Plain Plain Casey Jane

I think we all have at least one lesson life will repeatedly teach us and yet, we will never fully comprehend. For me, that lesson is that I can’t out-plan reality, no matter how hard I try. Or, to put a more positive spin on it, most of my best memories have come from completely unexpected moments. 

Long story short on my most recent unexpected moment: I currently have seven cats living in my house. 

I’ve never been a cat person. Growing up my family had a cat. His name was Mittens, and he was a demon. He hated people, would entice you to pet him with purring and then scratch the shit out of you, and spent most of his time lurking in the dark corners of our basement waiting to pounce. 

Conversely, we also had a corgi named Jesse who was the sweetest animal on earth. She was obsessed with food and therefore shaped like a hefty corndog, but loved to follow you around, snuggle up, or play with her tug-rope toys. So, I decided dogs were my preferred pet. 

Twenty years after my time with Mittens, Bobby and I found a kitten squealing pitifully outside of our window one morning. I say squealing, because the noises this kitten makes aren’t quite meows. Bobby refers to them as “‘eows” instead, and this kitten was certainly making a racket, trapped in an egress from our basement window and wet from the recent rainstorm. 

Preparing for the worst, I layered up with several sweatshirts and as Bobby eased the window open I reached out my arms to grab the kitten, fully prepared to be met with the full force of her claws and teeth. Instead, she allowed herself to picked up without a fuss and started to purr as soon as she came into my arms. 

So that’s how I became a cat mom of one. We named her Alley Cat. 

Alley Cat is completely black and built like a panther. Seriously, even though she weighs like twelve pounds, she can be truly terrifying. But as she’s grown up she’s also become quite the chonk. When she runs, her stubby little legs pound the floor so hard we call it her “thomp thomps” (during the pandemic we got really into animating the lives of our pets, ok, so just go with it). 

After Rowdy died we noticed a change in Alley Cat. Even though Rowdy barely tolerated her presence, he was her best friend. She loved getting into his bed while he napped and making biscuits beside him, and when he was up and moving around she would often attempt John Cena-style wrestling moves to try and take him to the ground, all of which were hilarious but unsuccessful. Without him, she seemed listless. Cats, in general, spend lots of time asleep, and Alley was no different. But when she was awake she seemed desperate for ways to get her energy out, and our attempts to play with her didn’t quite cut it. 

So after an extensive amount of research (because, I am me) we learned that cats, especially kittens, are happier in homes with other pets, specifically other cats. We also learned that in the DC animal shelters, adopting a kitten is an extremely competitive process. I think perhaps bribes of some kind might have worked, or threatening to bust some kneecaps, but after three failed attempts to adopt we decided to take a break. I have a tendency to get overly excited about and attached to things too quickly, so hearing that an adorable kitten I was sure Alley Cat would love was being adopted by someone else was too sad to keep doing. So we put the exploration for a cat friend for Alley on pause and moved on with our lives. 

People have told me that you don’t seek out a cat for a pet. When you’re ready, the cat finds you. 

And I should have listened more closely, because two weeks after we gave up trying to adopt a second cat a friend of mine texted me: 

I have acquired a kitten for you. 

Yes, that is literally what the text said. I’d been complaining about my kitten troubles and (because I have really stellar, bad ass people in my life) on of my friends saw a stray kitten in her neighborhood, lured it into her yard with food, got it into her own cat carrier, and brought her to us. Just like that, we had a friend for Alley Cat. 

Originally we named the new kitten Cali because of her calico coloring and the fact that it sounds cute with Alley, but very quickly we realized this cat did not have a demeanor fitting of a Cali. She was not sweet, curious and playful like Alley. She was a hardened street cat, an independent kitty who don’t need no owner. 

She was also, we later learned, very pregnant. 

When we first the new cat she was very skinny and very dirty, but after a few meals her belly started to swell in a way that was clearly not just from finally being full. A trip to the vet confirmed: we were about to go from owning one cat to owning seven: Alley, this new cat, and her five baby cats. 

We eventually renamed the new cat Donna, partly because I was watching Suits at the time and partly because it felt like a motherly name, and decided we would keep her and give her a space to have her kittens, even though Donna is a fully feral beast who honestly probably would have preferred giving birth in a nice dumpster somewhere. 

Giving birth is actually a fairly straightforward process for cats, or at least for the human participant. According to additional extensive research, all I needed to do was provide Donna with a clean and quiet room, plus a comfy enclosed space for the kittens, typically referred to as a birthing box. Donna took a special liking to one of the fuzzy bathmats in our bathroom, so that became the base for her birthing box, along with some old towels and sheets that I draped over a chair like she was camping. I thought I had done a decent job. It seemed deeply unsatisfactory to Donna. 

A few days before Donna was due, Bobby abandoned me for a business trip so I was left on my own to shepherd new kittens into the world. The night before the birth, Donna yowled non-stop. All night I went back and forth between her room and mine, because the only times she would calm down where when I was sitting just outside of her little make-shift tent with her. Weirdly, it seemed she was beginning to like me. 

The few hours before she gave birth were the only ones in which Donna showed any affection to me. She would rub up against my legs or get into my lap, yowling and giving me this “what the fuck” look, as if I needed to explain what was going on here. I don’t think I was able to reassure her, but at one point while I was sitting on the floor beside her she put her paws up on my chest, brought her face close to mine, and licked my cheek twice. 

Ten minutes later the first kitten came out. 

I’ve never been super into birth – I assume very few people really are, even though we are always talking about the miracle of it and whatnot. It’s painful, it’s messy, and it produces something that is very fragile and very important not to break. None of these things are appealing to me. But I will say, being there for this kitten birth was really fucking cool. 

First off, Donna was real boss. After the first kitten came out she seemed to figure out what was going on and some type of primal instinct kicked in, transforming her from yowling and chaotic to calm and even loving. As each kitten was born she licked them clean like an expert and devoured the placenta which was horrifying but also appreciated, because I did not want to have to clean that up. Then she would purr and keep her kittens close as they started to latch on for their first meal. I literally did nothing but watch and give the kittens names, but by the time the fifth and final kitten was asleep beside her I was feeling both exhausted and accomplished. We had really done this together, it felt. 

Now, the kittens have opened their eyes and are starting to become less like tiny potatoes and more like actual pets, and Donna has gone back to her policy of eyeing me with cool disregard. But, those little potatoes are darn adorable, and it’s been surprisingly a way more fun than stressful experience.

To be clear, I am not keeping seven cats forever. We are getting the kittens healthy and grown up a bit so they can be adopted into great homes (or given away to my friends so I can always come visit them, whichever). But it’s honestly been a great part of my day getting to take a little kitten cuddle break anytime I want, and that’s worth the weird looks I get when I tell people the story of how I took in a stray cat and let her have five babies in my new house. They think I’m crazy. I think I’m efficient.

A lot of my life has been punctuated by events I never would have anticipated for myself that turn out feeling exactly right for me. As a type A control freak, this may never stop being shocking to me. But I think it’s a good thing, that despite my desire to organize and run every aspect of my life, life events remind me to stay open to the new and surprising. It’s my constant reminder that life happens when you’re busy making other plans. 

A question: why do you live where you live? 

I came across this in a blog post and it led me to another blog post, this one by Paul Graham. The premise of the post is simple: great cities attract ambitious people. And it got me to thinking, really, why do I live where I live? 

I’ve lived in four different “states”, which I have to put in quotes because of the last one on the list: North Carolina where I grew up, Oklahoma where I was sent when I joined Teach for America, California where I had always dreamed of living, and now Washington DC where I moved for a job opportunity and *drumroll please* just bought a house. 

I know. I BOUGHT A HOUSE! 

If you’ve known me for any period of time you know this is a momentous occasion, because it was never guaranteed that I would make it far enough in life to become a homebuyer (for a number of reasons), let alone that I would manage to settle down in one place long enough to even consider it a viable option. But I’ve been here four years now with no plans or desire to be anywhere else, so my husband and I finally became those people who scroll Zillow in their spare time. We fell in love with a little house from the 1920’s, and we are now officially Washingtonians for life. 

DC isn’t a place people commonly settle down in. It’s transient, full of people who come for a moment in time (usually for a government position) and then head somewhere else (also usually for a government position). I wanted to be able to put into words exactly why I decided to be here, when we could have been anywhere else.

Graham writes in his essay that the messages a city sends you are important. Most people who do great things get clumped into certain areas where those sort of things are typically done at the time. Basically if you want to be great, you don’t want to be fighting the force of your city, you want to harness it. 

He also lists a few of his thoughts on various cities and what their message is. For DC, he says the message is that it’s all about who you know. He admits that this is just a guess, because he has never lived in DC, but I think his guess is wrong, and I think his assertion that you need to be clumped with other successful people doing the thing you want to be successful in is also wrong. I think the message of DC is all about how you want to make the world better, and I think that’s why its a great place for people who are ambiguously ambitious, or ambitious in a lot of different areas in their lives, to live. 

I truly think DC is driven by altruism, and it’s why I’ve decided it’s the right place for me to be. I know, I know, cue collective groans from every anti-government person in the audience. Call me naive, I don’t mind, but if you haven’t lived in DC and are basing your judgement of it off what you see in TV shows or on the news (which is basically just a TV show, but maybe a conversation for another blog post), I understand why you don’t believe me. So here’s my thought process. 

The easy argument to make is that DC is a hub for public sector and non-profit employees, all of whom aren’t in their current positions to get rich, but to change the world. Not everyone has the same opinion of what changing the world should look like, but they are all doing what they believe is best and in my opinion any anecdotes that run counter to that fact are exceptions, not the rule. 

DC is a happy hour town no doubt about it, and networking is a huge aspect of life here. But in my experience the people you meet in DC are all doing things with their connections, not simply collecting them to climb the social ladder. My connections in DC have helped me in professional and personal situations, including getting me access to exclusive early-stage investment deals and helping me navigate home buying. A lot of my professional contacts have now become my friends. I think this is rare, and I think it’s because of the culture of DC where work is embedded in our identities. A lot of times that can go to far and be a bad thing, but I personally really love what I do, and I like being around others who feel the same. 

And even if you hate your job, everyone in DC has exactly one million hobbies and side projects which is also really fun, especially if you know people whose side hobbies include making cocktail syrups, running outdoor events, and writing mystery novels like I am fortunate enough to. The great thing about hobbies and side projects is that you do them because you love them, and in doing that, you make the world a better place. I love that people in DC are just as ambitious about every area of their lives as I am. Like me, they want to excel in their careers but they also want to achieve their physical goals, they want to create things, they want to start new things and lead them. There’s a lot of creative energy in the city, which makes it an excellent place to be if you also have ideas for things to start. 

That’s also why I disagree with Graham’s other premise, that you need to be in a city that caters to your areas of interest. With all the access we have to experts, mentors, coaches, and communities online, these seems like a moot point. I also really believe in the power of being around people with different focus areas as a driver for more innovation and change making. I think if your’e ambitious, it’s a good idea to be around other ambitious people. They don’t have to have the same goal as you to be motivating and helpful in your own journey. 

Of course, I do think there are downsides to DC. The air of entitlement here is thick. It’s hard to deal with and even harder not to breathe it in yourself. There is also the constant drumbeat of you could be doing more, you could be working harder, that causes us all to feel overworked, burned out, and a little cranky 24.7. 

You won’t know the message of your city until you live there. It speaks to you almost by accident; what you see in the windows you walk by, the conversations you overhear, and you are influenced by those things around you. You learn what the city expects of you, and it can be disheartening if that doesn’t resonate with you. Even if you don’t realize it, the message of your city becomes embedded in who you are, and it can fuel you or it can weigh you down. So it’s important for ambitious people to consider their physical surroundings, even if they aren’t quite sure what they are ambitious about yet!

Ultimately cities are just collections of people, and in DC that group is ever-changing. If you’re willing to be part of that change, you can bring new things to fruition. Which is another reason I decided to stay in DC – I believe we can build an amazing, inclusive, and altruistic startup community here, and I want to be a part of it. DC is where movements happen, and I think the next one will be a revolution for tech for good. 

The Outerly Investment Thesis

I am thrilled to share my second angel investment into Outerly, a community app aimed at making the outdoor recreation industry safer and more social. Not only is this something that I’m personally passionate about, it’s also a company founded by my good friend and fellow DC resident Kay, and I couldn’t be more happy to support both the DC startup ecosystem and the DC outdoor ecosystem with my investment dollars. 

Outerly is raising via a SAFE (simple agreement for future equity) on Wefunder, an equity crowdfunding platform where anyone (including non-accredited investors) can support startups and get access to equity. Depending on when you read this, their raise might still be open for investment if you want to join in on the deal! 

The Problem with the Outdoor Industry 

Humans were designed to commune with nature, and getting outdoors is incredibly important to our physical and mental health. For some this is a no brainer, and it can feel easy to develop hobbies like hiking, camping, swimming, and other outdoor sports and recreational activities. But for many, the outdoors are gate kept. Because be honest, when I mentioned all of those activities, who were you picturing in your mind? If you’re anything like the US outdoor recreation marketing industry, it was probably a bunch of very fit, very white, dudes (see research here, here, here, here, and here for more info). If you don’t fall into any one of those three categories, getting outside might be intimidating at best, or potentially dangerous at worst. 

Kay, a woman of color with a passion for the outdoors, is using technology as a gateway to the outdoors for anyone who doesn’t quite see themselves as belong there in the first place, whether because you are a woman who is nervous about hiking alone, an older person who wants to try a new sport for the first time, or a city kid who now thinks she might be into sleeping outside for a change. One shocking statistic I learned from Kay? Less than 1 in 5 people in the US participate in outdoor activities weekly, and only half of the population participates in outdoor activities once per year. That is fucking nuts! Kay is laser focused on the loneliness epidemic that’s racing across the US and how to combat that using outdoor activity and connection. 

How Outerly Encourages Connection with Nature and with Others 

Outerly is sort of like if All Trails didn’t suck, and had curated ideas for things to do outside like the Nudge, and had a way to meet people like Meetup.com or Bumble. It solves two problems: not knowing where to go to get outside (which is especially hard if you live in an urban area, the spaces Outerly is launching in first) and who to go outside with (especially if you just moved to a new city and don’t have any friends yet. Can you tell I’m speaking from experience here?). 

When you join Outerly you’re prompted to highlight the different activities you’d like to do, and then can see others in your area who are similarly interested. You get a curated activities dashboard where you can see ideas for places to go, other friends and friends of friends who might be interested in joining you, and an alert for any activities going on at certain locations you could take advantage of. Outerly has an event page where they, their business partners, and individual “Outerliers” (yes I’m making that a thing) can host events and manage sign ups, tickets, and attendees. 

Outerly’s DC beta currently has 400+ users and one business partner that will use the Outerly platform for all of its event postings and sign ups (oh, and that business partner operations nationally, so Outerly has the potential to scale with it, which is a great way to solve the market-to-market launch problem). 

Why I Decided to Invest

I am proud to have been quite possibly the first paid subscriber for Outerly because this is a community I have been desperately wanting to find in DC! I’m often told that DC doesn’t have any great outdoor spots, which is a complete fallacy that I’d like to rebut. There are so many great nature spots within day-trip driving distance of the city, but when I first moved here I didn’t know that, and I didn’t know anyone to ask. It took me almost two years to discover beautiful places I now love to visit like Little Seneca Lake, Big Meadows in Shenandoah, and Burke Lake campgrounds. 

While I’ve always loved being outside I would never have described myself as an “outdoors-y” person because I didn’t feel like I fit the bill of those super adventurous, granola-y people that I secretly wanted to be more like but also am not quite coordinated enough to ever be. It wasn’t until I met my now husband, a Marine who could easily live in nature forever and not even break a sweat, that I started to become way more comfortable with myself outside, and was able to expand my outdoor hobbies to more than the occasional hike or beach trip. But not everyone wants a Marine husband in their lives, and not everyone should need that to enjoy the outdoors. 

It’s been really cool to see Kay’s journey building and scaling Outerly, and I’ll continue to be a big fan as the app moves from beta testing to official launch this month, continuing to make the outdoor industry a little less male-dominated and a lot more inviting! 

When I was twenty-two years old the first adult decision I made for myself was to adopt a dog. I had just moved to a new state, was starting a new job in a few weeks, and had no idea what I was doing. 

After visiting a few shelters to find the right pup, my roommate told me about a colleague of hers who was looking for someone to foster a dog. She showed me a picture of a medium-sized mutt with a dazed expression and one floppy ear. I said sure, thinking it would be a good idea to prepare myself for whatever dog I found in the future that would be my own. 

Instead, from the moment I met Rowdy, I knew he was the dog for me. 

As a kid one of my favorite movies was Lilo and Stitch, a Disney cartoon about a little girl who struggles to fit in and doesn’t have many friends. Her older sister takes her to adopt a dog, but instead the little girl finds an alien that has been blasted to Earth. The girl and the “dog” become friends, and then family.

Rowdy was definitely a dog, but honestly, could have been an alien. He had no interest in dog toys, treats, or playing, but would get so excited to go on a walk that he would destroy my entire apartment anytime I reached for the leash. He didn’t like other dogs but loved to sit directly next to humans as if he was a person too. His favorite foods were petrified objects he found abandoned on sidewalks, sometimes actual food but also chicken bones, wet newspapers, and one time an already dead lizard. In the entire time he was mine he only barked once. 

He was without a doubt the weirdest dog I had ever seen. Other people didn’t fully get why I was so excited about him. “He’s…cute,” they would say, when he sat up tall next to me chattering his teeth, something he did when he was excited or nervous (so always). Strangers would come up to pet him until he fixed them with his wild stare, his lips constantly caught inside his teeth at weird angles, and then they would back away slowly. Kids however, have always loved Rowdy.

For the next eight years, Rowdy and I were inseparable. When I was a teacher, he came with me on Fridays to the school and ran around at recess with my students. When I moved to a new apartment and lived alone for the first time, I wasn’t truly alone; I had his wagging tail and tippy-tappy toes to greet me when I walked through the door. Rowdy followed me across four different states, from Oklahoma to North Carolina to California to Washington, DC. He met all of my new friends and loved them. He met all of my boyfriends and hated them, until he met Bobby who he only grudgingly allowed to stick around. The first summer that Bobby’s son stayed with us in our new house in DC, he was afraid to sleep alone. So we sent Rowdy into his room each night to snuggle up on the bed with him. Now, he’s no longer afraid, but he still looks forward to sleepovers with Rowdy every summer. 

Yesterday, I said goodbye to Rowdy for the last time. He was almost eleven years old, and had developed bone cancer in his leg that made it impossible for him to walk.

Even with age he was the exact same dog. His eyes were murkier now, but his crazy stare was exactly the same. His muzzle had gone white but his lips still got tangled in his teeth, and he still loved searching for secret food treasures on the floor. Yesterday for the first time he got to taste chocolate, just before he went to sleep. 

Losing a pet is never easy. Losing the first pet that was truly yours is a unique pain that I can’t imagine ever fully goes away. Reminders of him are still all over my house. His water bowl is only half empty. His hairs are coated over every item I know. It used to bother me, how much he shed, that no matter how many times I swept the floor his black and white hairs could still be found. It doesn’t seem worth being bothered by now. 

Rowdy truly was my best friend. He moved with me to new places where I didn’t know anyone, and made me meet people (nothing is a better ice breaker than a dog jumping up on the park bench to sit beside you, despite its owners best attempts to get him to act normally). He would walk around an entire city with me, all day, and then sit next to me while I read or listened to a podcast or people watched. He helped me through stress at work, missing my family, breakups, loneliness. When I was happy, he was happy. When I was sad he would touch his nose to my nose and lick my face until my tears were replaced with spit. It was gross but it made me feel better every time, to know that no matter what was going on I had him, and he had me. 

My relationship with Rowdy was perhaps the one thing I had that was entirely mine. He loved other people, but not the way he loved me. My relationship with Rowdy was also one of the few I’ve had my entire adult life, from the summer I graduated college to being thirty years old and married. 

The vet said that bone cancer can spread quickly, but pet’s try to hide the pain as long as they possibly can. Also yesterday, I learned that an offer Bobby and I put in on a new house was accepted. I think Rowdy held on as long as he could, sensing that a big change was coming up for me. He knew, because he had been there through so many of them before. And he knew this one was going to be a good one; there were no tears to lick away. I think he was sticking it out as long as he could to make sure I was ready, and then he knew it would be ok to go. 

On of the things we liked best about the new house was its huge backyard. In all the places I’ve lived with Rowdy, he’s never had his own yard, and I was so excited to finally be able to give him one. A place where he could spend all day wandering around outside, smelling the smells, staring at things only he could see. Now I’ll never be able to give him that. Now I have to trust that the rest of his life was good enough, that he was happy enough, that it wouldn’t have made a difference to him, and he was content to be on his leash because it meant he got to be next to me, going wherever our next destination might be. 

When I first got Rowdy, my roommate’s parents came to visit us and meet him. Her mom told me about her first dog, and how you will love all of your pets in life but some will clearly be your pets: like soulmates, they will be pets that could only have been loved this deeply by you, that make perfect sense in your life, and those will be the ones you live the most life with, and that you miss the most when they’re gone. 

I don’t think I’ll ever have another dog like Rowdy, because I can’t imagine another dog as weird and wonderful as him could possibly exist. I miss him, and it’s hard, and I’m grateful. Some people go their entire lives without finding their souldog. 

1. Waking up naturally, before your alarm goes off, and actually feeling ready to get out of bed; conversely, changing into pajamas and getting into bed at a ridiculously early hour, knowing you could instantly go to sleep or you have plenty of time to read your book and get sleepy
2. Going for a run that you think is only going to last one mile, but feeling so good that you end up running further and every extra step makes you feel like a total badass
3. Girl friends who bring me back to reality when I’m getting too hard on myself
4. Female friendships in general, and how great it is to connect with people for the first time as who I truly am, instead of some version I’m pretending to be (basically me all the way through the age of twenty-five). Making new friends as an adult is hard, but so worth it.
5. Random strangers you pass on the street who go out of their way to stop you (normally this is annoying, but) and tell you how much they like your tattoos, and then get excited to show you their own
6. When you get new headshots done at work and you actually like the way you look in them
7. That eating fast food in the car on a road trip to a destination you’ve been looking forward to feeling; this feeling is best when headed towards water, especially the ocean
8. The smell of summertime. In the city, sometimes the smell of summertime turns into the smell of hot dog shit radiating from the sidewalk trashcans, so when you get that actual summertime smell it becomes that much better. Summer smells sweet, but it’s heavy, like walking through pretzel dough. Is the dog-shit-pretzel-dough combo not doing it for you? Go outside. Smell for yourself.
9. Having pets that keep your life fun and remind you to slow down. Having pets who love you unconditionally even when you don’t feel you deserve it
10. Novels. All of them.
11. Also coffee. All of it.
12. Having a partner who is willing to grow and change throughout your relationship, and being able to see them consistently step up to be what you need; having them challenge you to do the same
13. Times when your work colleagues become your in-real-life friends
14. When you laugh so hard your fake sort of polite-sounding normal laugh goes away and you enter into uncontrollable laughing territory where the real laugh noises come out and you can’t help it, which makes you laugh even harder until you’re laughing so hard no noise comes out at all, which is the funniest of all laughs
15. Filling up one notebook and then getting to go buy another; bonus points if you decide to spring for new pens as well
16. The child-and-parent relationship you can have as an adult, where you realize how great your parents actually are and get to have actual conversations with them
17. Cherries and their magical healing powers – actually, any and all fruit eaten between the months of May and September
18. Long walks listening to a podcast or long drives singing along to music
19. Long distance friends reaching out to schedule a phone call with you because they want to catch up, and instantly being transported back to the time when you both existed in the same place as one another
20. People who are willing to share their time and expertise to help you with things in your life, especially if those are things that are particularly stressful to you but exciting or interesting to them
21. Ice. Cream.
22. The Duolingo app for learning Spanish – I’m on a thirty-day streak and am now fully committed and totally indoctrinated into this cult that of Duolingo-ers where I will do absolutely anything to maintain my streak
23. Playing new board games with your family who by now have accepted that you are an overly-competitive sore loser
24. Having kids around during the summer so that you get to indulge in all of the fun kid activities and don’t need to find a weird excuse to do them (a few of my favorite examples: playing sharks and minnows in the pool; going to the dinosaur museum; building sand castles; telling scary stories late at night with the flashlight under your face)
25. Hearing a song from your childhood and remembering it word for word
26. That instead of spending a lot of money on a big wedding Bobby and I decided to take a honeymoon every year together so we have a trip to Peru (and our 2-year wedding anniversary) coming up in less than thirty days
27. Learning new things
28. Putting your phone down somewhere and forgetting it exists – this happens so rarely but feels so special when it does
29. Exceptionally good hair days, getting your nails done, when you pull on a pair of jeans and they somehow fit just right, any excuse to wear your favorite romper, when comfy shoes look good with business outfits, when your friends let you borrow their clothes and it feels the same as buying new ones
30. Loving so many people with so many different kinds of love
31. This blog where I’ve built my own little corner of the internet, where I can flip back through pages of posts and see who I was, who I am, and who I am becoming, and the fact that now I can do all of that without judgement or shame or fear

Damn. 

(Is it appropriate to start a blog post with a cuss word? Probably not. Is it acceptable? To this audience, you should have probably seen it coming. Is it what I’m going with? Fuck yeah it is) 

Another month has come and gone and with it, my notes are cluttered with half-written blog posts full of potential that got started and then stopped. Life lately has been reminding me of a phrase my RA in college told us our first week: “For the next four years you will want three things, good grades, a good social life, and good sleep. Unfortunately, you can only ever have two at the same time.” 

I think from this I was supposed to learn that life is all about balance, about give and take. I’ve also been hit countless times over the head with professional development experts telling me the importance and value of saying no. So much of this information is helpful and well intentioned and should be paid attention to. And like so much else in my life that is helpful and well-intentioned and should be paid attention to, I’ve largely ignored the idea of saying no, in favor of saying YES always to everything. 

Get a 200-hour yoga certification and adopt a high-maintenance anxiety-riddled dog during my first month in a new city and a new job as a fourth-grade math teacher?

Let’s do it. 

Go on a 3-day backpacking adventure through the Appalachian mountains, including white-water rafting and one of the most difficult hikes on the east coast with no training? 

I’m in. 

Move across the country to run a company in an industry you’ve never worked in before at the start of a g global pandemic? Also, move in with your previously-long-distance boyfriend at a time when you have to shelter in place and literally won’t be able to get away from one another? Also also, start a networking group for female founders and funders and hey, why not take on a part time job as a yoga instructor again? 

OK! 

I don’t list any of these as brags, humble or otherwise, I list them as examples of things that ended up working out for me but probably weren’t the best decisions to have made at the time. What’s not on this list? The numerous times saying yes always to everything didn’t go so great for me. 

That’s because those times aren’t as easy to quantify. It’s not the things I did, it’s the things I didn’t do. Instead of spending 200 hours in yoga teacher training, I could have been writing a novel. Instead of starting a new networking group, I could have had those evening for long runs or dinner with friends. 

Instead of everything else I did this month, I could have set aside more than ten minutes to write this blog post. 

If college (aka, life) is all about wanting three things but only being able to have two of them, my over-achieving self wants five things and I optimistically believe I can probably have four of them at a time. Right now those five things are: to have meaningful relationships, to be fit and heathy, to live adventurously, to be a badass boss at work, and to write. 

Meaningful relationships: 5/5, I’ve never felt so supported in all of my relationships. My marriage, my family, my friends, my coworkers, even my favorite barista finally recognizes me (shoutout Dua Coffee in DC)! 

Badass at work: 4/5 work is probably where things are going the best for me right now, but it’s also what’s taking up the most of my time. Still, it’s hard for me to criticize that, because I’m really enjoying what I’m doing and excited to keep doing it. 

Live adventurously: 3/5 because I’ve loved camping and hiking and paddle boarding all summer, but I need to get my shit together and plan my trip to Peru which is currently 0% planned. 

Fit & healthy: 2/5, I’ve made a ton of progress this year and feel better than I have in a long time, but still have a ways to go. I started a new workout program I’m obsessed with this month though, and as that workout program reminds me, something is always better than nothing. 

Writing: 1/5 because I did journal more this month, but other than that every time I set aside time to write I end up doing something else like sleeping in or getting a jump start on my work emails, not because I didn’t get enough sleep or because I need the extra work time, but because writing is where I’m feeling the most frustration. Writing is where my little gremlin voice pops up and tells me I’m not good enough, so it’s not worth the effort, and my time would be better spent on anything else besides this. 

So next month I’ll re-prioritize a bit. I’ll tell my gremlin voice that I understand it’s trying to protect me from getting hurt, but I don’t need it’s advice right now. I’ll write even when it’s bad, and I’ll publish even when I only had twenty minutes to pull something together. I’ll let the email go unread for a bit so that I can go to the gym. 

At some point I’ll get around to saying no to some things. Right now, the best I can do is “not right now.” 

Welp, May came and went without a blog post…oops. 

But also, not oops. It was a full month. Not busy, not stressful, full. Full of fancy and boozy dinners with old and new friends, full of runs and workouts in the newly-warm almost-summer weather, full of change. I hired two new people to join my team at work and launched our next investment fund. My husband and I get to spend the summer with his son, so we picked him up from Tulsa and got him settled here in DC. We rescued a stray kitten and named her Alley Cat. 

I also took a bunch of my friends and family camping for Memorial Day weekend together. One of my goals this year is to write a blog post each month. Another is to become a camping and hiking family. I guess sometimes different goals have to take priority. Insert “whatever-shrugging-lady-emoji” here. 

Anyway, I didn’t grow up in a camp family, but for whatever reason in college I got hit with the urge to sleep in the dirt. I remember going to REI with my dad and letting him pick out all kinds of camping gear for me, most of which I still have over ten years later. He was so excited, because we don’t have that many shared interests, to talk to me about different types of sleeping bags and hiking boots and backpacks, and I’ve been camping more or less consistently and more or less successfully ever since. 

Of course my husband takes my love of camping and puts it to shame with his set up. He has a tent that goes on the roof of his car. He has a kick-ass campfire grill. He has fishing poles. Our first trip together we camped instead of paying for a hotel room. It was one of the first things I fell in love with about him. 

So it was really refreshing to get away from all the things in the city and spend some time in the woods. Even when things in life are going well, stepping away from it all can feel like a breath of *literal* fresh air. 

As much as I enjoyed time with friends on the lake or around the campfire, my favorite parts of the trip were the quiet moments, sitting on the edge of the water and listening to the birds, or reading in the hammock and watching the little bugs crawling up the sides (note, I said little, because I did NOT, in fact, enjoy the large bugs that were also trying to dive bomb me). I returned to the noise of the city and the fluorescent lights of my office a little forlorn, and then read an essay in the newsletter Dense Discovery, part of which I’ll include here:

The pleasure we get from encountering nature can be explained through the biophilia hypothesis, the idea that humans have an innate affinity for life and living systems: “Human preferences toward things in nature, while refined through experience and culture, are hypothetically the product of biological evolution.”

It’s fair to conclude then that we need nature. But does nature need us? Probably not. Clive Thompson calls this the biophilia paradox: “Biophilia is asymmetric. We have biophilia, but nature doesn’t have ‘anthrophilia’. In fact, it’s the opposite: If humanity were to vanish tomorrow, the remaining plants and animals would set about rapidly reclaiming all the asphalted-over world we’ve created.”

There is a tragic irony here: our modern existence is largely incompatible with our biophilic need for nature. Our attempt to be closer to nature often comes at a cost to nature. 

Tragic irony indeed. The hackles of my people-pleasing, external-validation-seeking, co-dependent nature stood up reading this. To love something as intuitively as I love being in the trees, and then to realize that the trees would probably prefer if I weren’t there at all. 

Don’t worry, it gets (slightly) better. The essay continues:

“We humans should be living a little more densely, to give nature more space away from us. Meanwhile, to satisfy our biophilia, we should be designing more nature into these denser human environments – using everything from an increased number of street-plants to town parks to ‘living walls’ on houses, and buildings that use more natural materials. … We need plants close to us – and far away from us. That’s the biophilia paradox.” 

One of the reasons I love living in DC so much is because of how close it is to great natural spaces. Sure, it’s not Colorado or California, but to me it’s the best of both worlds, big city and beautiful country within a one hour drive. And it’s interesting, because as I’ve been contemplating buying a house here I’m determined to either stay inside DC proper or go completely rural and buy a llama farm or something similar. There is no in between (I’m looking at you, suburbs) for me. Which is kind of fascinating because I also recently learned that like, tons of millennials are actually excited to live in the suburbs. 

I don’t know. I’m not arguing any right or wrong here. I’m just sitting beside the window thinking back on a whirlwind month and a wonderful weekend while the sun streams in and the kitten sleeps on the sill. And there’s a nine-year-old boy yelling with his video gaming companions in the background while my phone pings with email notifications and the dog gently yet insistently nudges me with his nose for pets. Life’s a lot. Life’s always worth it. Whether in a row home in the city with weekends in a tent, or helping keep llamas alive in the middle of (almost) no where.

Continuing on my post from last week, I’ve been thinking about my last decade and trying to remember things as objectively as I can. I have a tendency to think things are way worse than they actually are in the moment, and then look back on the past as if it were so much better, when the reality is often somewhere in between. 

As I’ve been talking with longtime friends and reading old journal entries, there are a few trends that stick out that I’m most proud of, and a few that I’m now determined to put an end to: 

SUCCESSES

1. Repairing my relationship with my family – Growing up, I wasn’t close with my immediate family and I assumed I never would be. We were too different, my siblings and my parents and I. I hoped that maybe one day I’d meet someone and become a part of their family, but I never thought I would be able to bridge the gap with my own. I’m glad to say I was wrong about that, and the past ten years have really strengthened my connection to my parents, my siblings, and my niece and nephew. The biggest change came from a brief stint in North Carolina in 2019 that gave me the time I needed to see my family in a new way as an adult, and goes to show that sometimes what we view in the moment as a set back (moving back in with my parents) was actually a set up for something better in the future (having an awesome family connection). 
2. Always taking advantage of new opportunities – In my ripe old age I can now say that I’m a big believer of taking advantage of new opportunities. You hear a lot of advice about how to get better at saying no, and while boundaries are important, I think your 20’s are the time to endlessly say yes. Bring abundance into your life and then cultivate it into what you want. I see a lot of hesitancy to do this, especially in younger women who think they aren’t ready or don’t have the skills to say yes to something. Trust me, I’ve been there. Many days I still feel like I’m there. Take a deep breath, tell that judgmental voice inside your head to calm down, and say yes. 

FAILURES

1. Staying in situations I knew were bad for me for too long – I used to crave compliments from people. “You and your partner are so cute together, you must love each other so much,” or “You’re so successful, how do you do it all?” or of course, positive comments about my body. Never mind if my partner was actually kind to me or whether we were actually in love or not. Never mind the time spent at jobs I didn’t enjoy just because I was good at them. Never mind the fact that I seemed to receive the most compliments about how great I looked when I was leaning into very unhealthy habits with food. It didn’t matter if other people approved, right? I’ve spent far too much of my life not trusting my own intuition, seeking validation from others instead of making my own decisions. In my 30’s I want to get better at knowing for myself, and making my own decisions regardless of the opinions of others. 
2. Not showing the people I love how much I love them – Mostly out of fear that they don’t really love me back. But I’m done being selfish with my love, maybe because now I have such a solid foundation of people who love and have loved me through so much of my life. I want to show the people closest to me how much they mean to me, but also the people I interact with day to day, even the people I only see briefly. Don’t expect me to go around singing songs and tossing flowers like a Disney princess, but do expect me to go out of my way to care for the people around me. 

FEEDBACK

I’m pretty lucky to have some people who have been in my life for most, if not all, of my 20’s. I reached out and asked them: What do you think was the biggest change (hopefully for the better but could go either way) you’ve seen in me over the past decade? 

And it’s super interesting, they all sort of said the same things (except my friend Todd who said something borderline inappropriate that doesn’t need to live online but was really funny): 

• You have embraced yourself more. You used to exclusively want to be the “fun girl” and not let as many people see the more serious pieces…you are more likely to let others see your depth now. 
• You seek a lot less external validation…you’re so much more comfortable with yourself. 
• I used to feel like were itching to get out of your skin sometimes, and it seems like you’ve let yourself be a lot more. 
• You used to let people into your life who were with you for some sort of validation of their own ego, and finally you have found kind people who seem to really get why you’re awesome. 
• You’ve gotten stronger. 

LESSONS LEARNED

All of this has lead me to a few personal lessons for myself that I’m taking with me into my next decade. I hope they might also be helpful to someone still in the midst of their 20’s, or anyone taking inventory of their past and moving purposefully into their future. 

1. I’m a lover and a fighter, which is a useful and unique gift. I’ve always struggled with what I’ve seen as two disparate pieces of myself: the creative and the businesswoman, the yogi and the athlete, the lover and the fighter. Moving forward I’m going to embrace both sides fully, trusting that when one needs to take over it will, and that I can exist in balance even with these two opposing forces inside of me. 
2. I can depend on myself…and on others. Asking for help is not a weakness. Let other people in to your life, they won’t let you down. And even if they do, you are always capable of picking yourself back up and doing for yourself what someone else was unwilling or unable to do for you. 
3. My most fulfilling life is lived in the present moment. I don’t want to live my life in retrospect, being so hard on myself in the moment only to realize after that I was doing so much better than I originally thought. By staying in tune with my emotions  moment by moment, I can experience the full effect of living without feeling so out of control of my own life. 

Cheers to a new decade! I’m excited to be happier, smarter, kinder, fitter, and better in my 30’s than I was in my 20’s. And when I think of the woman I want to be, I’m really fucking proud of the woman I am right now, because I know she’s fully capable of getting me there. 

Early in March I celebrated my 30th birthday by renting out a champagne bar for me and all of my friends, which was one of the most enjoyable nights of my life followed by one of the most painful days. I have never experienced a hangover that bad and hope to never again; it’s definitely something I’ll be leaving in my previous decade (I hope). 

As part of my celebration I got myself a birthday cake from this adorable bakery that featured baby shower and wedding cakes that were cute and elegant. So imagine their surprise when I requested an all-black birthday cake with “Death to My 20’s” written over the top. It was definitely a unique ask, and they sort of only begrudgingly gave it to me: 

Ok, my sense of humor certainly isn’t for everyone but I thought it was a good idea for a 30th birthday cake, and even if the little old cake-baking ladies weren’t thrilled to make it for me it still tasted delicious. And it made me think about the decade I’m leaving and the new one I’m entering in a different way. For whatever reason, maybe the same reason I love New Year’s Resolutions or the start of a new quarter, this birthday feels like a meaningful time to bring in new opportunities and let go of stale ideas. As I say in my yoga classes “breathe in what you’ve been waiting for and breathe out what no longer serves you.” 

For those of you who are less woo-woo than I am, consider the idea of a post-mortem: in medicine, this is the practice of examining people after they die to determine the cause of death. It’s a term that’s been co-opted by the business world to evaluate the success or failure of a project’s ability to meet its outlined goals after completion. Team members review what worked well and what didn’t, gather feedback, and use the exercise as a reflection period to develop lessons learned before moving on to the next project. 

This blog post is, more or less, a post-mortem for my 20’s. 

TIMELINE

First, it seems fitting to take a look back at each year of my 20’s broadly to give a senes of where I’ve been. This was actually a pretty entertaining exercise that involved looking back at a lot of old Instagram posts to jog my own memory. Some of those memories were embarrassing and painful, some were funny or filled me with nostalgia. Overall, I’m pretty proud of this little shit show of a life that I’ve cobbled together for myself, without really knowing any better. 

• 2013 (20 years old): A carefree (said with all the irony in the world as I have always been an intense worrier, but in retrospect, had relatively little to actually worry about) and naive college sophomore at Elon University, still figuring out the world and who I wanted to be within it. A summer internship with Teach for America brought me one of my closest friends (shoutout Hannah, a diligent reader of the blog!) and solidified so many of the amorphous ideas I had about my future. I wanted to be a good person, who did things that made the world a better place. And also, I wanted to be the best at it. 
• 2014 (21 years old): *trigger warning* This is something I’ve not shared widely, and may feel like too much for some readers so feel free to skip this section. I was sexually assaulted on my twenty-first birthday, which sent me into an emotional tailspin that continued through the rest of my undergraduate experience. I wasn’t a good friend or family member, I wasn’t kind to myself, and it really poisoned my ability to be in romantic relationships. I didn’t say it then, but I’m so grateful for the people who helped me through that time in my life, whether they understood the full extent of what I was going through or not. 
• 2015 (22 years old): I graduated from college and moved to Oklahoma as a Teach for America corps member. Talk about a fresh start: it was like I was a new person. I left behind a lot of baggage in North Carolina, including a lot of limiting beliefs about myself. I started teaching fourth grade math to the most amazing and frustrating group of ten year olds I have ever known, I completed my 200-hour yoga teacher training, and I adopted a dog/alien named Earl, but who I called Rowdy. 
• 2016 (23 years old): I think this was the year where I threw myself a surprise party and the guy I was dating at the time tried to take credit for it, so that’s a pretty good representation of what my life was like at that time. I started Crossfit, and I also won a Golden Apple award for teaching after being nominated by one of my students. 
• 2017 (24 years old): After finishing my second year of teaching, completing my commitment to Teach for America, I started a Master’s program and decided to change careers. I got a new job with a family foundation running a non-profit program and started learning how to navigate a career where I wasn’t constantly covered in hot glue and had to talk to people my age and older, instead of much much younger. 
• 2018 (25 years old): Wow, I remember feeling so old on this birthday. I remember feeling so cocky, so sure of myself. I was killing it at everything: my job, my relationships, my fitness, and it was being recognized. I received a ton of attention, to the point where everywhere I went in Tulsa, it felt like I knew someone. It was nice, but it also felt stifling. I thought I’d “made it” there and needed to move on to the next big thing. At the end of the year I packed up all of my stuff, quit my job, and moved. I also met a man at a Christmas party, and as I kissed him goodbye I had this hollow feeling in my stomach, like he was the one thing I really didn’t want to leave behind. 
• 2019 (26 years old): After a few months in North Carolina hanging with my family (turns out, my mom and dad are actually really cool, something pre-26-year-old me didn’t realize) and teaching A LOT of yoga, I got a job in San Francisco and moved to California. Oh and that man I mentioned? He became my long-distance boyfriend, and every month came to visit me so we could gallivant around a new city together. I LOVED CALIFORNIA. I never have, and probably never will, love another city as much. But I got that itch again almost as soon as I arrived. I felt like I was crushing it, at my job, with my new friends, at my new gym. And then…I met another man! No, not in a romantic way. This man ran a venture capital firm, and after a few conversations he asked me to come run it with him. Again I packed my bags and moved to Washington DC. 
• 2020 (27 years old): I moved to DC in February and by March I was sheltering in place to bend the curve of COVID-19. I was completely alone, with no friends or family in the area, desperately attempting to be a good at a job I knew nothing about. I couldn’t go to the gym, or go to museums, or do any of the things I had been looking forward to. And my new job? I was terrible. Straight up, probably the worst new hire in history. Every day I woke up and thought “if my boss tells me I’m fired today, I will have no hard feelings. In fact, he probably should.” The only saving grace was Bobby, the man from Oklahoma who became my boyfriend in San Francisco and then quit his job and uprooted his own life to come live with me in DC. Everything about isolating during 2020 stunk, but the extra time with him? It wasn’t so bad. 
• 2021 (28 years old): In fact, it was so the opposite of bad that Bobby and I got engaged in March, and then married in August. In DC you can self-officiate your wedding, so it was just the two of us, the smallest little elopement ever. We also finally got to have Bobby’s son Enzo come and stay with us in DC for the summer. Being a bonus mom didn’t come naturally to me, but I had a lot of support from my own mom, my friends, and of course from Bobby. 
• 2022 (29 years old): As DC began to open back up after COVID, I slowly was able to find my place in the city. I finally gained confidence in my job, going from an Operations Associate to the COO. I made new friends, friends that I didn’t feel like I needed to be fake around, or needed to impress. Bobby and I threw ourselves a one-year anniversary party in Tulsa and being back there I could see how much my life had changed. Some of my friends were married, others had their first kids. Some people I thought for sure would be at my wedding weren’t even invited, but other new friends showed up all the way from DC for us. I still worry a lot. I still have some really hard days where everything feels wrong. But most of the time, when I look at my life, I’m happy. 

This exploration has become more of an undertaking than I initially realized, and I really want to give it the time it deserves, so I’ll end Part I here. Part II will include some of my successes, failures, feedback from people in my life, and lessons learned.

Basically since I can remember, I’ve wanted to write a novel. The first one I wrote was in middle school, a glorified short story that basically stole its entire plot and characters from the novel This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen that I was obsessed with. I typed it up and printing it from my mom’s computer and then hole-punching a file folder so I could bind the pages together inside with ribbon. In fact, I still have it, stored with several dozen journals I filled when I was growing up. I used to be much more prolific than I am today. I think that happens to a lot of us with our creative passions as we get older. 

Then in college I wrote an actual story that was long enough to claim the title of novel. It was an eighty thousand word love story about a young guy who sees his ex’s name in a wedding announcement, so he drives cross country to South Carolina to crash the wedding, only to discover a different woman who shares his ex’s name, and who is secretly dreading being married. Spoiler alert, the guy ends up falling in love with the woman’s angsty and misunderstood younger sister (a lot of angsty and misunderstood teenage girls have shown up in my writing over the years, I wonder why…), and there’s a happy ending for the older sister too. I kept a draft of that novel on my computer for years until it crashed suddenly and I was unable to recover it, so now it’s lost. It makes me think about all the words I’ve written throughout my life that I didn’t think were worthy enough to save, words that I would like to have the option of looking back on now. 

Anyway, last year I set out on a similar mission as always, to write the first draft of a novel. The first draft is the hardest part for any perfectionist, and I often lose my nerve at the first sign of trouble in a story, when I realize some plot point doesn’t make sense or a character I thought I liked actually kind of sucks. I stop writing for a few days and when I come back, the draft is stale and I can’t get back into it, and it gets abandoned in favor of my next idea. 

So this time my first draft started in a notebook. The notebook is small, only 65 pages, and I carried it with me for months so that I could take notes on my ideas whenever I had inspiration, or free time. I re-wrote an old short story that I posted on this blog back in 2020 (can you guess which one?) and fleshed it out. I added characters and a more detailed setting. I wrote down possible endings so that I wouldn’t get stuck trying to figure it out as I went. I filled 65 pages with plans before I started my draft, and now 8 months later that first draft is done. I wrote the last word yesterday. 

Now I’ll start work on the revisions. I’ve graduated from file folders and ribbon to a red 3-ring binder that’s been sitting on my desk reminding me of the work I need to finish. That’s also why I haven’t had much time this month to write a more thoughtful blog post, but I wanted to remember this moment. It’s been almost ten years since I graduated from college and lost my way with my writing, and now I’ve finally come back to it and it feels SO GOOD. I’m celebrating the small victory of making it through a complete first draft, one that I’m actually excited to keep working on! 

I don’t think this novel will be for anyone’s eyes but mine (and probably Bobby’s because he’s earned it at this point, listening to me gripe about writing the damn thing for the past year). It’s not quite ready for other people, and probably never will be. But it’s a start. 

Sometimes I remind myself that if I wrote one novel every year for the rest of my life, I could write another fifty (maybe sixty? Maybe seventy?) novels. It’s a good reminder to me whenever I think that it’s too late to become a novelist. I still have so many words left to write.