by Joey | Jun 21, 2016 | Throwback
On Thursday, I grabbed my computer and set up shop at a Starbucks. I tried to go to one location, but it was packed, not a table in site. So I moseyed on to the next in another neighborhood. Headphones in, I found the zone, happily working away.
Suddenly, a face appeared in mine. I pulled my headphones from my ears to hear I thought that was Joey!
If there’s one thing I love about Charlotte, it’s that it’s a big enough city to stay interesting, but small enough to feel like you know your neighbors. This sweet friend took a seat, and we chatted, an impromptu coffee date. My favorite.
As we chatted, she shared her story. Recently laid off, she found herself in a place of uncertainty. Well, I asked her. What do you want to do? It was then that she gave me a very specific answer, followed up with and now I just have to find that position.
Create it, I told her.
As we chatted, spitting ideas out, I could feel the energy around us. It’s the happiest I’ve felt in a really, really long time, sitting there with a friend dreaming up a life. I love staring the impossible in the face and finding a way to make it reality. I’m doing it myself right now, and while I’m definitely no expert at it, I’ve collected some wisdom through this journey. And sharing it with her, trying to fill her up with the confidence I feel for her, I felt electric. I felt purpose. I felt intention.
It’s not enough for me to chase my dreams. I want everyone else to feel this feeling. I want everyone else to find the strength inside of themselves and trust it.
When she left, I texted a friend. I feel like the inside of my heart is going to explode. My friend came in, unsure and possibly a little scared of what comes next. And in an hour conversation, she buzzed off, excited. A shift in her perspective. If I’d found a table at my first choice Starbucks, last Thursday would have been a regular old boring day. Serendipity.
I just love the universe sometimes. Putting people into our paths intentionally, a service to each of us.
I went on to have an incredibly productive, joy-filled day, one little victory after another. Then sitting at dinner with my girlfriends, my coffee-date buddy walked up to the table: this is officially the best day ever.
I haven’t seen her in a year. Not once have we run into each other accidentally despite how close we live to one another. But when we both needed it the most, we found each other.
And that, my friends, is pretty damn cool.
by Joey | Jun 16, 2016 | Throwback
Myra and I signed our partnership agreement on Monday. A two hour long meeting resulted in squeals and cheers. I can’t believe we’re here, I said to her, unable to swallow my smile. And then I got teary.
The story here is this: I wanted to try my hand at business again. When I launched Blush (RIP), I had an idea, created a website, and launched in about a week. Not to say that’s not possible, but it didn’t work for me. The few gigs I got I hated. I dissolved the company within a couple months. Good riddance.
Blush was a communications business. Whatever that is. Even I still don’t really know. But it sounded good. It sounded official and cool and important. Okay.
I admitted earlier this week that I began feeling an urgent need to spend time with my mom after my dad’s death. I worked full-time as a nanny, so darting off to Raleigh wasn’t always an option, and I started to wonder if I could work full-time from home. Just me and my computer. A friend suggested I look for Virtual Assistant jobs. So I did.
Something felt wrong, though. I’m sure part of it was that I couldn’t imagine leaving the family I worked for. I’m sure the other part was that I’d be jumping from one thing to another without any real purpose besides getting to work from home. I wanted more.
That’s when Jennifer suggested creating a virtual assistance business. The idea was intriguing, so I started brainstorming. Thinking. Taking my time. Testing and changing until things began to take shape and started to feel right.
I was only a couple months into the process when Myra and I were having one of our facetime dates.
Side note: Myra is my person. She’d been with me every step of the way up until that point, reviewing design, providing input on ideas, offering strategy and advice simply as my friend.
She and I were chatting about everything and anything. It came up that she was feeling the itch to get back into the workforce. It was then that the idea hit me, but I almost dismissed it. Still unsure if Bliss was really even going to be anything, I had my own insecurities. I swallowed them down and asked.
Well, would you have any interest in coming in on Bliss with me?
That has to be the closest I’ll ever feel to asking someone to marry me. I felt exposed, vulnerable, unsure but oh so excited at the idea. Luckily, she answered with a squeal and an enthusiastic YES!
Since that day, we’ve taken one step at a time. Little by little. I was still working full-time. She’s raising her 5-month-old all the way in Amsterdam. Bite sized pieces brought us here.
The point is, the hustle looks different for everyone. And the hustle doesn’t have to be exhausting and draining. For us, it’s been quite the opposite. What we’ve been working on brings us joy and energy, filling us with excitement and enthusiasm. Passion.
Six months ago, all of this felt overwhelming, impossible.
One day at at time.
One foot in front of the other
And now we’re here!
by Joey | Jun 15, 2016 | Throwback
Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.
-Mr. Rogers
I tweeted out on Sunday night that if I had to pick one word to summarize the weekend, it would be disappointed.
It’s very easy to feel sad and disappointed in the world we live in today. The headlines are filled with tragedy, anger, slander and chaos. We hear the bad, very rarely the good. You remember the name of the murderer but often forget the victims.
We allow that to define our society. The bad and the negative. We’re quick to open our mouths and spew hate. We see only what we spotlight.
On Monday night, I stood in a strangers driveway hugging my friends goodbye after another day of defeat, unable to find their dog. The stranger offered her help all day long, offered her code into the private community, waded through thick woods in the 100 degree heat for no real reason. She had no loyalty to my friends. No loyalty to us. Just loyalty to the good.
As I stood there, I said out loud I really like good people. I paused then added, and I don’t really like people at all.
It’s the truth. I find I put too much expectation in people, always optimistic for the best only to be let down repeatedly. It’s my fault, people are quick to point out, for expecting too much. For expecting the good.
I’ll take that blame.
I don’t care.
I will always believe in the good.
I will always find hope.
In the midst of heartbreak, disappointment and utterly horrifying tragedy, I’m reminded of the good.
The good rarely makes it into the media. The good rarely finds its way to reviews. The good rarely makes headlines. But it still exists.
This morning, I got a text from my husband. Cal had been found and was returning to his home in Raleigh.
I broke down instantly, sobbing tears of relief and gratitude. This weekend, despite my disappointment, I saw the good.
by Joey | Jun 14, 2016 | Throwback
A few months ago, my neighbor came upstairs all excited. I just took this test that tells you what your love language is. You guys have to take it!
I was pretty sure I already knew what mine was, but I played along anyway. The test confirmed my suspicions: acts of service.
Studies have shown that we show others our love by acting out our love language for them, and I’ve found that to be so true.
Nothing gets me more choked up in a movie than when you can actually see love happening. You know the scene: character is distraught, faced with conflict and struggle on their own, trying to display independence and strength they’re not fully convinced of. They arrive home after feeling defeated only to find someone who loves them there, committed to standing in the trenches with them.
That gets me every. time.
That’s seeing love.
I will always value relationships more than anything else. I learned that early on, especially in work. I am the kind of person who has to work for myself because I crave the freedom to be there for people when they need me. I don’t like being caged in. A huge part of the reason I felt like I needed to leave my job was because more than once I felt overwhelmed with the urgent need to go home and be with my mom only to feel trapped in, taking care of a family that wasn’t mine. I loved them all the same, but it was hard to balance that complexity.
Saturday night, good friends of ours were involved in a terrible accident on I-40. Luckily, they were okay (relatively speaking), but their dog, spooked in the crash, bolted from the car. They were on a road trip, about two hours from home when the accident happened. They’re battered, exhausted, and now distraught. It’s been days, the dog has been spotted but not caught. Yesterday, I had a todo list a mile long, but I was distracted, my heart heavy.
Finally, around mid-afternoon, I gave up, hopped in the car and drove the little over an hour to be with them to help them search. Hours and hours later, we still came up empty handed, but there was something about standing all together at the end of the night that filled my heart right up. Their friends came from all across North Carolina, not waiting to be asked to be with them in their time of need. My friend said it best, at this point in our lives it’s far more about quality than quantity.
My last year in my twenties was spent processing the loss of an important friendship, accepting that they were never going to be the kind of friend I needed them to be, and questioning if they really ever had been. And over the weekend, the final blow delivered, I let it go.
Love is simple but we over complicate things. Love is uncovering what someone needs above all else, and giving it to them.
Today, above all else, I need your prayers to be with our friends.
by Joey | Jun 9, 2016 | Throwback
For those of you who think I have my life so together right now, let me confess this:
I’ve been secretly using my husband’s toothbrush for weeks because I keep forgetting to buy one.
Let me make something clear. I needed a change. I wanted a change. I did not inherit any money. I wasn’t handed a golden opportunity on a silver platter. My husband does not make boatloads of money. I assessed the risks, put a little faith in my abilities, and I jumped.
I have no funding. Hell, I don’t even have health insurance at this exact moment. Things look dreamy from the outside because as scary as all of this is, it feels dreamy and I’m radiating that, I know this. But if I’m going to do this, I want to be extremely transparent in order not to perpetuate this idea that good things only happen to certain people.
Good things happen to people who work their effing asses off.
And that can be you, too.
I just don’t want there to be some kind of misinformation that the stars lined up, allowing me to quit my job and pursue my dreams. That is so very far from the truth. In fact, quitting my job wasn’t easy for me. And it wasn’t some grand display of bravery, quite the opposite, actually. It was me standing across from my boss dissolving into a puddle of tears.
Because the only truth here is that I wasn’t happy. I’ve been through hell and back in the last year, doing my best to be as strong as possible for everyone else, trying to be the glue that kept so many pieces together. So instead of breaking, I shattered.
The only thing I could control in that situation was my job. The only person I could control in that situation was me. And crazy as it sounds, we often struggle to make decisions that will serve us and only us.
I am a people pleaser, a servant at heart. Qualities that are good until they destroy you. Because if you forget to throw yourself into the mix, ensuring that through your service you are also bringing yourself pleasure, everything crumbles.
And everything crumbled.
I do not have my life together. All I did was make a decision to try. I don’t want this journey to seem rosy, discounted as easy or unfair. I fear there are already too many people online pretending that success and happiness floated over them in a glittery bubble, raining smiles down on them.
That doesn’t exist here.
I promise you this, as I trek my way through whatever it is that comes next, I’ll bring you along. And I’ll be honest.
