rebirth
work
I’ve been at my new job for almost one year. I think being one year in is a real sweet spot. You can still look at the company with fresh eyes, but you now know all of the crucial information to make strategic decisions and tangible change.
A colleague and long time friend of mine purchased an existing business and asked me to head marketing. At the time of his offer, I was working at a creative agency downtown. I’ve managed agencies but I’ve never worked FOR an agency, so I wanted to see what that world was like — and in doing so, I’ve found a few things to be true…
I realized I could never work for an agency because I don’t have that natural salesperson mindset. After years of working directly for brands, I’ve been trained to focus on the bottom line, making it hard for me to sell with fluff or inflated promises. I care too much about real results to thrive in that kind of environment. I also found it exhausting how agency life constantly felt like a battle to defend your work and prove your worth. So much energy goes into digging for shiny statistics that don’t really matter but spinning them like they do. It’s more about perception than actual impact.
I valued my time and the lessons I learned at the agency, but when the opportunity came to build a brand again, I said yes. It wasn’t just a career move — it was a lifestyle decision. This path aligns with who I am, the way I want to live.
life
They say it takes 2 years postpartum for your hormones to regulate. My daughter turned 2 last month. Her second birthday felt like my own rebirth. I’ve been navigating the most trying season of my life unbalanced for 2 full years…3, if you count pregnancy. When you’re ~in it~ you can’t see the way out, you don’t have faith that the way out is coming, or even exists. It does. I feel like I can see the world through a new lense, with fresh eyes, and with really fucking good glasses. I’ve never felt so confident in who I am as a person, a friend, a mother, a daughter, a wife, a sister, an employee, a boss, and so on. So lately I’ve been embracing my confidence and my newfound freedom. I feel proud and I feel happy.
📺 Watching: Severance (OBVIOUSLY)
Quite literally the most brilliant show in television history. There’s sadly only 1 more episode left this season and I pray to Kier that we don’t have to wait another 3 years to get a new season.
👩🍳 Cooking: Soba Noodle Bowls
I love a simple dish, done really well. Which is really coincidental because Alison Roman has a cook book titled “Nothing Fancy” and this is one of her recipes.
💘 Brand Obsession: Aesop
I’m surprised it’s taken me 39 years to go down the Aesop rabbit hole. But honestly, this feels like the right time to do it. Probably because I can afford to buy it (sort of). My love for the brand started before even trying a single product. They have so much to offer beyond a product. Their vibe is immaculate, cohesive, alluring, and confident. And then I tried the products…I’m afraid I cannot live without them.
QUOTE THAT HIT
“There are gaps in the mesh of the everyday world, and sometimes they open up and you fall through them into somewhere else. Somewhere Else runs at a different pace to the here and now, where everyone else carries on. Somewhere Else is where ghosts live, concealed from view and only glimpsed by people in the real world. Somewhere Else exists at a delay, so that you can't quite keep pace. Perhaps I was already teetering on the brink of Somewhere Else anyway; but now I fell through, as simply and discreetly as dust sifting between the floorboards. I was surprised to find that I felt at home there. Winter had begun.”
- Katherine May, Wintering