The one where I get vulnerable and ask you for help... and advice.

I'm struggling and I'd frankly really like to hear what you think.

Hi there.

It’s pouring rain— I’m perched in the coziest corner of my couch, right next to an open window, listening to the rain until it stops and I can take my dog on her much-deserved long walk. In the meantime, I’ve lit my favorite Boy Smells candle and am drinking an iced americano with the best pistachio milk available to mankind and few shakes of vanilla powder (this cool new discovery) and pumpkin spice.

My angel friend Sophie dog sat and house sat for us while we were in Portugal for nearly a month. She was working on the very cool J. Crew event series around Manhattan and kindly left me the much discussed J. Crew catalog that was available in-stores and at the events. I finally chose this morning to read it, with an excellent Autumn in New York playlist on in the background. It was delightful. I’m going to page through it again in a second. It really made me feel something, I’m not sure what.

Next I’ll finish Big Fan on my Kindle and maybe fuss about making some pancakes until the rain stops.

So many of the commercially successful newsletter writers I adore do a great job of bringing you into their world or their lives but also keeping you at an arm’s distance. You most definitely hear about what sponges or sweaters they’re loving, maybe you hear a bit about how the transition to motherhood has been difficult. There’s a distance there with influencers— you know me, but only the parts of me I allow you to know.

And there should be, of course. It is so, incredibly jarring and bizarro to open up your life for commentary to complete strangers who lack context and any real attachment to you and project themselves in between the lines of your writing.

But I get confused, reader! My newsletter became popular because I was pretty comfortable laying bare my most vulnerable, ugly experiences. Don’t get me wrong— not all of them. Of course what you read was sanitized, edited, condensed. More importantly, I shared about hard things long after they happened. That’s not to say I’m over them or they don’t still affect me… but distance helped me metabolize the hard stuff I shared with you.