A Day in The Life: (Almost) 24 Hours with Me!

Most all of us have read a version of “A Day With… ” or “24 Hours in The Life of …” in a magazine. They’re a personal favorite of mine, I eat up every word. I am well aware that each one is typically filled with unrealistic expectations of every day life, like “6:00am: I drink a pitcher of hot water with lemon for one hour, until my trainer shows up and my chef cooks me an omelet”. They’re usually a fascinating look into the lives of the rich and famous, but often leave me wondering “why doesn’t my life look like that? What am I doing wrong?” My brain completely omits the part where I don’t have a chef, I don’t even have a lemon.

I thought I would share a true look into a day in my life (let’s assume this is a day off/weekend). It’s part parody, but 100% reality at the same time. Does this mean my life is a joke? If so, I can think of no better time for a laugh. Enjoy one at MY EXPENSE!

6:15am: My alarm starts to go off, I set it early so I could get up and workout. In an attempt to stop the ringing, I accidentally knock my phone to the ground, deem I need a break due to this inconvenience, and go back to sleep.

7:30am: I finally wake up, make a mental note that I’ll work out tomorrow (lol). Michael just fed Maple, who now is running up the stairs to do his morning routine of jumping up on the bed, sitting on my chest, and burping in my face. I truly did not know dogs could burp. What a gift. I’ll spend a few minutes talking to Maple like an absolute idiot, then get up and get going.

7:45am: I throw my retainer in some denture cleaner, rinse my face with water and spray it with fresh rose water. Just kidding, it’s Mario Badescu that I picked up while waiting in line at Nordstrom Rack. Also the nozzle broke and it sprays everywhere so I have to apply it like I’m having a seizure.

8:00am: I put some coffee on, and I drink a full glass of water before having my first cup of coffee. It’s not for health reasons. It’s something to distract me so I don’t drink it all right out of the pot. I have two cups while I answer emails, leaving myself feeling nice and jittery. I think shaking is another word for it, but tomato to-mato.

9:00am: By now I’m showered, dressed and begging Michael to make some eggs so I don’t faint from all the caffeine. He says he will, but then we discover we only have one egg. I eat four “cuties” instead and complain that this wouldn’t be an issue if he let me build the chicken coop I’ve always wanted.

10:00am: Michael is in the shower. I say I’m going downstairs to read a book. I actually spend 25 minutes trying to teach myself how to “throw it back” from instructional videos on TikTok. I pull a muscle in my back. I tell no-one.

10:30am: I call my mom and we talk for thirty minutes about absolutely nothing. Michael asks me what we talked about after, and I truly couldn’t name a thing.  But it was nice and necessary to the schedule of speaking to my mom a minimum of 5 times a day.

11:00am: We take Maple for a walk through our neighborhood, where another dog violently barks at him from behind a fence, and I call it a “demon ass B”. Turns out the owner was right there, I don’t know if he heard me, but just to be safe, we will never walk that way AGAIN!

12:00pm: I come to the realization that if I don’t eat a proper meal, I will die. So we make grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch. Michael mentions that we don’t have any dairy-free cheese so I can’t have one. I tell him to mind his business and I slap two more pieces of bread in the pan.

12:06pm: I rush upstairs for a mysterious reason. It is unrelated to the grilled cheese.

12:30pm: I throw some laundry in, clean up the bedroom, bathroom, and the mess I made yesterday when I tried to make a pampas grass arrangement I saw on Pinterest. In retrospect, I should have done it outside. Or just not at all.

2:00pm: I lay down on the couch to catch up on this week’s “Grey’s Anatomy”, because I’m trash. There’s a guest appearance in this episode that I KNOW I’ve seen in another movie recently. I come to realize it’s Beanie Feldstein, so I spend the next three hours watching “Neighbors 2”, again, because I’m trash.

6:00pm: Oh, the movie ended but I fell asleep on the couch, a deep mouth-breathing sleep. Time well spent.­

7:00pm: We eat dinner, pour some wine and decide on a movie to watch. I spend the next 2.5 hours of “Ford vs. Ferarri” refreshing Twitter/Instagram/Facebook/TikTok/The Real Real. Basically, I do anything but watch the movie. I read an article on it once, I feel like I know everything I need to know.

9:30pm: We get ready for bed and I chug a glass of water. I realize I never put my retainer back in the whole rest of the day, and have no choice but to lie to my dentist next week when he asks if I’ve been wearing it.

9:32pm: Michael has fallen asleep. I lie awake until about 11:00pm, when he violently rolls over and accidentally punches me in the neck.

1:14am: I wake up to go to the bathroom. Most people would know it was the water. I do not correlate the two, so I fall back asleep making a mental note that I should call a doctor about my bladder. All in a day’s work!!!

Confessions of a Recovering Girlboss

I’m all for female entrepreneurship. I support women in businesses big and small, I’m all about “leaning in” and “taking up room”. This is an exciting time to be a woman! We’re owning more businesses, gaining more seats in government, and fighting for the rights to our bodies (which is insane that we even have to do so in 2020). But lately there’s something that has quietly taken up a resistance in my brain. It was something that when it started, I couldn’t get enough. I read books about it, put stickers on my computer, I might have even had it in my Instagram bio for a week.

But now I’ve had enough: I don’t want to be called a “girlboss.”

The term girlboss caught like wildfire when it first left the lips of millennial women. I was one of them! The notion that women were rising up, taking charge, being bosses of our own lives and in the work place. How could that ever be a bad thing? Maybe I’m being sensitive, but to me, the phrase has taken new meaning. It feels as though it’s been weaponized to make women feel inadequate, that we aren’t doing or achieving enough (we already get this from seeing 22-year-olds on Instagram making six-figures from selling tea. WE GET IT!).

The term “girlboss” has been transformed into a cover to convince women that we need to do more. How dare we have free time! Pick up a side hustle and get RICH! If your hobby doesn’t make you money, what’s the point? It’s become a suppression of true feeling. I don’t know one woman who hasn’t felt like she isn’t far enough in her career, or feels behind in life, bills, dating, etc. We’re in a rush, and now we have lists like the “Forbes 30 Under 30” to remind us to hurry up (Because as we all know, after 30, you die). Does “girlboss” act as a blanket to conceal the behind-the-scenes struggle that comes with success, to make it seem like we have it all together? When did a “brunch in bed” photo or “pretty girl eating a giant burger” become inspirational? Who are we trying to fool?

No man is going around calling himself a “boyboss”. If they did, we would never take them seriously. It also sounds like the title of a bad 90’s Disney Channel Original Movie (which I would watch anyway, because I never miss a D.C.O.M). They don’t need to label their power, because no one questions or fears it. It doesn’t need to be dimmed or softened to make it more digestible. Boss. No gender. My friends are bosses- literally and figuratively. They manage departments, teach classes, volunteer. They are moms, single women, married. They are honest about how they feel and don’t try to mask it for the sake of a title made by a woman, for women, to ultimately sell us notebooks and necklaces with the phrase. On second thought, maybe keep the necklaces. I would pay good money to see one of my old bosses wear a “boyboss” pendant.

If being a “girlboss” inspires you, I don’t want to diminish or take that away from you. But I hope we can become comfortable enough in our own power to not have to justify or label it. Women are powerful, period. We can be motivated by the sole fact that we all have a purpose, and will get there when we’re supposed to. Lizzo is 31, Nancy Pelosi is almost 80. It’s not a race, success does not look the same to everyone. Our power as women is reaching new heights, it has no limit. And if we have no bounds as to what that power will achieve, it can’t be labeled. And it definitely can’t fit on a sticker.

ASK ALEX: "I'm Dating all Duds"

“How did you and Michael meet? I’ve been on so many dates and they’re all duds. I’d be curious to know how you met ‘the one’.”

I quite frequently get messages about Michael, my husband. People want to know where we met, how we started dating, or if he’s left me yet for constantly hiding behind things, attempting to scare him (Nope! Still here!). We have been together for seven years, married for two of them. It’s truly a marvel how we found each other but I think the most important thing to know is that if we had met even a week earlier, we may not be together today.

Going into college, I had just been dumped-via Gchat one night when I was studying. I was heart-broken and vowed I would spend the next four years focusing on my myself and my future. I did some ~light~ dating in college. Meeting guys at parties, going on dates (and getting stood up on them! Three times- TWICE THE SAME GUY). I did end up dating someone in my Junior year that I truly cared about and had feelings for. But something was off, it didn’t fit. I felt so fed up by dating and meeting guys that just weren’t right. I started to notice a pattern that any guy I had ever dated, I sacrificed a personal belief or personal need to be with them, and the lack of those things always caused our demise. It could be something as simple as believing in empathy, or as big as our spiritual and beliefs. I truly set myself, and the man, up for failure every time (don’t get me wrong, sometimes they were just jerks. Like the guy who told me he didn’t want a girlfriend, and the next night at a party…I met, HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND).

After breaking off a relationship and realizing my pattern, I sat down on my bed and wrote down five things that were my non-negotiables. The five things I needed in a partner to feel that this could be for the long-run. And these weren’t shallow, or surface necessities. I didn’t need him to drive a nice car or have Ryan Gosling’s abs. When I met Michael, I was driving a Saturn station wagon and my most major food-group was the Subway $5 footlong. It’s unfair to judge anyone by looks or what they have at the time. It’s human-nature to get caught up in what the outer world world sees, and those things are truly the most unimportant factors.

These five things were deeply personal. They were things that I needed a partner to have inherently. I couldn’t date another guy with no empathy or understanding, or someone who was more interested in playing games than being with me. These five things changed my perspective of what I needed in a partner, and the kind of partner I wanted to be. I wrote down my little list, tucked it away and then said I was “done with men and dating” for a while. The literal next day, I met Michael.

Will show our kids these pictures from 2012 and let them know it was the year of love, and the year of Four Loko. The two are not related (probably).

One of my closest and oldest friends, Jenny, had come over for drinks before going to Central Michigan’s most ESTEEMED social activity, “Pint Night” at The Wayside. She noticed a piece of mail stuck to our fridge, belonging to the name “Michael Ayaub”. She asked why we had it, and I explained that it had been was mis-delivered, and we were all too lazy to walk it down to the proper address. She said that she actually knew him from class, and that I should bring his mail to the bar (a great idea definitely motivated by Smirnoff RASPBERRY) and talk to him. I threw on my pleather DSW boots and stuck his mail in my Coach wristlet and off we went.

When we got to the bar, Jenny introduced us, and I handed over his mail. It had actually been a paycheck he had to report missing, so we were off to a great, romantic start. We talked for a bit, and to this day, I swear that as soon as we met, I felt a little “ping” in my stomach, almost as if it were telling me to pay attention. It also could have been that we were drinking $2 Coors Lights, but the romantic in me will say it was a sign. The more we spoke, the more I liked him. I accidentally dipped my hair in a beer, and he made me feel better by saying he was sweating. College romance is really a beautiful thing.

Michael offered to drive me home (he hadn’t been drinking, he is still always the most sensible person in the room). He dropped me off at my door...and didn’t ask for my number. I was devastated. I thought we had a great time, me with my hair soaking in beer, him with the sweat. The next day, Jenny and I devised a plan for me to see him again. The following weekend, a group of us went to a baseball game, Michael included. I bought a last minute ticket, grabbed my “Lauren Conrad for Kohl’s” leather jacket (I’m really trying to establish a visual time-period) and was ready to make a move. At the game, Michael finally asked for my number, “in case we got lost in the stadium”, and asked me out to dinner the next day.

We started dating quickly, and after a few months, we knew this was the real deal. It just felt like a given that we were supposed to be together. That doesn’t mean our relationship didn’t come without hardship. We had disagreements and arguments, usually stemming around our needs, and how we can adjust to one another’s. I really feel that people are too quick to end relationships. They see one fault, and walk away. No one, and no relationship is perfect. You aren’t looking for the perfect partner. You’re looking for someone who is willing to work on themselves and the relationship because they love and value you. I had to change a lot of habits, as did Michael. The things I needed to work on to fulfill Michael’s emotional needs, made me a better person, and vice versa.  It was about growing together, not letting our imperfections tear us a part. Of course if you’re dating someone truly horrible, you can’t change inherently who a person is. The whole “I can change him!” approach is one that will always set you up for failure. It’s not your responsibility to change your partner- they have to want to grow with you. When someone shows you who you are, you have to believe them. Who knows you better than you?

About three years into our relationship, I was in a dark place. I had no real direction, felt stuck and depressed at my job, I felt simply lost. I questioned everything, and I told Michael I didn’t know if I could be in a relationship. I asked for two weeks without talking or seeing each other so that I could think. After two weeks, we could assess our relationship. Michael respected my space, but towards the end of the 14 days, he made a small gesture solidifying that no matter what, he was the thing in my life, maybe the only thing, that I was sure of.

One night, Michael sent me a picture of myself. Unbeknownst to me, he had taken a picture of me at another baseball game. It had been raining, I was wearing a giant plastic rain poncho and my hair was matted down to my face. I was face deep in a jumbo hot dog, ketchup on me like makeup, mouth wide open and ready for Ballpark Frank bliss. It was followed by the simple message “I will love you no matter what”.  I laughed so hard I cried, then I just cried. I knew then that what I was going through, would pass. But Michael was a constant.

I don’t have the hot dog photo (Michael has all rights to it) to share with you, but here we are in the ponchos, enjoying a rainy, disgusting time!!

It’s been 7 years filled with happiness and love and laughter, but also hardships, compromise and learning. I’m just going to say it: marriage, and serious relationships, aren’t natural. Someone can be your absolute soulmate, and it’s still hard as hell to mesh to another person’s needs and every aspect of their personality. All relationships are a continual give and take, saying “I’m sorry” (which I am the WORST at), and learning how you both can be better. These moments of frustration and disagreement are going to be a given. What makes the difference is if you feel the person you’re going through it with is worth the internal work for change, and if they’re willing to do the same.

Make your list. Know what you need, and be a champion of it. Be open to listening what your partner needs- it might just make you a better person, and your relationship something of dreams. Like the kind that has you crying over a picture of yourself deep-throating a hot dog at 2am. Who said fairytales aren’t real?

ASK ALEX: "I'm in a Job Rut".

“Does this filter make me look wise??”

It’s been tough for me to write lately. I feel like every time I put pen to paper, something angry comes out. With the state of our nation, it’s been difficult to care about much else these days than the atrocities that are taking place at the hand of our own government. It feels like everything I have to say comes back to the fear and heartbreak I feel for our country.

Last month, I asked you guys on Instagram what kind of advice you were in need of. I got a multitude of answers, ranging from how to find the best sunglasses for your face shape, to help with getting rid of toxic people from your life. I’ve sat down a few times to start writing my answers, but every time I got sidetracked and ended up on more of a tangent than a talk. But last week- something shifted. After the El Paso & Dayton shootings, and the round-up of undocumented immigrants in Mississippi which left a dozen children without their parents, I felt a burning helplessness to do something. And I realized the quickest way to do something was to start spreading kindness, compassion and empathy. And I know I can do so with my words. I also bought a stranger a cookie last week- only to find out they “don’t EAT COOKIES”!! So, here I am, back on my computer!!

So, without further ado, here’s my first article with “Ask Alex” or “Advice from Alex” or “Talking Out of Her Ass, it’s Alex!”- whatever we want to call it- I’m answering your questions!

“I’m in a job rut. I’ve been with my current employer for a few years, and I really hate my job and want to look elsewhere. How did you end up finding a job you like?”

If you would have asked me a few years ago (hell, even a few months ago) to dish out job advice, I would have laughed and then gotten in my 2001 Saturn Station and popped in a Jonas Brothers CD. SIMPLER TIMES! But I didn’t start out very strong in the job-scene (does anyone?). My first job, I diverted away from fashion, which I had gone to college for. I took a job that paid well-enough and gave me experience and I was grateful- but I was miserable. It wasn’t for me. And I remember in that time, everything felt so final. I felt like I had chosen my course and I let my job dictate my moods and my life. I never shut the job off, I came home every night riled up and angry.

Eventually, I left that job and got back into fashion, working for Linda Dresner. Out of college, I had pretty much stalked Linda, emailing and calling her store until she agreed to meet with me. At that time, she didn’t have any work for me. But I offered to come in and help with sales and whatever else she needed, and we formed a relationship. Three years later- she called me and I left my job to work with her. I worked with Linda for almost three years- and it was one of the greatest learning experiences of my life. Linda brought life back into my goals.

When we moved to Las Vegas, I was convinced I would never find a job in fashion here. I was applying for anything and everything, sitting in coffee shops almost everyday firing off my resume. After about 5 months of nothing, I took a seasonal job working in the Zappos Call Center. I had really wanted to work for Zappos, and I felt this could be a good foot in the door. The hours weren’t ideal, I sat 8 hours a day in a call center, fielding customer service calls. I surprisingly enjoyed it- but I think more-or-less I was just happy to be working again and talking to actual people, not just yelling wrong answers at Alex Trebeck.

Three weeks into the 8-week program, I got an email from Chloe Gosselin. I had actually applied for a job to work for her husband, when she came across my resume. She was also looking to hire someone for her business, and we met for coffee. I left the call center and starting working with Chloe two weeks later.

Here’s the thing- sometimes luck just has something to do with it. But it wasn’t without hard work. For five months, 4-5 days a week, I was actively applying for anything that sounded remotely interesting to me. I reached out to companies that didn’t even have job postings. This leads me to my best job-hunting practice:

You do not have to wait for a company to have an opening. Think of what you want to do. Is it marketing? Advertising? Tech? Research a company that you admire or are interested in and find someone who works in the related department-or, if it’s a super small company, reach out to the owner. Many times, I would just send a cold-email, ask if I could come in and meet with that person over coffee because I admired their company or wanted to learn more about it. You would be shocked with how generous people can be with their time. Don’t get me wrong- 8 times out of 10 I got no response. But the other two times, I made valuable connections and was on their radar if an opening did arise- that’s how I got the seasonal work with Zappos. I emailed a recruiter asking to have coffee and learn more about Zappos- a few weeks later, she emailed me about the Customer Service role. I immediately went to Whole Foods and bought a lunch box, I was back in business, baby!!

Never think that a job or task is beneath you. I can’t tell you how many women I’ve talked to, fresh out of college, who thinks they should be able to skip “entry-level”. It’s not what you see on Instagram. You have to work and be willing to do it all. Sometimes you take a new job and feel like you’re taking a small step back. But one step back, to ultimately take five forward? I was terrible at math in high school but sounds good to me!!

If you are currently in a job that sucks the soul out of you, you have to do everything you can to not bring it home with you. Leave work at work. I used to sit in my car for 15-minutes after a certain job I had, just to decompress and shake it off. I was letting the misery of the job take the joy out of the rest of my day, and I didn’t want to give it that power.

If you work with people who are intent on making you miserable, remember that flowers still grow among weeds. Or in simpler terms, don’t internalize the bullshit happening around you that stunts your growth. That was the hardest lesson for me to learn, and the hardest habit to kick.

In terms of applying for jobs- making my resume was truly the bane of my existence. I thought I had a killer resume- until I sent it to a few friends who kindly roasted it into oblivion. My experience was strong! But my resume might as well have been written in Comic Sans. It had a lot on there, but it said nothing. The best tip I ever received was that every sentence should have a result. So instead of:

“Responsible for all e-mail marketing initiatives”

It should be:

“Responsible for all e-mail marketing initiatives, leading to a 33% increase in active subscribers”.

And while we’re at it- delete your objective sentence. Delete it like your racist Uncle from Facebook. It takes up valuable property on your resume, and it tells the employer what they already know- that you want that job, CLEARLY!!!

It also helped me to buy a resume template off Etsy- it took the hard work out of designing my resume so I could focus on the content of it.

I think we’ve been fed a myth about the “Dream Job”- and we pressure ourselves to find it as fast as we can. We tell ourselves we’ll be happy when we have it. In those five months that I wasn’t working, I realized that I had associated my happiness with work, and the jobs I had. If my job sucked- I was miserable, even when I wasn’t there. I had gotten completely dependent on my job to dictate the other parts of life. I struggled to find things that could fill me with joy and purpose the way I had told myself a job should make me feel. In those five months, I had to learn that my happiness came from other outside factors. I had to focus on how to create a “Dream Life”, instead the illusive “Dream Job”. And it wasn’t this poetic, romanticized journey people sell- sorry but that’s only for people who don’t need MONEY!!! It was challenging and stressful as hell.

I’m not a job expert, I’m really fortunate to be in a position now where I enjoy going into work and feel respected and happy. What I want the takeaway to be is that while your job environment is extremely important to your well-being, it can’t be the sole factor of it. If you’re ready to be onto the next thing, start putting yourself out there, be willing to get a little uncomfortable. The amount of cringe-y emails I sent (I actually put “Hello, Is it Me You’re Looking For? as the subject of an application email. GOOD TIMES!) and unanswered calls discouraged me at times, but all it takes is one. Again- you might be in weeds, but you are a flower (one of those cool, Instagrammy ones) and growth requires action.

In Repair

After a rough stretch of days, I officially declared myself in a “funk”. You know the feeling- you don’t quite feel like yourself, every emotion and feeling seems to be heightened. My first memory of this feeling was when Marissa Cooper died in The O.C….BUT THAT WAS DIFFERENT! A “faux funk”, if you will. A real, adult funk is hard to shake, surrounded by feelings of self-doubt, uncertainty and unworthiness.

I have very little reason to be anything less than ecstatic these days. We just closed on a house, we have a cute new puppy to love (and to chase around the house when he steals my underwear from the laundry and puts it on his head. MY GIFTED SON!), we just got back from a vacation, I’m healthy, and I actually like going to my job.

But for the past few days, I just haven’t been feeling it. I have felt removed from myself, my routines, my usual character. I’m not going to be too hard on myself here- these periods happen no matter what your life looks like in that moment. But I knew I had to take back my humanity. I’m not a runner, I don’t “find myself” with yoga, I can’t “sweat it out!!” with boxing. Over the last year or so, I’ve had to find activities and practices to put in my arsenal that bring me back to myself. My personal practices include:

-Going to the library and finding a new book (cookbooks are therapeutic to me, even if I never make anything from them.)

-Sipping my coffee in the morning at home, not from a to-go cup in my car (great news for my cup holders, which are usually espresso stained)

-Reading outside

- Going to Trader Joe’s and perusing every aisle, grabbing all the snacks that look good (and usually opening a box of something in the car to eat on the way home…maybe I should be taking better care of my car)

-Baking something (this week it was a cherry tart, which I overcooked but Michael said it’s the best tart he’s ever had. 1000 POINTS TO MICHAEL!)

-Buying flowers that I will most likely kill within 3 days but that first day…they are healing!

Even writing this right now, outside with a glass of wine (blame any errors on the Pinot), is a therapeutic action in repairing myself. I take these mundane, somewhat daily things and I put them on priority. Some may call it “self-care”, but it’s more than that. It’s the practice of reminding myself that I am worth caring for.

We all require healing. Maybe it’s once a month, or once a week. Maybe it’s massive work (I firmly believe therapy is the greatest gift you can give yourself), or just a tune-up. To heal is to be human.

In my favorite book, Heart Talk , Cleo Wade says “It does no good to think about running a marathon when you still have a broken foot”. Take the time you need, put priority on your practices, your “self-activators”. Find your way back and remember, you can never be truly lost if you know who you are.

dust

Don’t worry- I’m not going to start this post with an “I’m back after a little hiatus!” bit. I’ve played it and it’s gotten old. The truth is, I just stopped writing. Not because I didn’t enjoy it or have anything to say, but simply because life got busy. Right after I published my last post in November, I finally got a job in Nevada. A job I love, and I decided early on I would give it my all. I put all my focus not just into my job, but also my marriage, which was finally back on the ground after a difficult move, and immersing myself in our new community. The last few months have flown by, and it’s almost a year-to-date that we found out we were leaving Detroit. And guess what? I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and it completely snuck up on me.

In all my contentment, I still I felt an itch to put pen to paper again (I write all my posts in a notebook before typing. Eat your heart out, Shakespeare!!!) Every day when I would walk into my closet, I would pass a framed copy of “The Nines” logo that my friendly so sweetly made me for my birthday one year. I would walk by it, think “I should write soon”, and then just go in my closet and get distracted by a sweater. But yesterday as I walked past it, I noticed all the dust that had accumulated around the frame, and it hit me. I was letting the dust collect around something I loved. I gave up on something that was supposed to be growing. And in true “Carrie Bradshaw” style (even though she is THE WORST, don’t get me started) , I had to wonder “When being content stunts your growth-is it really such a good thing?”.

No-one made me stop writing. It was actually the opposite. My husband would ask if there was anything new to read, my boss said she really enjoyed my writing. I feel supported by the people around me. But I used all the things going on in my life as a crutch to avoid doing something that was enjoyable, but required a lot of effort. I was so busy with life and happy with just-the-way-things-were that I forgot that growth requires doing. That in order to have a voice, you have to speak. I neglected the piece of me that loves to talk about women’s rights and skincare and how not needing a bra until 8th grade ruined my self esteem- we’ll get to that later, OH WILL WE EVER!

This post isn’t about “being back, guys!”. It’s meant to serve as a reminder that if you have let dust collect around something you love, something that makes you who you are-you can always clean it off and pick it back up. You can also hire a cleaning company. That has no double meaning- the dust was so alarming that we literally hired a cleaning company. Talk soon. xx