2. Please put white children on the flyer, the donor is traditional.
I’m complicit in racism in the nonprofit and social impact sectors. Here’s where I could go into defending that complicity, I was young. I didn’t know. I was on my own journey. Blah blah blah. We’ve heard it all from all the white-do-gooders like me in the world.
I’ve been in the nonprofit and mission-minded space for the entirety of my career. I started as a visual product designer for a national health nonprofit. I was green and am white so I didn’t know much of anything let alone systemic racism.
And like much of the nonprofit sector, the leadership…
Imposter Syndrome and all
Why is it so damn hard to write about myself?
Probably because I care too much what you think.
I’ve been writing stories since I can remember. In elementary school, my favorite assignment was always the writing prompt. When the teacher would put up the wacky hand-drawn transparency on the projector, my little mind would wander into all the different stories that could come out of one simple drawing.
Stories — and more importantly — storytelling has always interested me. Sometimes to a fault, as a memoirist and essayist, I’m regularly searching for the arc in my life that is…
2. Do not work for an employer who expects you to do it all.
Picture this: you’re a marketing professional, perusing jobs on LinkedIn and you see a job title that sounds intriguing. You click because you’re a marketer and you like this company. And then between the lines of roles and responsibilities is the actual truth. This company is looking for a marketing unicorn.
A marketing unicorn has sometimes been described as:
“A marketer who loves to dig into data and detail, but you can also churn beautiful, influential content like it’s no one’s business.”
It’s true that it’s no one business because it’s actually impossible to be just one person’s business. I’m…
You don’t have to stop inviting me to go out. I haven’t died.
Dear Friend Probably at Happy Hour Right Now,
I know I used to be there with you a lot. Drinking Moscow Mule after Moscow Mule, gripping my freezing cold copper cup. Unwinding with you. It didn’t matter if it was a work night or a weekend, I’d rarely pass the opportunity for a refreshing happy hour after a stressful day at work.
Going out with you always felt like I was doing something. That I wasn’t wasting my life away at home, that I was full of adventure and spirit.
When I got pregnant I thought for sure I’d be…
Between the pandemic and new motherhood, I don’t know how to stop the anxiety.
Prior to March 2020, I’d been alone a lot. I’d be alone every day on my commute to work. I’d come home usually to an empty house before my husband got home. I’d spend at least two nights a week alone because he would work late or have band practice.
I knew how to be alone. And I liked it. I’d read a book. Cook meals my husband hated. Watched shows I liked. I’d comfortably drift into the person I used to be when I was single. Alone time was always a reset and reminder of who I was. …
The world isn’t that much better since Toms started the One-for-One business model in 2006.
Last week I ran into a Starbucks to get an iced soy latte. I was sort of hungry but didn’t want to eat anything too heavy and ruin my appetite for dinner. At the cash register was a delicious-looking bar with marketing that caught my eye.
“This Saves Lives,” stood out like a shiny object. It looked almost identical to its sister snack, KIND Bar. But it emoted something different than a KIND bar. I don’t just want to be kind, I want to save lives! I grabbed the bar and bought it. I needed to examine further exactly how…
Should infant influencers even exist?
Instead of deciding on newborn portraits at Sears or JCPenney like moms of the past, modern moms and dads are faced with the conversation of social media, and how much they want — or don’t want — their newborn to be featured on it.
My husband and I were no exception to this. I was on team social media. We have family who live far and I want them to see our daughter in all her wonderful stages of development. He was on team analog. …
I’m tired of not feeling good enough.
I’m tired of the self-help, “become a six-figure freelancer in a week” articles. There are so many. They’re all over my Medium home page because I cannot for the life of me resist clicking them. Worst, I read them too. Which is probably why folks still write them.
Yes, all-powerful successful person, I want to be like you, tell me how you did it, let me replicate it, and be rich and happy all while working 4 hours a week.
I’m tired of these articles because they almost never write about their personal lives. Which is a huge component in…
HOW I DID IT
There’s a lot of unpaid work in writing full-time
No, I don’t have a course that you need to sign up for. I’m not entirely confident I have anything to teach, anyway. I don’t have a killer e-book for you to download.
I don’t even really know what Substack is. I can confirm I have no idea what Clubhouse is. And I’ve been rejected from News Break. (Am I even a writer?) Truth is, I don’t have much of anything to offer other than exactly what I do every month to bring in a sustainable income for a reasonable amount of work.
One universal truth of the game is…
The ethics of pro-life and pro-choice
I have always been a hard and fast pro-choicer when it comes to abortion. My views were black and white. Pro-choice was correct. Pro-life was wrong. I thought all women, regardless of their age, type of conception, reason, etc were the only ones to decide what to do with their body and the fertilized egg. Not anyone else.
But age, sex, and pregnancy changed all that.
I remember one Halloween in seventh grade my friends and I had just finished trick or treating around the neighborhood. We were in the sweet spot of adolescence, departing childhood and entering our teen…
