Hello, it's me again.

missed u, mean it.

In a recent attempt to get a handle on my life and tip toe towards confronting my omnipresent existential plight, I decided to tackle clearing out my email inbox. There’s something about digital housekeeping that gives me instant anxiety, likely the fact it usually includes narrowing down which of the 16 versions of the same photo is actually worth keeping, the forced cringey reflections on half thought out notes, buried emails from various failed projects and the hauntings of a myriad of adult responsibilities - insurance claims! outstanding balances! appointment reminders!

It’s common belief that are two types of people in the world: the ones with a thoughtful, neatly organized inbox, and the ones with 96,765 unread emails and counting. I consider myself somewhere in the middle, a similar reflection to my physical life- striving for clean and organized, but cluttered in the thoughtful stacks and piles kind of way. 

My initial goal in coming up for air in the digital world was unsubscribing from the suffocating multitude of marketing emails that seem to multiply by the second. Buy! Buy! Buy! Sale! Sale! Only 24 hours left! End of season! Best deals of the year! Don’t miss out! Limited Time Only! Like drudging through digital peanut butter to find solitude from the crushing, heart pounding, overwhelming pressure to find happiness through consumption. This piled on top of Instagram pumping ads and sponsored content at illegal highway speeds, my gluttonous cravings for stuff and things has been debilitating and depression inducing. Good riddance!

All of this to say I stumbled upon a collection of emails from early 2020, a time capsule of history that we’ve all collectively seemed to move past already, for better or worse. Businesses reassuring their customers on what, they weren’t even sure, invitations to zoom calls and virtual game nights, check ins from distant acquaintances, looking to reconnect with someone on some level in a time that felt so uncertain, but certainly full of retrospection and self reflection. And now, to be writing this halfway through the junior year of this pandemic, over a week into having tested positive for a variant of the virus, everything feels fragile and poignant once again. 

Gratitude, first and foremost, for science and vaccines, I cannot imagine how this week could have gone in those early days. But also this nagging reminder that life is short! It is really short! They aren’t lying about that! Old emails of work schedules, requests off, flight confirmations for work trips - a life that seems so distant as I enter two years unemployed from mainstream capitalism. Years I feel I wasted not stepping outside of my comfort zone, too meek, too afraid of being seen or heard or judged or worse, disliked. Older emails of job applications, interview requests, job rejections. Years I should have fought harder for what I wanted, should have clawed and scraped and spent nights and weekends doing MORE. I feel the heart pangs of “could have, should have, what if i just, what could have been if” In true retrospect, I know I did what I could with the mental and monetary tools I had at the time, no amount of reminiscing will change the reality that all I have is the here and now. What will I do with it?

I’ve missed this space, and if you’ll have me, I would love to be in your inbox weekly with whatever it is that I plan on doing with in this little corner of the internet. I keep thinking I need to be an innovator, inventing a new Silicon Valley worthy space full of modern excitement, thrill, and intrigue. I so easily forget that maybe I don’t need to be inventing something new to find purpose and contentment. I just need to be willing to take risks.

So help me — what would you like to see in this space? With a lifelong love/lengthy career in personal style and getting dressed, would you like to see more about how to get creative with your wardrobe in this space? With funky and sustainable recommendations that aren’t the same five sponsored ads from Instagram? As the daughter of a multigenerational group of crafty women, would you like to see more DIY crafty things? More insights into things to read, things to watch, and music to listen to? With the communal fatigue many of us are feeling around the new video focused Instagram, what “content” do you actually want to see and consume these days? I’m all ears, and more importantly, I’m ready to step outside my comfort zone to make it happen- so let me know!

Until next week,

G

PS - I made a summer playlist and not to brag, but it’s like, really good.