The Social Experiment

When I got the job at the big-time LA advertising agency assisting producers making Barbie commercials, I had to quickly shift from my previous bartending personality into the persona of a professional. This primarily meant new clothes and not sharing stories about drunk people.

A decade later after our second child was born and working for myself wasn’t quite making ends meet after a housing upgrade, I took a job at a big-time Landscape Architecture firm where I’d meet my in-laws in the parking lot each morning to hand off the baby for the day and would transform mentally and physically into The Professional Designer. This also meant new clothes to prove I was talented and smart in a sea of male-dominated colleagues.

Each time I felt as though I was disguising my true self, dressing to be something other than. When a friend saw me one morning in fancy duds she exclaimed “it’s so nice to see you dressed up and looking professional” which I took to mean I looked slovenly the rest of the time, and eyed her with suspicion. Alas, we are still friends and worked through this crisis she knows nothing about.

Lately I’ve had some encounters with disingenuous people which has exhumed these old memories. Work in real estate is particularly prone to exposing the no-filter underbelly of people’s raw nature during times of high emotion and stress, so some of that just comes with the territory. After the pandemic lockdown someone said to me that the mean people got meaner and the nice people got nicer. This fact still remains: there will always be people that treat others like a mere tool to execute their needs and nothing more. Politics, pandemics or a job climbing the corporate ladder have nothing to do with it.

I work hard to avoid those people. Really hard.

Every now and then they manage to creep up through the floorboards and disrupt my equilibrium, despite my best efforts. But recently I’ve learned there could actually be a silver lining to how this works in my favor and maybe yours, as well as how it relates to our past lives, so I thought I’d share.

There you are just living your life, thinking that’s how it’s done. But then there’s a pause, or an event, or a loss and you look back on how things have been so far and you realize that your life is a one and only, unlike any other life you’ve ever heard of.

What has caused this pause doesn’t really matter. The important thing is your perspective has changed, you now see the same olds differently and can’t go back to the way it was. Someone you trusted has crossed you, something you assumed was, well normal, isn’t. Someone has moved or died or been dishonest. There’s hurt, there’s confusion. The path you were on somehow doesn’t feel right for you anymore.

So what to do?

Be Like Stonehenge

Recently when challenged with a true test of patience, loyalty or an affront to my ethics, to my surprise and delight I’ve gotten pretty good at responding as solidly as Stonehenge sits on the land standing the battering of weather and time. I answer the assaults, tiny and large, in defense of my values, because if you don’t have something that grounds you and defines you, WTH is the point of all this? I may be late to the game with this maturity thing, but let’s move along and see where it takes us.

Sometimes this stance makes me unpopular.

What might this look like in action? The affront can be minor or massive, it can come in the form of words, actions or even a failure to act in good faith, but each time I have reminded myself that I am honest, I am kind and I always choose the path that doesn’t cave to greed or bullying forces at the expense of my sanity. I rise with reinforcement of my core values and enforcement of boundaries, which includes the right not to share what those are to the undeserving. It's not always pretty, but isn’t that how it goes with things worth fighting for? I’ve finally FINALLY learned I can always rely on myself no matter how tough things get. There’s tremendous power in living that way.

These moments aren’t meant for Instagram and require no makeup or special clothing.

Everywhere you go, there you are.

Until next week,

Learn wildly. Connect madly (and find your people).

→ Let’s get to the experiment.

Question 1️⃣: What is a character trait, a way you interact with someone you don't know very well that no longer fits your current version of self?

• Describe an interaction that left you questioning why you behave in a specific way that no longer suits you.

📝 Tip: Don’t be afraid to try and fail at this, this is a free-flow writing exercise, so just start writing. I recommend using 750words.com, Evernote, the note taking app on your phone or Google Docs so you can easily refer back to your thoughts and build on them throughout then next few weeks.

Feel free to share your thoughts over on Notes if you’d like to start a conversation.

You can refer back to the first part of the rewilding series for the next week or so (paywall removed) below ⬇️⬇️

The collection on leaving Social Media while still running a business Parts 1-4:

#1 Confessions of a Soft-Hearted Online Course Promoter: Don’t you want me, baby?

#2 This Relationship Feels Bad: Why so much social advice feels like a gross sell out

#3 I Bought a Course to Teach Me How to Stop Buying Courses: I signed up for all of these #$!&* so I need to own that

#4 Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Unraveling my social media habits and addiction to course-buying

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I’ve been writing about the intersection of a creative life with the demands of running a small…

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🫵 Welcome to the 102 (!) of you who have just joined us this past month, I’m so glad to have you!

Alert! There is more profanity in this post so if that offends you, quickly unsubscribe now!

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Patterns have started emerging, and I want to share them with you in hopes they’ll help you identify those people in your life who may be sharpening the toes of their boots so you can see them coming, and also how you might move forward should you find yourself already with a sore behind. My goal: live within personal boundaries, notice red flags a-wavin’ and secure my belief system to be air-fucking tight while still letting daily chaos and calm flow over me, because life right?

Let’s get to it.

Being the First to Do It

A blessing and curse, my past is a highway littered with decisions that may look rash to the uninitiated, but they have always ALWAYS been born out of my excitement and curiosity for life– of what could be. I’m a forever optimist that way, that will never change. HOWEVER I seemed to have developed zero tolerance for certain things:

• Friends who aren’t reliable

• Clients who don’t value what I do

• Fake people selling me shit

• People who are scared to do anything risky

After working in over 50 jobs (partial list below) and living in over 20 places I’ve learned some things, and that hornet’s nest of knowledge is always simmering beneath the surface directing me forward. It’s now the time to harness that buzzing hive and put it to use. I have noticed that the “I WANT THIS NOW" impulsive urge to explore life’s wonders and horrors and take risks has perhaps, just a bit, moved out of the driver's seat, as in “Veruca Salt, you’re just gonna have to sit tight while I think some things through, darling.”

Who’s your Veruca? Can you release them from your life?

What I’ve learned in the last month:

• I can rely on myself completely to do the right thing, even if it’s messy

• Feeling bad isn’t always bad

• I don’t need external validation to make big decisions

• I am more of a planner than I used to be

• I am not afraid of being the first to do anything

That last one should be at the top of the list, but I put it at the bottom just to show that it’s my bitch and not the other way around. The new order around here is not nearly as sexy as being a burn-it-all-down renegade like the old days, but

It makes sense now. What with the world already burning.

Earlier this year I wrote about getting my internal house in order and asked myself this question:

What was it that offered you a glimpse into future-you this past year, something that you may have stuffed back down because kids, work, whatever takes attention: Your default life.

Is there something that needs to end so you can begin?

Jumping Overboard

Have you seen the animated feature Flow? My god it was beautiful but simultaneously made my heart hurt so much. I had to turn away a few times; this poor cat could not catch a break. It’s about a black cat in a post-apocalyptic world that’s been flooded who forms alliances with other animals in its quest for safety. They spend a lot of time in a boat.

Heavy, heavy stuff. But also very beautiful. Like life, right? Why am I telling you this?

If the ship stays steady, meaning YOU are the ship, you are capable of so much more than you realize.

“You do not have to be a fire for every mountain blocking you. You could be a water and soft river your way to freedom.” —

Making It Air-Fucking Tight

If this is what it means to be middle-aged, to be so sure of myself, so certain of what I stand for without fear of retribution, without the need to soften the edges, then I say

Bring it.

I’m reminded of the Fisherman’s Fable. Do you know it? I used to have a dogeared newsprint of it stuck to our fridge when we lived by the beach and life seemed simple but it never really is, only in hindsight. Come along and read (or reread) this tale with me won’t you?

An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The fisherman replied, “only a little while”. The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? The fisherman said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.” The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15 – 20 years.”

“But what then?” Asked the fisherman.

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions!”

“Millions – then what?”

The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your (grand)kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

-Author Unknown

Oof.

Meet me at the dock. You have everything you need.

Until next time,

Learn wildly, Connect madly.

A partial list of some of the jobs I’ve had:

• Wedding DJ

• Paparazzi Assistant

• Food Stylist

• Limousine Driver

• Group dog walker

• Actor Stand-in

• Jewish Deli Waitress

• Secretary for Barbie commercials

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1. The Roof is On Fire: Who you gonna trust to save your tiny little heart

2. Just Gonna Stand There and Watch Me Burn? The soul-sucking push to chase likes and follows

3. The Stink of HGTV: How the push to influence infiltrates our personal worth

In this series, I’m exploring the beautifully complex and necessary need to find like-minded people having the conver…

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You can read the first part of this-here series on extracting from social media here.

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One of my best high school friends bought me a diary at the exotic Japanese shop across the creek and down a winding verdant path, next door to my first job bussing tables at fourteen. That job–my first taste of freedom– gave a place for my overactive mind and body to land in a restaurant mosh pit of organized chaos where the hectic kitchen vibrated with energy and the fridge overflowed with stacked boxes of cheesecake. As the restaurant grew in popularity, new dark and smoky dining rooms were stitched onto the building walls as it continued to swell at the seams. It was here where I first learned to work hard, that work equaled money which equaled freedom, and that there was a colorful and exciting world outside the walls of my home.

I suppose social media has become the evolution of that diary, but instead of dreaming in secret we now have a multitude of platforms to share our private selves with a world of friends and strangers. What began as a way to reconnect with people from high school or share photos of the new baby has turned into heavily curated highlight reels, excruciatingly edited with the intention of getting likes and follows, and often with the end goal of selling something. Sometimes it’s a product, but oftentimes we are just selling a scrubbed up version of ourselves for consumption.

Living a Double Life

I see it everywhere: people losing sight of the distinct line separating a private life from the public smoothed-over version, slowly tricked into thinking it’s all one and the same. The boundary between what we post and how we live has grown hazy, and it begins to affect the way we dress, the makeup we wear, how our hair is styled so we are always always in alignment with what we share online. What would happen if someone saw the real person behind the camera?

Some days when I’m heading out I think to myself “do I need to be camera ready today?”

What if your highlight reel and your life are now one and the same?

Blonde or Brunette: Those Are Your Only Choices

I’ve been watching someone in my orbit, someone who has only ever known a life as something meant to be shared, documented, and performed. She’s young, raised in the era of social media where there has never been a distinction between public and private, between experience and content. She is good and kind—genuinely so—but her life exists in a carefully curated loop. Vulnerability is shared, but only in ways that fit the aesthetic. Even the messy moments have good lighting, even the struggles are framed for engagement.

Living asynchronously to her feed isn’t an option because there’s no model in her life for that, no framework to guide her in how to experience highs and lows that aren’t measured in likes, comments, and the hopeful reassurance of an audience always watching. Time is a tool for being productive, optimized, and turned into something shareable. Even the hard times are filmed, used as lessons on how to be real. But when every moment is publicly available, are there any moments left that belong only to her?

The Man of Make Believe

It’s not just happening to women, there’s a new (equally disturbing) conformist trend among men to be rugged, Yellowstone-y and tough, at least in the way they look. Since the Marlboro man made his debut on a Sunset Boulevard billboard in the 60s as a symbol of the independent capable man of the untamed west, advertising has continued to push that ideal persona. It’s since morphed into fillers for your man-junk and cheeks (both kinds), faded flannel shirts and other ways you can fast-track your ascension to the tough guy aesthetic that is still, after all these years, primarily a fabrication of advertising creatives. The original Marlboro man’s obituary reflected on the manufactured fantasy:

“No family tied the Marlboro Man down. He had no home, though he was once in a ramshackle shed, holding his tin cup out roughly for coffee… He epitomized resilience, self-sufficiency, independence and free enterprise.”

Sounds like a pretty lonely life.

When that Japanese shop opened in our blip of a village, it was the talk of that Pennsylvania small town. So exotic! As kids we’d blast through the heavily carved doors in groups, turning the lacquered bowls and incense holders in our hands, dreaming of the foreign land from whence they came.

Does an experience in a video game, engaging with a Tik Tok video or attending a Zoom webinar on #girlbossing imprint a similar lasting physical memory like our walks over the bridge through the woods to visit the shop? Is reality important anymore?

The old diary holds the secrets of my time as a tortured high schooler; angst about my crush that a good friend ended up dating, my dedication to the Thin Thighs in 30 Days program and frustration over why I had to share the top pyramid spot for cheerleading with Sarah M. All vivid reminders that we all want connection, at every phase of our lives.

Living a Double Life

Through the slow drip drip of 24/7 news culture and social media we are told that the pasteurized, donut glazed version is now actually the best way to stay connected. It’s easier to beat ourselves up over our failures and inability to keep up with what we’re seeing online than it is to honor and praise the hard work we’ve put into building a good life for ourselves. That offline work never looks like a curated online life.

The result: a corrosive never-enoughness that undermines our beliefs about who we are, making it easy to tear down those rising stars. Why? Because we thought (past tense) that is what we wanted, and they got it instead.

In a past newsletter I shared a conversation I had with my daughter, who lamented that she wanted the life a friend of hers had. My answer was, you have to take the entire life, not just the glossy part presented for public consumption.

She opted for what she had. It’s a good reminder to me during this crazy, uncertain time we are living through that

I too already have everything I need.

Until next time,

We are the doers. The dreamers.

Learn wildly, Connect madly.

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