Turning 37: From What to Why
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
37 has found me right here. In my happy place—a shell shaped chair, typing away at my desk in my closet office, at 5am in the morning. It's the only time I've found to do the one thing I've been most passionate about in the most befitting place. A hot water with lemon to start, often times a dog to let out, my first cup of coffee around 7am as I work through my weekly essay for Sunday. This summer I stopped going to the gym in the morning, after having spent about 6 months getting back to it—instead I now get up at 5am everyday and write. I've known all along there was a book living inside me, I just didn't yet know how or when or exactly why.
Early this summer something inside me finally pivoted towards a place I've been too scared to fully go. For years online I've been hiding behind the aesthetics that inspire me, basking in so much of what I love, yet still feeling as if I haven't quite quenched the full depth of my curiosity. I am still obsessed with the what, but I have always been driven by the why. Why this vacation, why this theme, why this room and why do I feel the way I do?
Perhaps because my most confident voice wanted to say something else.
So now at 37, after about 15 years of blogging, creating and sharing on social media, I am now choosing to explore the why. And I am choosing to do this via my commitment to writing. Writing about my life, and how I romanticize it, writing about my work as a therapist, writing about my soirées, outfits and travel too. It's all there and I am finally capturing it the way I want.
Writing has always intrigued me, ever since I received my first diary around the age of 9 and started typing (and printing oh dear) my entries for review. Scrapbooking eventually took over my world with weekly runs to the craft store for more supplies, landing me of course on my highschool's yearbook committee and eventually the school newspaper.
It wasn't until I moved to Los Angeles and started graduate school that I started posting daily on Blogger, mostly sharing fashion and places I loved. In the 15 years following I was able to curate somewhat of a point of view through the lifestyle content I was creating. It remained mostly aesthetic, however, even when I did write it was more like how-to host or where-to-go for a girls weekend. All of it was authentic to me, however, I never felt real clarity in what exactly I was doing. I have always and will forever be obsessed with style, travel, design and entertaining—but I was unable to find a super clear voice within the constraints of purely aesthetic led content creation.
Perhaps because my most confident voice wanted to say something else.
Starting a style blog in 2011, at the very start of my graduate school program was a form of self-care. And it was easy to call it that. I was training to be a social worker and therapist. I was containing people's trauma daily. Hearing the most heartbreaking realities those who've been most often overlooked by society. I knew things I couldn't really talk to anyone else about. I felt like the Giver from The Giver. The man who's job it is to hold the complex memories from the past and shield them from others in his utopian society, ironically one of my most cherished reads as a kid—I suppose Freud would have a field day with that.
This is not just a creative outlet, hobby or self-care. It's just me.
I've spent the last 15 years of honing my interest in photography, hosting skills and development of my personal style—it became a way for me to indulge in the other side of life. And my creative pursuits did serve as my self-care in many ways. It provided me joy and comfort and most of all permission. It allowed me to look at the world from a less heavy, and perhaps less realistic, lens. So I always led with that, maybe it helped me justify the copious amounts of time I would enjoy spending on my 'hobby' or perhaps shield me a bit from the scrutiny society throws at influencers.
However, I am going to finally admit something out loud for the first time. This is not just a creative outlet, hobby or self-care. It's just me.
I don't curate my life as self-care; I romanticize it because I know more than anyone, even in the darkest of circumstances, how to find its beauty.
It's who I am and it informs the way I see the world and more importantly the way I want to respond back to it. I love seeing my inspo board turn into a tablescape the same way I love seeing my client finally find their voice. I love looking for pattern cohesion in a chic Mayfair restaurant as much as I love finding relationship patterns in my clients. I love witnessing someone find their way through trauma the same way I love admiring beauty—both are compelling, both build resilience, both fascinate me. I've traveled to the world's most beautiful places, and I've felt equally privileged bearing witness to my clients' vulnerability.
They aren't separate for me anymore—and they never were. I don't curate my life as self-care; I romanticize it because I know more than anyone, even in the darkest of circumstances, how to find its beauty. Life is both magical and tragic, both painful and beautiful. That's what makes us human—not one or the other, but both. So that's what I want to write about now. At 37, in this shell-shaped chair, this is me.
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