My name is Amber. I make leather bags by hand in San Diego. Every single one, just me. I've been doing it for fourteen years, and recently started writing about the life that surrounds the work. This is one of those posts. Pull up a chair.
The idea of gratitude used to make me roll my eyes. So Pollyanna. So bumper sticker. So far from anything I could actually feel.
And before I go any further, I want to say something to anyone reading this who feels the same way. I see you. The reason you can't access gratitude is probably real. It's not a character flaw. It's not laziness. It's not that you don't know how to appreciate things. It's that gratitude is almost impossible to feel when the weight of your life is sitting on your chest and just getting through the day is all you can manage.
That was me. Not that long ago.
Everything felt heavy. Getting up felt heavy. Getting dressed felt heavy. Just surviving my own life felt like something I had to push through rather than something I got to live. There was a darkness that had become so familiar I stopped noticing it was even there. I thought that was just what life felt like.
It wasn't.
I had to understand the darkness before I could enjoy the light. And that was hard. It is hard work to look at yourself honestly and ask why you are the way you are. For me it was a combination of things. My upbringing. The community and culture that surrounded me as I was growing into a person. Relationships that quietly robbed me of joy. Those were real and valid reasons. But at some point I had to decide what I was going to do with them.
I don't see placing blame as a healthy way of moving forward. And please don't confuse that with letting people off the hook. People should absolutely be held accountable for their actions. But carrying blame didn't help me get better. The people I love most are flawed. Maybe they failed me. Maybe they were doing their best, or maybe they weren't. I certainly haven't always done my best or the right thing either. No one is 100%. I had to set myself and them free from that. I hold myself to what Maya Angelou said, "When you know better, do better." And what Ted Lasso said, "Be a goldfish."
I think life just happens. And while it's a comforting idea that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, that has not always been my experience. There are things that didn't kill me and most definitely didn't make me stronger either. What they did give me was a clearer picture of who I was, and an opportunity to change, to grow, and to be better going forward.
There is one thing that changed everything for me. And I almost didn't put it in this post.
I had bariatric surgery. And I regretted it the moment it was over.
When I got home I felt something close to panic. What had I done? But then came my first weigh in. The scale was moving. The surgery was actually working. And something shifted in me that I did not expect. A small quiet voice said, oh. Something good might actually happen for me.
That was the first crack in the wall.
On the other side of that fear was freedom. Real freedom. The kind I didn't know I was living without. I could stop hiding. Not all at once, not perfectly. Being on camera still feels awkward and is definitely uncomfortable sometimes. But I don't feel like I want to disappear into the wallpaper anymore. I feel like I'm showing up. I'm here. Saying hello. Sharing my life.
And now, for the first time in a long time, I notice things.
I'm grateful to be alive. That sounds simple and it is not. There were many years of my life where I struggled to be present on this earth. A day to day darkness that felt completely normal to me. Just focused on surviving but not really living. Going through the motions. Staying small. Choosing invisible. I'm not doing that anymore, and the gratitude I feel for that shift is hard to put into words, but boy do I feel it now.
I'm grateful for my mom. She calls every morning at 8:30 without fail. She is the first voice I hear most days, and I don't take that beautiful sound of my phone ringing for granted.
I'm grateful for my three boys. Dude, Tino, and Rocky. Three dachshunds who run my household and have absolutely no idea. They're on the couch when I sit down with my coffee. They're underfoot when I'm cutting leather. They don't care what I look like or what I accomplish. They just want to be near me. Even when I'm in the bathroom. Some days that is the most stabilizing thing in my life. As I sit here writing this, Dude is on my lap, Tino to my left, Rocky to my right. Best. Baby Boys. Ever.
I'm grateful for my apartment. For the teal kitchen I painted myself during the hardest four years of my life, when being alive was a struggle and painting something bright and hard to miss felt like proof I was still here. For the glass cabinets. For the bright, authentic, totally me home I've built around myself. For the walk downstairs to my studio. Not everyone gets to work that close to where they live, and I do not take that for granted.
I'm grateful for my life before Daylin Skye. Not because of all the tough times, but because everything that came before showed me exactly what I wanted. The experiences I loved, the ones I didn't and never want to repeat, the relationships that built me up, and the ones that quietly robbed me of joy. I learned from all of it. I'm grateful for healthy friendships now. For healthy boundaries. For knowing what those feel like and choosing them on purpose.
I'm grateful for clothes that fit. For being able to open my closet and not reach for loose shapeless exercise pants and an oversized hoodie to hide in. For fashion I actually feel good in. For the dresses I get to wear again, and the skirts I once again wear. For the ability to get dressed in the morning and just feel like myself, even if it's jeans and a t-shirt. It used to be so much more complicated than that, and I am so glad that process is not one I rush through anymore.
I'm grateful for what my hands can do. Cutting, stitching, finishing. One bag at a time. The creative process has always been therapy for me. A way of quieting the noise and just making something real, watching something go from nothing to something. I can have a crime story in my headphones or the TV on in the background and I am exactly where I'm supposed to be.
I'm grateful for all the bags I've made that only a mother could love. Lordy, so many bags that never saw the light of day. Whew. I used to have two tote boxes full of bags that just were not good, but I couldn't bring myself to throw them away because they took me so darn long to make. I have since released them to the trash. But wow, the things they taught me.
I'm grateful for this community. For customers who carry something I made with my hands. And for the people who have never bought a bag, who may never buy a bag, but who still show up in my messages with a hello, a heart, a small piece of their day. You have no idea what that means to me.
And throughout my day, at the most random moments, I catch myself with a quiet little thought of gratitude I wasn't even looking for. Maybe I'm just reaching for a cup of coffee and I'm reminded how much I love my teal cabinets. Or I'm shutting off the light in my closet hallway and I'm grateful for the little chandelier that hangs there. Or I'm making my bed and I'm grateful for my floral comforter, and the beautiful bed I found on Facebook Marketplace for free. Or I'm sitting on my couch looking at all my mismatched artwork, how maybe the hanging distances aren't perfect, but it just looks so beautiful to me. The view of my kitchen table. A big bouquet of fuchsia flowers left over from a birthday party a few years ago. I just find myself grateful. At random moments I see things now. Things that were always there, hidden in my struggle to survive.
Do you remember when Instagram was all about the curated life? Everything neat and tidy. Dirty socks in the laundry. Kitchen counters clean and not a thing out of place. Ugh. Exhausting. I can't do it. I won't do it. I'm grateful for the messy, the beautiful lived-in life. I'm grateful for this authentic life.
A brighter life isn't a cliche. It's not a bumper sticker or a Pollyanna promise. It is real. And it doesn't require everything to be perfect or resolved or beautiful. It just requires you to keep going long enough to start noticing the small things. The chandelier. The fuchsia flowers. The phone ringing at 8:30.
That's what gratitude actually is, for me. Not a feeling I perform. A life I get to notice.
This is my life. All of it. And I wouldn't trade a single messy, beautiful, complicated piece of it.
I'm just grateful. For all of it.
If any of this felt familiar, I'd love to hear from you. You can find me at daylinskye.com, where I make small-batch leather goods by hand, one at a time. Or come say hello on Instagram. I'm there most mornings, coffee in hand, dogs underfoot, exactly where I'm supposed to be.
That's enough for today.
Amber
