BEFORE READING: please note, this was hard for me to share because it involves more than just my story. It's been hard for me to open up lately as I want to make sure and respect the privacy of everyone involved. Please be kind.
Dear reader,
I have felt called to write this for some time. If you’ve been following me for a while (I’ve had my account and business for nearly ten years) you’ve seen me go from a confident, shopaholic open book to a bit of a recluse, struggling often to know what to share and hurdling over business and personal obstacles. I plan to write this blog as a train of thought post and am sorry for any typos or lack of brevity. I’m not much for structuring my writing or pre-planning, I’d rather share as I was speaking with a close friend as many of you have become to be.
Although I describe my past self as an open book, there’s a lot of my story I’ve kept close to my heart. I grew up a mostly only child in a close knit family. I had an ideal and adventurous childhood, attending a Montessori school set in an expansive arboretum. I’ve always been independent and sort of a loaner, struggling with relationships which I now understand to be attachment issues. Friendships have always been difficult for me to maintain, I always feel misunderstood and retreat back to the safety of my own company. My heart has always been anxious, majorly so, and I’ve always been an overthinker.
My life became chaotic as a teen, my family unraveled at the seams after my great aunt and uncle committed double suicide. My father who I have always adored began struggling with addiction, and I did everything I could to seek help and support from a community that was frankly unwilling to acknowledge the problems. The dysfunction of my household led me down a path of pretty consistent trauma as I sought to find myself. I am survivor of sexual, physical and emotional abuse and as an adult have now been diagnosed with CPTSD. I struggle with migraines and often physical ailments which I understand now often times go hand in hand with trauma.
One of the ways I have always coped with my metal health battles is through creativity, mostly in the form of art making. As a child, I took every art class possible. I dove deeply into drawing in my youth. My dedication led me to being offered a full ride to a private art school in Portland. I had always wanted to attend school in Los Angeles but was too afraid to move from home and frankly knee deep in some deep traumatic events. The week I went to college, my dad checked into rehab. This bizarre combination of events left me feeling very lost and confused. I attended my first week of classes and immediately felt out of place. I barely passed my first year of school and attempted to drop out the following summer. My family encouraged me to return, and I spent two more years in a city I didn’t love with few friends, a shitty boyfriend, and what feels like a blurry set of memories. Despite my college experience not going as I had anticipated, I landed a job at Nordstrom and an internship in textile design. Both experiences helped me find myself, and at least pointed me in the direction of where I wanted to be going.
The third summer of college, I landed myself back in my hometown and had no idea what I was doing with my life. A few months later, I was living in my parents home and had freshly dropped out of college. I found out I was pregnant. My oldest, Paloma, was born premature and I can honestly say that no life experience has shaped me as deeply as motherhood has. I felt a sense of love and purpose that I had never had before. When she was a little older, I went back to work at Nordstrom and shortly thereafter (ten months to be precise) I discovered I was pregnant with my son, Orlando.
At the age of 23, with both a toddler and a baby, I told my dad I wanted to start a business for myself that combined both my creativity and retail experience. I had a few friends who had successful brands on instagram, and I hated the idea of putting my children through daycare. I started my company with a few thousand dollars from a SNAP loan and my grandmother. I printed locally on American Apparel tees but had bigger goals of manufacturing my own apparel. My business was booming, within about six months I was selling out. I worked closely with my manufacturer and visited LA several times to learn all there was to know. He was a great mentor and taught me everything I know now. I learned enough about the industry to partner with my manufacturer and quickly we built a booming business. I loved my job, I loved working with fellow female business owners and making their ideas become a reality, I even mentored a lot of my customers and helped them grow. I was successful enough to support myself and my children through what looking back was a very unstable time navigating life as a young single mother. I ended up back in my parent’s house several times, making many personal and professional mistakes. I learned through trial and error, it was really a rollercoaster.
In 2018-2019 I had my first big business boom, like big big. I worked with a marketing agency and invested in a huge amount of product, taking a loan from my business partner who had faith that I would be successful in my endeavor. It was during this time that I became a single mother. I wish I had handled that with more grace. I was so wounded and didn’t realize. It was survival mode, I look back with mixed feelings about how I handled things and the collateral damage I left behind. My brand boomed but it didn’t have proper infrastructure and my expenses were steep. With a series of errors both within and outside of my control, I ended up with a huge amount of debt. I was full of shame and worry. I vividly remember a Christmas where I took the tree down before the holiday. I had so much guilt as a mom, everything I did was for my children yet it was taking everything I had to keep going. I had no idea what to do.
It was then that I met my knight in shining armor, cheesy but true. My now husband Steven and I met right before that emotionally heavy Christmas. Things moved pretty fast admittedly, I found out I was pregnant and my kid’s and I moved into Steven’s house the week prior to the covid shutdown. I think March? If we survived that, we can survive anything. Sofia was born that November, things felt really secure and good. We got engaged a year later, and the following summer were married. The year before our marriage was my biggest year of business yet, I was on track to a million in sales. I had pulled myself out of debt and rebuilt my business. I was so passionate and excited, but my business partner who handled the manufacturing was coming unhinged. The person I learned everything from had stopped following his own procedures and we had an unfathomable amount of mistakes and issues in production. I took as much ownership as the sales position in our company, but the problems were out of my hands. It was so much stress. I worked hard to fix things for over a year, and finally walked away. My income was a less than a quarter what it was the year prior and after our marriage, our bills had steeply increased. Steven was wrapping up school during this time and planned to go into financial planning. I was nervous but hopeful about where life would take us.
The winter after our marriage, our basement flooded and my actual worst nightmare came true. I was unable to work to provide for our family. Our basement was my workspace and my inventory was mostly all damaged, half our home was gutted. I found myself trying to recover my business, struggling to financially support my family, fighting tooth and nail with insurance for a year to cover our flood bills, managing a remodel and of course the most important roles, being a mom and wife. I was drowning, deeply. I remember telling my husband on NYE that year I wasn’t sure how I could move forward. But I did. After leaving my business partner, my initial manufacturer did great for a few months and ultimately got himself in some serious debt. He ended up running away, literally, leaving me with around $20k in preorders that I had to refund. Between the refunds, lost inventory, and lost investment. My business was crippled. I dug my heels in and with everyone’s support turned around to launch one of my most successful drops ever for valentine’s day. That was the beginning of last year. I found a new manufacturer and faced a new year of challenges. I had no cash to invest, and could only take pre-orders. The pre-orders did great and so did my manufacturer at first but he was unable to maintain. Orders were late, past deadline, many refunded. It was a mess. I could hardly check my email, I had so much shame. I have always been a problem solver but there was so much going on behind the scenes. I didn’t know how to manage it all. I had felt like I was drowning the year prior, that was nothing compared to what I was facing at the time. Around this Steven was hired at a bank and started his journey into wealth management, I really hoped that would be a game changer for us.
In the spring of last year, I went no contact with my parents as a result of my dad’s long term struggles with addiction. I don’t feel ready to share a whole lot about this, and I am aware that it’s a decision that will draw scrutiny and confusion. I will tell you, it is a boundary drawn out of love for both my family (parents included) and myself. It has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I am not ready to speak on this any further currently, but it sits heavily on my spirit every day.
This year, the floodgates have broken. The emotions and trauma I have been running from for years hit me like a ton of bricks. While my business was still in shambles, I was deep in grief. We grew a huge garden and I spent months loving on my kids and husband as possible. I saw a therapist twice a week, I was doing all the right things. One day, Steven and I went on a walk with my youngest Sofia. I bent down to get her out of her stroller, she looked at me and said, “Mom, there’s a baby in your belly.” Steven and I laughed it off, but I took a test anyway. The test was positive. I was confronted with all the fears of raising another child with so much going on, so little income, and a broken family. Steven and I told ourselves it must have been meant to happen, and embraced the news. A few weeks later, I miscarried. We had just told our kids. It broke me. I leaned heavily on therapy, yoga, and self care. I lost many friends through it all and struggled to find myself again. I strongly identify as mom, wife, business owner but am struggling to understand the rest. I learned to appreciate what I have and take great joy in the little things. I ultimately understand how blessed I am for all that I have. I fought every day of my life this last year to wake up and keep fighting and stay positive.
You’re probably saying to yourself, omg, I can’t keep reading. When does it end? Well. Not here. Last fall, after a big chat with my manufacturer, I felt as though we had worked out the kinks and invested everything I had into two collections for the holiday. He shipped me 10% of my order and blocked me. It was dejavu, the previous year all over again. My only saving grace was paying via credit card so I was able to recoup some of my losses. I have since reconnected with an old project manager and feel good about the direction things are headed, but it is hard for me to feel overly positive without feeling apprehensive. So much has felt out of my hands, yet still on me to fix.
So here we are, today. I’m sitting in silence in the sunshine writing this all out. I feel relieved to share and also nervous about being so open. For the past year, I’ve been coming on my stories not knowing what to say and feeling like I’m bringing everyone down. I’ve now caught you mostly up, however there’s one more thing. Steven ultimately didn’t feel like banking was his calling, and I have been our sole provider since he quit in October. I spent a lot of time resisting him switching careers, but I really felt like we were swimming against our current. Steven is now pursuing firefighting like his dad and frankly I have never seen him so motivated. He’s aced all his tests and will start volunteering soon, hopefully he can land a job with the city this spring. Please send your prayers or good juju or whatever you believe in that that will happen.
Somehow, despite it all, I still have some glimmer of hope. I believe in myself and my ability to regrow my business as I have had to do so many times. Although I struggle with my very public mistakes and complications, I am proud of my resiliency and determination and so incredibly thankful for all of you that have stood by me. I know I have not been the most engaged and I thank you for your grace. If you are still reading this, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I know many of you are struggling, especially in this economy. I wish I had more to offer other than solidarity. I wish I had more to say other than keep going. I’m not out of the weeds yet, but my gratitude and faith have strengthened deeply through all that I’ve been through. I’m slowly finding some appreciation for my struggles as they’ve taught me so much. I hope that next time I write a life update, I have some good news to share. I’m not sure what it will be, but for now I’m healing and growing and for now that is more than enough.
XO,
Blake
