I have rewritten this post more times than I want to admit. Each time I finished it I would step back and think, okay, that's it, that's what I wanted to say, and then a few hours later or the next morning I would read it again and know that it wasn't quite right. That it was close, but I was still holding something back. So here is the version where I stop doing that.
For most of my life, I have been more comfortable in the supporting role. Never the one in the limelight, never the center of the photo, afraid to be the reason people were talking. Living that way was fine by me. I felt safe hiding in plain sight. What I didn't understand for a long time was that hiding had become a habit, and then a lifestyle, and then something I didn't even question anymore.
When my dad passed away, everything that had already been fragile in me cracked wide open. I was grieving, I was trying to find the right medication, and I was not taking care of myself in any real way. Over time I gained over a hundred pounds. And the more weight I gained, the less I wanted to be seen by anyone. I want to say that plainly because I think a lot of people know that feeling and not enough people talk about it. The shame of your own body. The way you start building your days around avoiding mirrors and cameras and situations where someone might really look at you. That is where I was. And I was also trying to run a business on social media, which meant that every day I was supposed to show up visibly in a space where I felt completely invisible and unworthy of being seen.
I had started therapy a few months before my dad passed, and I continued for ten years, until it ended unexpectedly with the passing of my therapist, which was its own kind of grief and trauma I hadn't seen coming. I want to be honest about therapy because I think we talk about it in a way that makes it sound like a tidy solution. Go to therapy, feel better, move on. What we don't say enough is how terrifying it is to start. Because on some level we already know how hard it is going to be, how vulnerable it will require us to become, and we are afraid that if we open the wounds we have spent years quietly guarding, we will not be able to recover. That fear is real. I lived inside it for a long time. But I had a therapist who was patient and stayed with me through all of it, helping me slowly see a future that wasn't just about surviving the moment. She painted a beautiful picture of a life that was full and thriving, one I had never been able to see for myself, and had never dared to even daydream might be possible.
Somewhere in those later years, the things she had been teaching me began to become real in a way I could actually feel. I started to understand that the terrible things that had happened to me did not define me. They shaped me deeply, yes. But they were not who I was. And when I finally began to understand that the shame I had been carrying did not belong to me, I began to live again. Slowly at first, in thought, then in action, and eventually in reality.
Which brings me to a Saturday morning in Oceanside.
As I have been working on Daylin Skye lately, I have been doing a deep dive back to the basics of what it actually takes to build a small brand that connects with people. One of the directions I am moving is rooting myself more intentionally in San Diego, in my community, in the culture and the people that are already around me. Other small businesses, people in my community, the kind of connections that can only happen when you actually show up somewhere. When I discovered Happy Girl Club, a women's community that hosts events and gatherings from San Diego to LA, it felt like exactly the kind of place I should try first. So I signed up for a group walk on the Oceanside Strand.
I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know anyone who was going, I didn't know how long it would last, I didn't know how much talking or interacting would be required of me, and I went in fully prepared for it to be awkward and uncomfortable. I logged that as part of what would come. I even got there thirty minutes early, partly because I wasn't sure where to park and wanted to know where I was going to be, and partly because that's just how I manage uncertainty. Small things, but they help.
The people were friendly and welcoming, and nothing made me want to run back to my car. Women were slowly gathering and getting coffees and lattes and smoothies, so I bought a banana since I had neglected to eat before I left the house. We split into groups, got assigned a color, and walked the Oceanside Strand looking for it. Our color was red, and I found myself noticing things I never would have paid attention to otherwise. Sometimes I walked with my group, sometimes alongside one person, and sometimes just by myself, comfortably, without it feeling strange. There was no palpable anxiety. About two thirds of the way through I did feel ready to go. I had met people, asked questions, made introductions, just as myself and not as my business, and I was ready for the quiet of my car and the drive home. But I made myself finish the walk and say my goodbyes before leaving.
I got home around 1:30 and collapsed on my couch, and woke up somewhere around five having slept most of the afternoon without meaning to. Then I fell asleep again after dinner in my dad's recliner at my mom's house, and when I finally went home at nine I went straight to bed and slept until seven the next morning. It wasn't the walk that tired me. It was the showing up, the being present with strangers, the energy it takes to be out in the world when the world doesn't come naturally to you. That's what it costs me, and I think it's important to know that about yourself and to plan for it accordingly. Even now, a few days later, I am still feeling it. A little tired, a little drained, and if I am being honest, still finding it hard to get motivated. I used to judge myself for that. Now I just factor it in.
I recognized that I needed to refuel, so I decided to tackle a small project in my studio, reworking a bookshelf and a little area to display my bags. That kind of quiet, solo, hands-on work is how I find myself again. Sometimes it's not that. Sometimes it's mindlessly scrolling on social media, or holding my babies, or audiobooks, or Candy Crush. Whatever it is, that's where I fill back up, and through the years I have recognized that working with my hands is something close to therapeutic for me. Understanding that about myself, knowing what I need and actually giving it to myself, is what makes it possible to go out into the world again. Now that I know what showing up costs me, I can build in the recovery. I can go out and still take care of myself when I come back.
Through the years of building my own business, and learning the intricacies of what it takes to build a bag, every part and every process, I have also been learning about myself. The way that I am built, each part, and what it takes to maintain myself as a whole. Just like I challenge myself with patterns and styles that seem harder than anything I have done before, I also intentionally push myself out of my comfort zone, in small ways and big ways, because I never want to stop growing. I never want to stop digging into who I am and why I do the things I do. Making new connections, strengthening old ones, showing up even when it costs me something. That is the work, all of it, the bags and the business and the becoming. And I am just getting started.
