My mom likes to tell the story of my pre-K teacher pulling her aside to say I was the quietest child she’d ever met. She tells it now with a kind of disbelief, because that same quiet kid grew up and went into sales. A job that, on paper, requires you to be very much the opposite.

I have always received it as something heavier than she means it. I was only four. I had not yet done anything. And a verdict about me had already been made.

The progress reports that followed were, more or less, the same. Could participate more. Could raise her hand more. Could be more proactive, could speak up without being called on. I want to point at that word for a second. Could. It’s such a gentle word. Encouraging, even. It is also, unmistakably, a correction. Year after year, a new teacher, the same note: there is a louder version of this child, and we are waiting for her.

Spoiler alert: she never showed up. I did just fine. But I did so in my own way.

I spent a long time assuming I’d grow out of it, or into something else. That adulthood, or at least a job, would finally hand me the volume knob everyone kept gesturing at. Instead, I went into sales.

If you have spent any time on a sales team, you have likely taken the tests. The personality assessments, the color frameworks, the four-letter profiles. They get rolled out at the offsite, you answer the questions, and a few days later your team is sorted into types like a bag of candy.

At Twitter, my team did the Colors version. You fill out a questionnaire, the results come back, and you get slated into a section: Red, Blue, Green, or Yellow. Every seller around me came back a Red. Bold, fast, driving. I came back Blue. Cautious, Analytical, Precise. They had us stand in different corners of the room, depending on our color profile. I was literally in a corner, alone.

Years later at Reddit, my team did a different framework: the DISC assessment. Every other seller, a D: direct, results, strong-willed. I was a CS: conscientious, steady, reserved.

I remember looking at those results and feeling something I could not name for a long time. It wasn’t quite embarrassment. It was something closer to exposure. Everyone clustered neatly in one place, and there I was, somewhere else. In a room where sameness reads as alignment, I had results telling me I didn’t fit.

It took me a long time to realize what I was actually holding. It was the same information I’d always received, just now laundered through an HR framework instead of a teacher’s cursive. The pre-K teacher, the report cards, the colors test, the DISC profile. Different decades, different cities, different frameworks. One consistent evaluation of me.

And for a while, I believed the results meant that I was a Blue doing a Red’s job. That I didn’t belong there. That I wouldn’t succeed.

The early part of my career was mostly spent trying to close that gap.

I watched the loud closers. I studied them a little. They walked into rooms a certain way, they took up space, they were unmistakably bold, and that got noticed. My style was a bit more reserved. And because of that, I spent a fair amount of energy trying to perform a version of it that would help me blend in.

It really didn’t work. You can push yourself a bit outside your natural setting, but you cannot live there. People can tell when you’re not being authentic. What I felt, more than anything, in those years, was a low and constant doubt: am I actually built for this?

This certainly came at a cost. There were years where louder colleagues got the recognition first, where my style read as a thing to develop rather than a thing to deploy, where I genuinely could not tell if I was good at my job or just getting away with it. The doubt was not cute. It was the texture of a decent stretch of my twenties.

The turn, when it came, was not a decision. I did not read a book or sit in a workshop and choose to believe in myself.

What happened is that the evidence kept coming in, and it kept saying the same thing.

My clients stayed. They came back for the next activation with a larger budget. They followed me from one platform to the next. They referred me to other people. They told me when something was wrong on their end before they probably should have, because they trusted me to do something useful with it. They believed that I was invested in them, more than I was chasing a number. The relationships outlasted the individual deals, sometimes by years.

And slowly it became impossible to ignore the pattern. They were not buying what I was selling. They were buying from ME. Not because I had charmed them, exactly. But because they had decided, over time, that I would tell them the truth, including the truth that something they wanted wasn’t going to work. A loud pitch gets you noticed. Being the person who will level with them is what gets you the partnership that’s still alive five years later.

These were the moments the personality tests flipped meaning for me. The CS profile, the Blue, the quiet, conscientious, steady read on a room. I had been carrying it as a problem. When in reality, it was a description of the exact thing my clients valued most in me. I wasn’t a Blue surviving in a Red’s job. I was doing the same job my own way.

I should note, the personality tests were never wrong. I really was the Blue. I really am the CS. The assessment was accurate. What was wrong was the assumption baked into the room (and my own self assessment) around it. The assumed conviction that the Red, the D, the loud closer, was the correct profile and everyone else was a deviation from it.

Here is the real reason I wanted to write this at all.

It would be a tidy essay if I told you the doubt ended and I have been at peace ever since. But that is not how lifelong feedback works. It doesn’t end. It just gets more sophisticated.

In a recent performance review, a manager I respect was encouraging me, kindly, to be louder. To put myself out there more, to make sure people saw the work. And then he said a line I have not been able to put down: I feel like you’re quietly killing it.

I know what he meant, and he meant it as a compliment. But for me, it was a compliment disguised as the same feedback I’ve been getting my whole life. Quietly is the part I’m supposed to fix. Even if I’m “killing it” my way, it doesn’t count unless I’m loud.

For most of my life I took that as a to-do. I am not going to anymore.

I want to be careful here, because there is a version of this essay that becomes a defense of staying invisible, and I don’t believe that. Visibility absolutely matters. Advocating for your own work is real and necessary, and quiet people who refuse to do it are leaving something on the table. That part of the feedback is not wrong.

But there is a difference between being told to be visible and being told to be loud. Visibility in a register that isn’t yours doesn’t read as confidence. It reads as a performance. The work was never to get louder. The work was to find the version of visible that is actually mine, and to notice that quiet and visible were never opposites in the first place.

I have a voice now. I’m using it, here, every week. That took a long time, and it didn’t arrive by getting louder. It arrived by getting clearer on what I want to say. There’s a difference between volume and conviction, and the second one is the one that actually carries.

What I’ve landed on, after all the assessments and all the encouragements to project more, is something closer to quiet confidence. I know my work. I know it’s good. I don’t need to perform that for it to be true. The renewals, the clients who follow me from one platform to the next, the relationships still alive years after the deal closed: all of that speaks, so I don’t have to.

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A few weekends back, we drove down to spend a Saturday with my parents. We went to the pool, grabbed some lunch out, and headed home for naps and a BBQ.

While at lunch (at a not particularly kid-friendly spot), my kids were getting restless. We’d gone through all the snacks and toys I brought and my kids finished their grilled cheese and hot dog in about 0.3 seconds. They were overtired, overstimulated, and just done with sitting at a table. Everyone else was still eating.

Luckily, our table was next to a large, open lawn- perfect for running off some pre-nap energy. They wiggled their way out of their chairs and started exploring: picking flowers, collecting rocks, and just being kids.

I’d taken maybe three bites of my sandwich. Before they got too far, I took one more bite and ran after them.

Within 30 seconds, my mom literally came running after me, with the other half of my sandwich in hand. She didn’t say anything. She just handed it to me while I had one kid on my hip and one eye on the other, knowing I was hungry.

I am thirty-six years old, and yet, my mom is still feeding me.

Later that afternoon, my daughter fought her nap the way only an overtired toddler in a new house can fight a nap, and I did what I knew would work: I lay down with her on me and waited it out. When I came back downstairs two hours later, my wet swimsuit and the kids’ pool clothes, left in a damp pile by the back door, were already in the wash. I hadn’t asked. She’d just noticed and wanted to help lighten my load.

This is what my mom does and has always done. She takes tremendous care. Always looks for ways to make our lives just a little easier. She chased my kids around the living room so I could sit with my pregnant sister and help with her baby registry. She packed up leftovers for us to take home so we’d have food for the week. She texted that night to make sure we made it back okay. It was Mother’s Day and she’s still always thinking about me.

I could write a whole essay about how amazing my mom is. She’s the example of exactly who I want to be, as a mom and just as a person in this world. But that’s not quite what I want to say here.

What I want to say is that I don’t think I would have seen any of this, not really seen it, before I had my own kids.

Becoming a mother gave me a new kind of lens for my own mother. The sandwich isn’t just a sandwich. It’s her instinct, thirty-six years deep, to make sure her baby gets fed. The laundry isn’t a chore she did to be helpful. It's the same scanning, noticing, anticipating I now do all day for two small people who have no idea I'm doing it. I used to just be the daughter at the table. Now I'm the daughter and the mother at once, and I can see both sides of the glass.

People talk about how having kids changes you. They mean your body, your time, your sleep, your priorities, and yes, all of that is true. But no one really prepared me for this part: that it would also change how I see my own mother. That I’d suddenly understand things about her I’d been receiving my whole life without registering.

Maybe that's why I've been thinking so much lately about whether we're done having babies. I don't know yet. After a really scary pregnancy and traumatic birth with my second, I’m honestly not sure I can bring myself to do it again. But I’m also not ready to say we’re done. And I’ve started to be honest with myself about why.

Part of me maybe wants a third. But it's hard to tell if that's a real want, or just the sadness of feeling like the chapter is closing. That if we stop here, the baby chapter is over. And that feels sad in a way I haven't made peace with, and I'm not sure I ever fully will.

And yet, on a run this week, I caught myself imagining forward instead of back. I saw a mom and her teenage son walking with coffees on a Saturday morning. I pictured curling up on the couch to read with an older version of my daughter, or playing cards with both of them after dinner. Long drives. Eventually, maybe, holding their newborns so they can take a nap, or wash their hair for the first time in a week. The baby chapter closing doesn’t only mean something is ending. It means all of that is still out there, waiting. I haven’t met those versions of my kids (or myself) yet.

And that's what I saw in my mom last week, too - watching her move around her house, carrying all of us. Her role never stopped. The chapter where her kids were small ended a long time ago, and yet she's still mothering us. Still pursuing me with a sandwich. Still throwing in a load of laundry. Still texting at 9pm to make sure we got home safely.

Motherhood doesn’t end when the babies stop being babies. It just changes shape. It becomes part of how you move through the world.

Which means, and this is the part that catches in my throat a little, one day my own daughter will be sitting at some table somewhere, with kids of her own, watching me hand her a sandwich she didn’t ask for. And she’ll suddenly see me. Really see me, the way I can only now see my mom.

I won’t be able to explain that I’ve been seeing her like that her whole life. She’ll just have to find out for herself.

Mother’s Day is this Sunday. I’ve been thinking about something that happened at a birthday party a few weekends ago. To all the moms, I see you and I love you.

A few weekends back at a birthday party, my husband sat down on the floor with our son and a pile of Magnatiles. Within minutes, half the kids at the party were on the floor with him, building towers and castles and dragons.

A crowd emerged. The dads were impressed. The moms were impressed. Someone joked, “What does he charge for Saturday nights?” Someone else said, “Wow, he’s such a great dad.”

I wholeheartedly agree. He is an exceptional dad. A phenomenal partner. He’s funny and playful, deeply engaged in our kids’ wellbeing, much more patient than I am. No part of me was surprised to see him on the floor with the kids.

But still, something tugged at me.

I, too, had been at that same party for hours, chasing our kids around. I was the source of comfort for both kids when we first arrived, when they felt a little shy. I had pulled my 1.5 year old daughter out of the bounce house before she got knocked over by the big kids. I had made sure both kids were fed, their plates replenished when they asked for more watermelon. I had opened three juice boxes without spilling them. I had supervised an art project that involved, generously, a quart of glitter glue. I had refilled water cups, found missing shoes, mediated a dispute over a balloon, and at one point physically caught my son mid-leap off a picnic bench.

Yet, nobody said anything to me about what an excellent mom I am.

The easy version of this essay is the one where my husband is the villain and I am the hero. That is absolutely not the story I’m trying to tell. I believe we are both great, deeply loving parents, doing our best as a team.

The story is that he sat on the floor for twenty minutes and was recognized for it, yet my contributions were invisible. Both things were happening at the same party, in front of the same people, and only one of them registered.

This is not a complaint about my husband or me fishing for compliments. It’s actually a question about the rest of us.

There’s a version of this where I should just take the win. My husband is engaged, present, hands-on. My kids love their Dada. By any measure, I have it really good, and I’m so grateful for it.

But the comments at the party weren’t really about him being a good dad. They were about the surprise of him being a good dad. The surprise is the part that kept bugging me.

What I keep thinking about is that the surprise hurts everyone. It makes moms feel invisible. It also fails to give dads credit for the daily, unglamorous work of parenting (cleaning the dinner table, the doctor’s appointments, the drop-off line) by treating twenty visible minutes as exceptional. The bar isn’t just impossibly high for moms. It’s insultingly low for dads.

The part that really got me: the moms making the comments were the same moms who had been doing what I was doing all morning. Wiping faces, changing diapers, refilling plates, finding shoes. Every one of us was both invisible and the one doing the not-noticing. I’m sure I’ve done it too. I’ve watched a friend’s husband pour juice and thought what a great guy. I’ve never once watched a mom do the same and thought to mention it to her, because, of course she’s pouring the juice.

That’s the part that helps no one. We are all in it together, and we are all perpetuating it together.

I get the joke. I laughed at the joke. I agreed with the people making it, because my husband really is a great dad and the Magnatiles really were a hit. But that’s exactly the point. I went home and couldn’t let it go, because what I had watched, in real time, was the small daily mechanism by which the whole thing keeps reproducing itself. It’s not malice. Not even carelessness.

Just the casual reflex of noticing him and not noticing me.

And not noticing all the other ways he shows up too.

And not noticing all the other moms doing the same invisible work right next to me.

I don’t have a tidy ending for this. What I do have is a list of moms in my head right now: the friend whose toddler hasn’t slept through the night in a year. The friend who packed three lunches and answered fourteen questions before 7 a.m. The friend who had to go back to work too soon. The friend reading this on her phone in a preschool parking lot somewhere.

I see you. You are holding so much, and you are doing so well.

Just wanted you to know that I notice.

I came to Substack a little over a month ago, at what felt, and still feels, like an inflection point in my life. I started writing about motherhood, ambition, and transitions. The territory most people would expect from a working mom in her mid-thirties trying to figure out what comes next.

And I’ve loved it. Genuinely. Every touchpoint on this platform, the comments, the DMs, the unexpected coffee chats, the people I’d never have crossed paths with anywhere else, has been the best part of this whole experiment. I came here to write and ended up finding a community I didn’t know I was looking for.

The writing itself has been a return to something. I trained as a journalist before I fell into tech, and writing here has felt like remembering a version of myself I’d half-forgotten. Writing about motherhood, about the strange years between who I was at 25 and who I’m becoming now, about ambition that no longer wants the same things it used to want. It’s been the most honest writing I’ve done in a long time. Feels a bit like therapy.

But somewhere in the last few weeks, the writing started to evolve. It took a turn toward something more professional. The On Brand column got clearer. The Brand Directory came together. I have a long list of post ideas in this territory that I’m excited to write. I find myself wanting to share my experience from almost a decade at “the front page of the internet.” Wanting to write about how brands are actually showing up on Substack, which ones are getting it right and which ones are missing the point. About why some of the smartest marketing minds I know are quietly migrating here. About the strange new frontier where founders are becoming editors-in-chief and creators are becoming media companies and nobody’s quite figured out the playbook yet.

This wasn’t my plan. It was a drift. And a reasonable one, I think. As someone who’s spent her whole career studying how brands and audiences talk to each other, figuring out what resonates and why, it turns out I can’t fully shut that part of my brain off, even when I’m trying to write something personal. So that part started showing up on the page.

Which brings me to… the dashboard.

As much as I try not to care, I can’t help but look at it. That’s also fifteen years of conditioning. I’m a numbers gal, after all. Open the data, analyze it, study the spikes, cross-reference the conversions, and ask why. I’ve done this for clients my entire career. Now I’m doing it for myself.

What I’m noticing is the kind of pattern I’d flag for any brand I work with. The pieces I’ve poured myself into emotionally, the ones that filled my notifications with hearts and warm comments, often converted at a fraction of what the quieter, more specialized pieces did. A piece fewer readers saw converted at nearly ten percent. A piece that hundreds of people read converted at a fraction of that. There’s a content-to-audience mismatch, and it’s consistent. This is worth paying attention to.

This is one of the core realities of marketing, and yet, somehow I’m still surprised by it when the topic is me: pure reach isn’t the goal. The right message in front of the right audience is what matters. A piece that lands with five hundred people who don’t quite know why they’re here will always lose to a piece that lands with fifty people who recognize themselves in it immediately.

I know this. I have always known this. It’s so much harder to apply this to your own work.

This isn’t just a Substack problem. It’s the thing every brand, every creator, every founder runs into eventually. The work that resonates and the work that converts aren’t always the same work. The thing you’re known for and the thing you’re best at aren’t always the same thing. The audience that finds you and the audience that’s actually for you can drift in opposite directions.

I’ve watched hundreds of brands navigate this exact problem. I’ve helped clients work through it more times than I can count. It turns out it’s a different experience when you’re inside it.

Because for the first time, I am the brand.

And like any brand, I'm starting to feel the friction. Not the friction of wanting more readers, I’m sure that evolves with time. The friction of wondering whether I'm serving the readers already here. I worry the readers who found me through the Brand Directory will land on a piece about motherhood and wonder if they signed up for the right thing. I worry the readers who resonated with my essays on ambition and identity will glaze over when On Brand No. 3 hits their inbox. I'm asking two different audiences to hold the same newsletter, and frankly, I'm not sure whether that's a feature or a flaw.

So here’s where I am. The personal writing is the work I came here to do, and the work that’s been the heart of this experiment. The professional writing is the work that seems to also be pouring out of me, telling me something: about who’s actually showing up, about what they’re showing up for, about a niche I might be unusually well-positioned to fill. Both are real.

Truthfully, I’m trying to figure out what to do with that.

I don’t have an answer yet. For now, I’m just noticing the data, sitting with what it might mean, and resisting the urge to make a clean decision before I’m ready. The marketer in me wants to optimize. The writer in me wants to keep experimenting. The mother in me, who started this whole thing in the first place, just wants to keep showing up honestly and see where it goes.

For now, that’s the answer. Keep paying attention. Keep writing. Let the data keep talking.

I’ll let you know what I figure out. Stay tuned…

Welcome back to the Friday Dispatch. Let’s get into it.

This week’s honest truth

Keeping it short and sweet this week. My husband was away on a work trip, so I’ve been solo with the two toddlers for days. There were some good times, there were some tough times, and mostly, we all just can’t wait to have him back home tonight.

What I’m into this week

🎧 In my earbuds: Maybe I’m late to the party, but did you know for most newsletters on Substack, you can listen to an audio voiceover of the post? I’ve just discovered this and for someone with a list of “saved newsletters” that is literally endless, this has been a game changer! I can listen while I’m working, on a walk, in the car etc.

🍞 On my plate: My whole family came down with a fast and furious bug last weekend, so naturally I had to whip up a pot of chicken noodle soup. I’ve made it so many times I just work off memory. It makes enough for leftovers and my kids even ask for seconds, which is rare. “Recipe” below:

Ingredients:

• Season chicken with salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning and pan sear in a large pot (I use my Le Creuset) for about 5 minutes, until the chicken is browned on both sides. Then, remove and set aside.

• Add more olive oil and saute diced carrots, celery, yellow onion, and garlic. About 5 minutes until the veggies are soft and onion is translucent.

• Add chicken back into the pot with the veggies, and pour in 1 large carton of chicken stock. Bring to a boil.

• Once boiling, turn down to a simmer and cover. Add in parmesan rind. Cook for approx 30 minutes.

• With 10 minutes left, add in the fettucini noodles (I like to break them up so they’re in small strips) and frozen peas.

• Remove the chicken and shred it. Add back into the soup.

• Remove the parmesan rind, and serve with fresh parm and chopped parsley. Enjoy!

😊 Made me smile: My son has his very first picture day at preschool this week. This feels like such a "moment", if you know what I mean?

What my readers taught me this week

I shared that my husband and I were struggling with the overall load and constant demands of full time work with 2 little kids. The moms of Substack showed up in a way that genuinely moved me. A few things I’m holding onto: Nathalie suggested finding a shared goal as a couple (in her case, training for a trail race) that forces you both to carve out time instead of constantly deferring it. Rebecca’s hack of doing “Friday movie night” for the kids but sitting in the other room was genius and I’m stealing it immediately. Lauren reframed the whole thing: instead of thinking about it as taking time away from the other person, think of it as giving space to them and taking space for yourself. And Sharon, whose kids are 10-12 now, promised me that hours alone at a coffee shop on a Saturday morning are coming. I’m holding her to it.

Notes that hit this week

A couple of Notes that sparked something this week. I wrote about Nanit’s Substack newsletter “In a Blink” as an example of a brand doing it right: no product push, no sales funnel, just real stories about the joy of parenthood.

And I restacked a line from Ali Kriegsman’s piece on magnetic branding: “The brands that win aren’t selling products. They’re selling a persona that consumers either see themselves in or aspire to.” Both felt very On Brand (pun intended).

Reading this week

A few pieces in my Saved folder that I need to read again:

🔌 wrote a highly relatable piece called, “I’m a bad “Mommy Blogger.” As someone who's spent 15 years in tech myself and is now figuring out how to write publicly about her life, this one hit close to home. (This Might Be Cringe)

🧠 I’m sure you’ve been seeing Lena Dunham’s book tour everywhere (particularly on Substack). I’m loving it. I particularly loved “Top 10-ish: Lena Dunham.” I still have Lena’s advice to “Keep A Picture of Your Sweet Little Self” running through my head all week. A gentle reminder to be kinder to yourself. (Long Live)

✨ Clare’s weekly post “Open Tabs” is a must-read roundup of what's happening in the influencer world. This week's edition covers Rhode's Coachella activation, Bridal Fashion Week, and a genius Merit mailer. (Following Up)

🔥 I loved this week's post, "Build a Magnetic Brand - or Die." The breakdown of how American Apparel, Glossier, and Rhode each mapped onto the digital language of their era was so sharp. (New Motives)

🌱 “Press Reset” this week is about being laid off at 33 weeks pregnant and not spiraling. The mindset shifts she shares are powerful, and her line “the moment I stopped chasing and started trusting, it came to me” is one I keep coming back to. (Align)

🧭 “You Don’t Have to Arrive to Start Building” is for anyone mid-pivot who keeps waiting until they have it figured out before they start sharing. Spoiler: you don’t. The story told from inside the process is the most interesting version of it. (Brand ANews)

From the messy middle this week

Two pieces went out this week. The first was a reflection of my first month on Substack and what surprised me the most: I Came Here to Write. I Didn’t Expect to Find Friends.

The second: On Brand, No. 2, this week focusing on the Sephora Spring Savings Event, and what that looked like on Substack from a partnerships perspective.

Here’s to a weekend that fills your cup. I’ll be filling mine with some toddler birthday parties, bounce houses, and hopefully some rest 😴

X,

A

A month ago, I published my first post on Substack. Last week, on my birthday, I hit 100 subscribers. I know that number is small compared to some of the massive audiences here. But every single one of those people opted in. They chose to be here.

I didn’t start writing because I had it all figured out. I started because I was in the middle of figuring it out, and I had a hunch that other people were too.

A month in, here’s what surprised me most: it wasn’t the writing itself, or the subscriber count, or any of the things I thought I’d be paying attention to. It was the people.

First, a confession: I’m not a social media person.

I don’t really post on Instagram anymore. I’ve never made a TikTok. I haven’t posted to Twitter since it became X. I’ve spent the last decade working in social media and I still never felt that compelled to participate in it myself. While I have a ton of respect for those who pursue that path, it just never felt like me.

But writing is different. Writing is something I’ve always done. Ever since I was little, I loved it. I was the editor of my high school newspaper. I went to journalism school. I got the degree. And then I just... didn’t use it. I moved to New York, went into brand partnerships, spent 15 years in tech, and the writing part of me went quiet for a long time.

Substack has given me permission to find that part of myself again. There’s something about this platform that feels less like performing and more like thinking out loud. No pressure to be polished or on-brand every second. Just writing, learning, and people who want to read it. That felt safe enough to start.

What I didn’t expect was that the people would become the best part.

Everyone here feels reachable.

There’s something I still can’t quite articulate about the way this place works. Writers I've followed for over a decade, people whose blogs I used to read on my lunch break in a cubicle in New York, now have massive Substacks of their own. They’ve found my Notes. Liked my comments. Replied to me. Me, a small fish in a very big pond.

It’s not just them. People with audiences in the hundreds of thousands engage with people who have a hundred subscribers like it’s nothing unusual. And maybe here, it isn’t unusual. Maybe that’s the whole point.

I don’t know exactly what it is about this ecosystem, but it feels like everyone matters. Or at least, everyone has the potential to matter. The size of your audience doesn’t seem to determine whether you get to participate. You just have to actually show up and say something real.

That has been one of the most disarming and lovely surprises of the past month.

The friends I’ve made (yes, friends).

I came from nearly a decade in brand partnerships at Reddit, where I spent all day thinking about communities. I understood community as a concept. I’d seen it in action. What I didn’t fully grasp was what it felt like to be in one as a participant, not an observer.

There are people I have never met in person who feel like genuine cheerleaders for what I’m building. Writers whose work I look forward to every week. People who show up in my comments consistently and thoughtfully. A college friend I reconnected with after years of silence because we discovered we’re both writing about the same space here. A reader who saw my Reddit background and immediately got what I was trying to do with my new column. Another who restacked my piece with the exact line I’d been most nervous about. These interactions have evolved into Zoom chats, virtual coffee dates, and even some future planned IRL meetups.

These are not abstractions. These are real relationships forming in real time, in a way I’ve never experienced on any other platform.

I think it’s because Substack’s community is built in the comments. Not in a performative way, but in a “I see you, I read this, it resonated” way. I’ve replied to every single comment on my posts. I’ve left genuine comments on other writers’ work. I’ve restacked posts I thought were really special. Not because someone told me to, but because the writing here is actually good and I actually have something to say about it.

That’s the difference between this and every other platform I’ve worked on. The engagement is real because the content is real. And when the engagement is based in real connection, the relationships that form on top of it are real too.

Your newsletter is your resume. Your Notes are your personality.

Here’s something else I didn’t expect. I thought the long posts would be the whole thing. The essays I spent hours on, the On Brand column I agonized over. And those matter. They’re the reason someone subscribes.

But Notes are how people meet you in the first place.

A two-sentence note about my therapist landed 61 hearts. A one-liner about spending less time on Instagram hit 255 (and counting). My mom’s cream cheese pasta recipe started a whole recipe chain in the comments. My call for help with kids art storage kicked off a thread with almost 30 storage suggestions. None of those were planned. They were just real moments I shared without overthinking them.

The long posts are the meat. The Notes are the personality. They don’t need to perfectly align, but they complement each other in a way I didn’t anticipate. Someone finds you through a Note, clicks your profile, reads a post, and decides to stick around. I didn’t design that loop. I just noticed it happening.

I’m still figuring it out.

I won’t pretend I have any of this dialed. There are a million posts out there about how to win on Substack, and this isn’t one of them. I’m still learning how much to post, when to post, how much to share about my personal life versus my professional life. Some days I worry I’m posting too much. Other days I worry I’m not posting enough. Am I even posting about the right stuff?

What I do know: the personal stuff and the professional stuff aren’t competing with each other. They’re building the same thing from different angles. The person who reads my therapist quote on a Tuesday can also be the same person who reads On Brand on a Wednesday. They’re not confused by the range. They came for it. That’s what makes my content, mine.

What’s next.

More in-depth pieces from On Brand. More essays that make me nervous to hit publish. More Notes that are just whatever I’m thinking about at 3pm on a Tuesday. More showing up in the comments of writers I admire. More of the messy middle.

And more friends, I hope. That part has been the best surprise of all.

Thank you for being here. All 113 of you.

Welcome back to the Friday Dispatch. Let’s get into it.

This week’s honest truth

This felt like a monumental week in a number of ways. Yesterday was my birthday, and I woke up a year older to 100 subscribers. While I know this number is small in the scheme of things, it’s everything to me. 100 of you have opted in to listen to my thoughts and read my writing. Especially in this world where there is no shortage of content, I am honored you’ve chosen to lean into mine. I'm reminding myself that aging is a gift. Every year, I gain more experience and feel more like myself. I’m so excited for this year ahead - it’s gonna be a big one, I can feel it. Truly, thank you for being here.

What I’m into this week

🎧 In my earbuds: As I mentioned in an earlier note from the week, my daughter is as equally obsessed with Olivia Dean as I am. Man I Need and Hardest Part are on repeat in our household. This is maybe the first thing we have “in common” and it’s so fun to share with her. Feels like we would have been best friends regardless.

🍞 On my plate: In an attempt to recreate my idyllic ‘90’s childhood for my own kids, I’ve been trying to make some of my mom’s old recipes that I used to love. Turns out, those ‘90’s moms were onto something, because the two nights I've tried them so far, the kids have devoured these dishes (something that rarely happens). What is this magic? I think they feel the extra love in these dishes. Sharing the recipes below, for anyone interested (one is literally a photo out of an old cookbook; the other typed from memory):

Smothered chicken with mushrooms (I also added peas)

Cream cheese pasta, as we call it.

🛍️ On my wishlist: Of all the favorite pieces in my closet, roughly 90% of them are from La Ligne. Especially during the warmer months, I live in sets. I have a green/white stripe set that has seen me through pregnancies, postpartum, and beyond. I currently have my eye on the coordinating Tangier top and shorts in chambray stripe. Yes, they are expensive. But the cost per wear is extremely efficient. Trust.

😊 Made me smile: To get my daughter to smile for a picture, I usually will do a pretend sneeze. Works every time. Now when posing for a photo, she says “achoo.”

What my readers taught me this week

I asked moms of Substack what helped them continue working during the baby/toddler years, and got some great responses. Putting yourself at the top of the “to-do list”, outsource what you can, putting your phone away when you get home from work, living close to grandparents, amazing nannies, accepting help, and ultimately, giving yourself grace and recognizing that it IS hard and you are doing a great job. Thank you, moms, for sharing this wisdom and advice! It helped me more than you know.

Reading this week

A few pieces I couldn’t stop thinking about:

🔌 wrote a fascinating piece about what it feels like to be a millennial in tech right now. As someone who’s spent 15 years in tech myself, this one hit close to home. (Elena’s Growth Scoop)

💕 wrote a beautiful and highly relatable piece about being the kind of mom that gets in the pool. Not metaphorically. Literally getting in the pool with your kids instead of sitting on the side. Such a simple concept that made me rethink how I show up in those small moments. Also, inspired me to actually get in the pool last weekend. (Immensely Dramatic)

🧠 wrote an incredibly informative piece, titled: “Not Every Brand Needs a Substack. Here’s What They Actually Need.” If you read my new On Brand column this week, you'll see why Maura's thinking on this resonated so deeply with me. I'm so glad I found her work. Also be sure to check out Maura's personal Substack, Closehorse. (The Spin)

✨ I love anything associated with Kelly Rutherford (the OG chic mom), so when I saw her featured in The Quality Edit, I knew it would be good. She details her 7 must-have products and the whole thing feels effortlessly chic without being unattainable, exactly like Kelly herself. (The Quality Edit)

From the messy middle this week

Two pieces went out this week. The first was an emotional piece called Horse Hill: about time, motherhood, and being present. I definitely cried writing that one.

The second: the debut of On Brand, a new column tracking how brands are showing up on Substack as a media channel. Who's spending, what's working, and what it means for writers and brands.

Here’s to a weekend that fills your cup. I’ll be filling mine with a family birthday dinner, beach bonfire with friends, and a much needed trip to Costco :-)

x,

A

Every morning, I open the curtains in my son’s room and I see it. Horse Hill.

Fourteen horses, a few old shelters, a dirt path that winds up behind the barn and into the hills, and endless views. No fences. No other buildings. Just wide open space. The horses graze, wander, stand in the sun. They’re there when I open the curtains. They’re there on the drive home from drop-off. They’re there when I glance up from my desk in the afternoon. Always there.

It’s a town landmark. A place where parents take their kids to visit the barn, let them get close enough to touch a fuzzy nose, watch their faces when a horse shakes its mane and they stumble backward laughing. Or maybe you’ve hiked the trail behind it and looked out over the ridge and thought, for just a second, that everything might actually be just fine.

I probably think about this hill more than a normal person should.

Here’s what I keep coming back to: the hill is never the same twice. Right now it’s spring and the grass is light green, soft, almost glowing in the morning light from overnight dew. In a month or so once the temps rise, it’ll start drying out, turning golden brown, practically twinkling in the summer heat. By late summer it looks like a completely different place. Then, like clockwork, the rains come and it all starts over again. Deep green, almost emerald, like someone repainted it overnight.

And every time the grass changes color, I’m reminded of how fast it’s all moving.

I watched those same hills when we had just moved here, six months pregnant with my first, knowing no one in a brand new town, hoping we’d made the right decision. The hills were golden brown that summer. Everything felt exciting and scary, uncertain and full of possibility, all at once.

I watched those same hills on endless carrier walks with my newborn son, the only way he would nap. Up the street, past the barn, winding back home again. The grass was deep green then. I remember because it rained constantly that winter and I thought those walks would never end. Now, almost four years later, what I would give for just one more walk with him, snug against my chest.

I watched them every morning from inside my daughter’s nursery, as the sun came up after another long, fussy night. As hard as those nights can be, as tired as I was, I’ve also never been more certain that’s where I was supposed to be. Watching the light slowly hit the hill, I’d think to myself, “we made it.”

And now I watch them on the drive home from drop-off, windows down, car suddenly quiet. Wondering how it’s all going so fast.

The hill doesn’t change overnight. It shifts so slowly you almost don’t notice, and then one day you look up and it’s all a different color. That’s how it works with everything, I think. The kids. The career. The life you’re building. You’re so in it every day, you can’t see it moving. But it’s moving. I worry sometimes I’m too caught up in the day to day, that I’m missing it.

The horses don’t care what season it is. They’re up there every single day, rain or shine. Grazing. Wandering. Standing around in the sun. The landscape shifts around them constantly and they just keep on going.

I think that’s what I’m trying to learn from them.

I spent most of my career moving fast. Head down, hitting targets, chasing the next thing. And I was good at it. But somewhere along the way I started operating on autopilot, executing the days instead of actually living them. I’d blink and a quarter was over. I’d blink and my son was a year older. I’d blink and the hills had changed color again and I couldn’t remember when it happened.

I don’t want to do that anymore.

That’s part of why I’m rethinking everything right now, not just what I do for work, but how I move through the day. I want to be the kind of person who notices when the grass starts to turn. Who isn’t so focused on the next thing that I miss the one right in front of me. I want to feel the season I’m actually in, not just race through it to get to the next one.

I know that sounds simple. Maybe even obvious. But for someone who spent fifteen years measuring her worth in productivity, learning to just be in it feels almost unnatural.

So every morning, I open the curtains. And I make myself look. Really look. Before it changes again.

Welcome back to the Friday Dispatch. Let’s get into it.

This week’s honest truth

The real truth? We are both running on empty. My husband and I hit that wall this week where neither of us had anything left to give… and somehow we still had to show up for two small humans who had no interest in hearing about it. I don’t have a tidy resolution to that. Just the acknowledgment that it’s real, it’s hard, and I think it deserves more conversation than it gets. (More on that soon.)

What I’m into this week

🎧 In my earbuds: Jazz. Always jazz lately. When the house is chaos, when work is stressful, when I’m running late to drop off, jazz is doing something for my nervous system that nothing else is. If your nervous system could use a reset, give it a go.

🖥️ On my screen: Not a show this week, but a workout. Heather Robertson on YouTube has become my secret weapon for getting movement in without leaving the house. Free, effective, and no excuses. Highly recommend if you’re in a similar season. I believe I originally learned about Heather from one of my longtime favorites, .

🍞 On my plate: Honestly, we’ve all been under the weather so it’s been a low-key food week. The one thing getting us through: the Miss Jones chocolate chunk banana bread mix from Costco. Technically a “mix.” Tastes like you tried. 10/10.

🛍️ On my wishlist: I've had my eye on the navy linen pants from Aritzia, paired with this navy baby rib square neck tank from Donni. Perfect for WFH with an over the shoulder cardigan, running errands, chasing kids at the park. Feels like a slam dunk mom 'fit for Spring.

😊 Made me smile: My 20-month-old daughter demanding a "nack and nuggle" (aka snack and snuggle) when she wakes up from her nap. We're working on the S sound. I'm in no rush.

What my readers taught me this week

I asked moms of Substack what they do with all the kid artwork piling up, and you all delivered. Shadow boxes with engraved name plaques. Digital picture frames. Mailing “packages” of scribbles to grandparents. Scanning the ones they love and letting the rest go. Writing the date and age on the back (why did I never think of this?). And the best one: telling the kids that recycled artwork gets made into paper so other kids can draw on it, courtesy of a Bluey episode. This thread is getting bookmarked forever. Thank you, Moms!

Reading this week

A few pieces I couldn’t stop thinking about:

🔌 wrote the most honest account of navigating a career crossroads I’ve read in a long time. A great piece if you’re figuring out what comes next. (the recharge)

💕 marked 10 years cancer free this week with a list of learnings and reflections. Frankly, should be required reading. (Good Work)

🧠 wrote a beautiful piece, titled “Your life is what you think it is” about how much our attitudes impact our daily life. (Nathalie Cohen)

🤖 wrote the most practical, no-jargon guide to using Claude I've come across. Whether you're AI-curious or already using it, this is worth bookmarking. (Really Rich)

🤓 published a piece last week on why Substack feels like “A Place for the Nerds” and it’s so relatable. “Go where the warm people are” is still stuck in my head and feels like the best career (and life) advice. (Scratch Pad)

From the messy middle this week

Two pieces went out this week. One about the thing I’ve only ever said out loud to one person and what a Friday at the farmers market taught me about what I actually want. The second: a piece about what nearly a decade at Reddit taught me about community, reach, and the numbers that actually matter. And on Monday: something a little different.

Here's to a weekend that fills your cup. I’ll be filling mine with a family dinner with the grandparents, some early bedtimes, and a visit from the Easter Bunny :-)

x,

A

Last Friday morning, my childcare fell through.

My parents (our usual coverage) were out of town. Our nanny couldn’t step in. Our rolodex of babysitters were busy. My husband had back-to-back meetings. And somewhere between the texts and the scrambling, I just stopped trying to fix it.

I told work I’d be offline. And then, I said peace out to the whole day.

What followed was the happiest day I’ve had in a very long time.

I got to spend most of the day, uninterrupted, with my 20-month old daughter. Something I rarely get to do anymore.

We ran errands I’d been meaning to catch up on. Hit the farmers market for some sourdough and a muffin. Walked to the local park and spent a full hour in the sandbox, just the two of us- shoveling sand into a bucket, with nowhere to be and nothing to prove.

I noticed something else too.

The tension headache I carry on most days, the one that lives somewhere behind my eyes when I’m toggling between Slack and snack time, between a deadline and a diaper, wasn’t there.

The low grade anxiety I feel in my chest, when I’m constantly juggling 10 tasks at once, falling behind in my inbox, or racing through the tasks of the day. It wasn’t there.

I felt good. Actually good. Not “I survived today” good. Just... good.

And then I had a thought I’ve been turning over ever since:

What if this is what I actually want?

Here’s the thing I haven’t told almost anyone.

I think I’m leaving.

Not today. Not with a plan fully formed. But the knowing is there, quiet and certain in a way that’s hard to explain. The way you know something before you’re ready to say it out loud.

Maybe it looks like a full year off, present for this season while my kids are still small enough to want me around every minute. Maybe it’s something more in between, some fractional work, some space, some breathing room I haven’t had in years.

I don’t have the exact shape of it yet. But I know the feeling I’m moving toward. I want more days that feel like this.

The thing is, I haven’t said this to my friends.

And my friends are extraordinary. Truly superstar career women. Amazing mothers. I’m in awe of them constantly. The kind of people who make you proud just to know them.

But I don’t think this would even cross their minds. Not because they’d judge me, I know deep down they’d be supportive. But because I don’t think they’d really get it?The wanting of it. The relief of imagining it. The way a Friday at the farmers market with my twenty-month-old felt like the first full breath I’ve taken in months.

I’ve only told my husband.

And when I told him, he didn’t question it or try to talk me through pros and cons. He just nodded. He sees me. He gets it in the way that only someone who has watched you carry something for a long time can get it.

But saying it here, to you, whoever you are reading this, feels different. Like the thing becomes more real once more than one person knows.

So here it is.

I want more Fridays like today. And I’m starting to think that’s enough of a reason.

I know not everyone has the option to consider this. This isn’t a post about whether you can, it’s about whether you’re giving yourself permission to want to.

Here’s what I’ve been sitting since that afternoon.

Why does wanting this feel like something I have to justify?

If I told you I was leaving my job to take a bigger role at another company, nobody would ask me to explain myself. If I said I was going fractional to build my own consulting practice, people would nod and call it brave.

But “I want to take some time to be with my kids while they’re small” lands differently. Even in my own head. Especially in my own head.

There’s something almost embarrassing (and I cringe typing that) about admitting it. Like I’m supposed to want more- more scope, more title, more impact. And wanting less somehow means I’ve given up, or opted out, or stopped taking myself seriously.

I don’t think that’s true. But I’ve absorbed enough messaging over enough years to feel the pull of it anyway.

We spent decades fighting for the right to have careers. To be taken seriously. To not only be defined by our roles as mothers. And that fight mattered - it still matters. But somewhere along the way the message got quietly distorted. The freedom to work became an expectation to always be working. The right to a career became a requirement to prioritize it.

And so admitting that you might want something different, even temporarily, even just for this season, starts to feel like a betrayal. Of the women who came before you. Of the version of yourself who worked so hard to build something. Of the friends who are still building.

I know that’s not rational. I know choosing presence isn’t the opposite of ambition. I know a year with your kids isn’t a year lost.

But knowing something and feeling it are two different things.

And if I’m being completely honest, the fact that I’ve only told my husband suggests I haven’t quite let myself fully feel it yet either.

I don’t know exactly what comes next. I’m not sure of the timeline or the shape of it yet.

But I know this: wanting to be present for your kids is a complete sentence. It doesn’t need a but, or a however, or a plan attached to it to be valid.

You don’t need to be burned out to justify slowing down. You don’t need a five year strategy. You don’t need to frame it as a “pause to upskill” or a “strategic pivot” or anything other than what it actually is.

Sometimes the reason is just: I want more Fridays like today.

And I’m starting to think that’s enough.

If you’re sitting with something similar, I hope this gives you a little permission to say it out loud. Even just to yourself.

Today it looked like a blueberry muffin from the farmers market, still warm. My daughter talking to herself in the sandbox in a language only she understands. The way she requested to listen to “ticky abletauce” (Sticky Sticky Apple Sauce) on the walk home. A tension headache that never came. The feeling, somewhere around noon, that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Sometimes that’s enough.

Welcome to the first Friday Dispatch: my weekly roundup of things I’m loving, reading, watching, and thinking about. A little fun to send you into the weekend, every Friday. Let’s get into it!

This week’s honest truth

Five networking calls, two kids, one full-time job, and approximately zero hours of downtime. And somehow I’m ending the week more energized than I started it. Make it make sense.

This week started with a bang and never slowed down. Between early morning wake-ups to dedicate time to my “side” projects, my 3 year old suddenly dropping his afternoon nap (send tips!), and 5 different networking calls (not to mention my full-time job), it’s been full. Heading into the weekend grateful for no plans and sunny, warm temps to soak it all up.

What I’m into this week

🎧 In my earbuds: Harry Styles, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally. On repeat. No notes.

📖 On my nightstand: The Pivot Year by Brianna Wiest. Filling me with all kinds of inspiration for this season of transition.

🖥️ On my screen: Love Story: JFK Jr. & Carolyn Bessette. Duh. Can’t think of the last time I counted down to a weekly drop.

🍞 On my plate: Toast platters have become our weekend morning ritual: avocado, PB & banana, hummus, cream cheese & cucumber. Something for everyone, no cooking required, and somehow it feels like a little event.

🏡 On my wishlist: I've been dreaming of wallpapering our bathrooms and stumbled upon Tess Newall's work. Her designs are so charming. I'm particularly drawn to the Herbarium Wildflower Wallpaper. (Discovered via Maddie Bush, always a good follow for home inspo.)

🌸 Made me smile: My son, always picking a flower for me on our daily walks. Chivalry at its finest.

From the messy middle this week

Two posts went out this week: one about knowing when to give your expertise away for free and one about what three years of limited childcare actually taught me about productivity. If you missed either, they’re worth a read.

See you in the middle.

No plans. No calls. Just a wide open weekend, and I intend to soak up every second of it.

Three years ago, we found our nanny.

We fell in love with her immediately. The way she was with our son, the warmth she brought into our home, the instant sense that she was exactly the right person. Everyone told me it’s one of those things, “when you know, you know.” Well, I knew she was right for our family.

There was just one catch. She could only work 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Thursday. My mom would pitch in on Fridays when she could. I would handle the post 3pm shift.

We figured we’d try it and see how it went.

Three years later, I’m still hitting my revenue targets. Still growing my accounts. Still consistently performing in a demanding sales role at one of the most scrutinized companies on the internet.

Not despite the constraint. Because of it.

Here’s what nobody tells you about going back to work after having a baby.

The calendar doesn’t wait. The targets don’t adjust. The clients don’t reschedule because you’re running on four hours of sleep and your brain feels like it’s operating at 60% capacity.

You just figure it out.

And somewhere in the figuring out, something unexpected happens.

You get ruthless.

Not in a cutthroat way. In a clarity way. Suddenly you can see, with a precision you never had before, exactly which parts of your job actually matter and which parts are just the performance of working. The long meetings that could have been emails. The tasks you were doing out of habit rather than necessity. The hours you were spending looking busy rather than being productive.

When you only have a compressed window to get everything done, you stop pretending.

What I actually changed

Everything. But it mostly comes down to five things I stopped being precious about.

I blocked my calendar and defended it. I stopped multitasking. I made deadlines for everything, not just the big things. I delegated anything that wasn’t specifically mine to do. And I stopped performing productivity - showing up to be seen rather than showing up to actually work.

Three years later: quotas hit. Accounts grown. Sales role performing consistently - in a fraction of the hours I used to think I needed.

Here’s what each of those actually looks like in practice.

The Working Mom Productivity Framework (That Nobody Asked For But Everyone Needs)

These aren’t revolutionary habits. You’ve probably read versions of them in every productivity book ever written. The difference is that for working mothers, these aren’t suggestions. They’re survival. And survival has a way of making things stick.

1. Protect your hours like they’re non-negotiable, because they are. Before I had kids, my calendar was a suggestion. Meetings got booked over focus time. “Quick syncs” appeared from nowhere. I said yes to things I should have declined because saying no felt risky.

Now my working hours are blocked and defended. Not aggressively, but clearly. I can’t take a 4pm call. I won’t reschedule my 10am focus block for a meeting that could be an email. The boundary isn’t personal. It’s structural. And paradoxically, people respect it more than they ever respected my vague unavailability before.

2. Know the difference between urgent and important. This sounds obvious until you realize how much of a typical workday is neither. Before kids I treated everything as urgent because I had the time to. Now I don’t. So I ask: does this actually need to happen today? Does it actually need to happen at all? Is this something only I can do, or am I holding onto it out of habit?

Most things that feel urgent aren’t. Most things that feel important to other people aren’t important to your actual goals. The constraint forces you to tell the difference.

3. Do the hard thing first. When you have six hours, you can’t afford to warm up slowly. The thing you’re dreading, the difficult conversation, the complex proposal, the strategic thinking that requires your full brain - has to happen in the first half of the day when your energy is highest.

I stopped saving the hard stuff for “when I have time.” I never have time. So I do it first.

4. Delegate like you mean it. This one took me the longest. I used to hold onto tasks because letting go felt like losing control, or worse, like admitting I couldn’t handle everything myself.

Now I ask one question before taking anything on: is this something only I can do? If the answer is no, I find the right person and hand it off. Completely. Without checking in every five minutes.

Real delegation is a skill. Most people think they’re delegating when they’re actually just outsourcing their anxiety.

5. Stop performing productivity. This is the big one.

Before kids I spent a lot of time looking busy. Long hours at my desk. Rapid email responses at all hours. Volunteering for things that were visible but not valuable.

None of that made me more effective. It just made me look like I was working hard.

Working mothers don’t have time to perform productivity. We have to actually be productive. And once you make that shift, once you stop optimizing for how you look and start optimizing for what actually gets done, you can’t go back.

The thing nobody says out loud

Here’s what working mothers figured out that most workplaces still haven’t:

Output is the only metric that actually matters.

Not hours logged. Not emails sent at midnight. Not how many meetings you attended or how visible you were in the office. What matters is whether the work got done. Whether the target was hit. Whether the client was happy. Whether the thing you were responsible for actually happened.

Working mothers can’t compete on hours anymore. So we compete on results. And in doing so, we’ve accidentally stumbled onto the way work should have been measured all along.

The irony is that the workers most likely to be quietly penalized for their schedules- the ones leaving at 3pm, the ones declining the optional Friday call - are often the ones most ruthlessly focused on the thing that actually matters.

Output. Results. Delivery.

The rest is just performance.

If workplaces started measuring what people actually produced instead of how long they sat at their desks, I think they’d find that the working mothers they’ve been underestimating have been outperforming all along.

The future of work isn't about being always on. It's about being genuinely effective. Working mothers have been living that future for years. The rest of the workplace is just catching up.

I spent years thinking the constraint was something to apologize for. Leaving at 3pm. Blocking my calendar. Saying no to the optional Friday call. I was hitting every target set for me… and still carrying a quiet guilt that I wasn’t doing enough.

It took me three years to realize: the constraint wasn’t something to hide. It was the thing that made me better at my job than I ever was without it.

The limitation wasn’t the problem. It was the answer.

If this resonated, subscribe to The Messy Middle for weekly dispatches from the space between the career you built and the life you actually want. And if you know someone who needs to read this, I’d love it if you shared it with them.

A recruiter reached out to me recently about a senior, global sales role at a major tech company - the kind of job that, on paper, checks every box.

Big title. Big scope. Strong compensation. The kind of role that signals you’re continuing to move up.

At first, I felt flattered. After more than a decade in tech and brand partnerships, it felt validating to be considered for something like that.

But as I read through the description more carefully, I felt something unexpected: a quiet, certain knowing that this just isn’t the right season of life for that kind of job.

More travel. More hours. More pressure. More of the things that used to feel exciting, but now come with a very different tradeoff.

Because the equation looks different these days.

I have two kids under four. I want to be home for dinner. And I’ve stopped pretending those things don’t factor into every career decision I make.

The same week, someone in my local working moms group posted that she had left her role at a major tech company after hitting complete burnout trying to balance a demanding job with two small kids. She asked the group where to go from here.

She didn’t get many responses. I think because many of us are quietly asking the same question.

Another friend, incredibly smart, experienced, accomplished, was recently pushed out during a company reorganization. She’s trying to figure out what comes next. She still cares deeply about her work, but she’s not eager to jump back into the same frenetic pace she left behind. She’s looking for something different. She’s just not sure yet what that looks like or whether it exists.

I keep seeing versions of this story everywhere.

Smart, capable, ambitious women who love their work but are realizing that the careers they built in their twenties and early thirties don’t always fit the lives they’re living now.

Not because the path was wrong. But because life changed.

The mid-career crossroads

Around ten or fifteen years into a career, something interesting seems to happen.

You’ve built real expertise. You know what you’re doing. You have credibility and a track record.

But the “next step” in most companies still assumes the same formula: more visibility, more management, more travel, more time. More of everything.

And for some people, that’s exactly what they want.

But for others, especially those raising young kids, the idea of simply adding more to an already full life starts to feel less like growth and more like a trade-off you’re no longer willing to make.

It’s not that the ambition disappears. It’s that the definition of success begins to evolve.

You still want to do meaningful work. You still care about contributing ideas and building things. But you might also want to be home for dinner. To be present for bedtime. To actually experience this season of life while it’s happening — not just survive it.

Those two things can be genuinely hard to reconcile with a system that still defines career growth as a constant expansion of time, scope, and responsibility.

The missing middle

What strikes me is how little infrastructure exists for the space in between.

There are conversations about women stepping away from the workforce entirely and re-entering later. And there are clear tracks for those who want to keep climbing as fast as possible.

But what about everyone in the middle?

The people who still want to work. Who still care about their careers. Who still have valuable experience and ideas to contribute, but who also need a model of work that acknowledges the reality of raising young children. Where sick days happen without warning. Where childcare falls through. Where the logistics of family life are constant and unpredictable.

The traditional corporate ladder doesn’t bend easily around those realities.

So increasingly, I see women around me experimenting with something different. Consulting. Fractional roles. Advisory work. Creative projects. Portfolio careers that combine a few things instead of one consuming thing.

They’re not opting out. They’re redesigning.

One friend left a VP role to do three days a week of fractional CMO work for two startups. Another turned her decade of marketing expertise into an advisory practice she runs from home. Neither path existed on any org chart. Both were built from scratch.

And while these paths aren’t always straightforward, there’s no roadmap, no clear next rung, a lot of people are building something that actually fits their life. Even if they’re figuring it out as they go.

What this in-between season actually asks of you

Maybe this is simply a phase that doesn’t have a clear structure yet. A messy middle between the early years of proving yourself and whatever the next long-term chapter eventually becomes.

The ambition hasn’t disappeared. The drive is still there. But it’s evolving, shaped by new priorities, new responsibilities, and a deeper awareness of how finite time actually is.

Sometimes that means turning down opportunities that once would have felt like obvious wins. Sometimes it means questioning paths that used to feel straightforward. And sometimes it just means admitting that you’re in a period of transition, even if you don’t fully know where it leads yet.

That’s not failure. That’s not falling behind. That’s just what it looks like to be honest about what you actually want, and to start building toward it, even without a clear map.

If you’re navigating this too - a few questions worth sitting with

When a new opportunity comes up, these are the ones I’ve started asking myself before saying yes or no:

Does this fit the life I’m living, or the life I used to live? It’s easy to evaluate opportunities against an older version of yourself. Make sure you’re comparing against who you actually are right now.

What would I have to give up, and am I genuinely willing to? Not “could I make it work” - that’s a different question. The real question is whether the trade-off is one you’d actually choose.

Am I saying no out of fear, or out of clarity? These feel similar but they’re very different. Fear shrinks. Clarity expands. It’s worth knowing which one is driving the decision.

Have I actually run the numbers, or am I assuming I can’t afford it? Most people never do the real math. The gap between what you think you need and what you actually need is often smaller than it feels. It’s worth knowing the real number before it becomes the reason you stay.

What would “good enough for this season” actually look like? Not forever. Not the ultimate answer. Just what would feel right and sustainable for the next one to two years.

Am I trying to solve this alone? Most women navigating this transition are doing it quietly, without much of a roadmap. Finding even one or two people in the same season changes everything.

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It’s Tuesday morning, 9:36 am. I just dropped the kids at preschool and sit down to tackle my inbox.

Suddenly, my phone starts buzzing as my group chat blows up.

One friend is starting her new job today at a major tech company. Another is launching her own business and sharing pictures of the product in development. Someone else is due with her second baby and starting maternity leave from one of the largest AI companies in the world.

Everyone’s suggesting a celebration. And yes, of course, these things should be celebrated.

I scroll LinkedIn and it’s more of the same. Promotions. New businesses. Interesting pivots that came from productive career pauses.

Lately, it feels like everyone I know is doing something big.

A new job. A startup launch. A move across the country. Another baby. A promotion. A career pivot.

My group texts are full of announcements. My LinkedIn feed feels like one long highlight reel.

And I catch myself wondering - where am I?

I’m genuinely happy for everyone. I really am.

But I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t sometimes make me stop and wonder where I fit into all of it.

Everyone else seems so decisive. So certain. Grounded in action.

Meanwhile, I feel like I’m in an in-between season. Still figuring out what’s next, still circling the same questions I was circling six months ago.

Shouldn’t I have it more figured out by now? Shouldn’t I just be doing… more?

In these moments, I try to remind myself that life doesn’t move in one straight line.

If we’re lucky, careers are long winding roads that curve through different seasons. Some seasons are for growing. Some are for stabilizing. Some are for rebuilding, recalibrating, or pivoting. Some are for accelerating forward.

And some seasons are quieter.

Especially when you have little kids, life doesn’t always allow for big, visible moves. Sometimes the work you’re doing right now happens entirely behind the scenes.

Keeping a household running so your spouse can go all-in on their career. Showing up for school pickup every single day. Holding a steady job instead of chasing the next shiny thing. Taking a pause — a real one — to figure out what you actually want the next chapter to look like.

None of it is less important. It just doesn’t always look big from the outside.

We all know comparison is the thief of joy. But knowing that doesn’t stop the feeling from creeping in.

The internet is very good at showing the moment someone makes a big move. It’s not very good at showing the long stretch of time where you’re figuring out what the next move even is. It's not good at showing the 2am spirals, the conversations with your partner that go nowhere, or the Sunday afternoons where you just feel stuck.

That’s the part that doesn’t make it into the group chat.

Maybe this is just a phase of life that doesn’t come with clear milestones.

A quiet stretch of figuring things out. Rethinking what matters. Letting old definitions of success fall away before new ones fully take shape.

It may not look like progress from the outside. But that doesn’t mean nothing is happening.

More and more, I think this is actually the part where the real shifts happen - the ones that don’t show up in a group text, but change everything anyway.

If this season feels slower, less certain, or harder to explain, you’re not the only one.

A lot of us are here right now.

Not stuck. Not behind. Not failing to keep up.

Just in the messy middle.

When the comparison creep hits - a few questions worth sitting with

I keep coming back to these whenever I need to separate the noise from what’s actually true:

Am I actually behind, or just on a different timeline? Behind implies there’s one path everyone is supposed to be on. There isn’t. There’s just your path, and where you are on it right now.

Am I comparing my real life to someone else’s highlight? You’re seeing their announcement. You’re not seeing the months of doubt, false starts, or hard conversations that came before it.

Have my priorities changed, even if my life hasn’t caught up yet? Sometimes the in-between feeling isn’t confusion, it’s just the lag between knowing what you want and being able to build it yet.

Am I in a season that’s supposed to be quieter? Not every season is for big moves. Some are for laying groundwork that won’t be visible until later.

Do I actually want what they have? This is the most important one. Sometimes comparison is just noise. Sometimes it’s data. The difference is worth knowing.

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I’ve realized that small things have an outsized impact on how a week feels.

A pair of jeans that actually fits right, a recipe everyone eats without complaining, a book you keep thinking about after you put it down- none of it is life-changing, but somehow it all adds up.

Here are a few things that made this week a little more fun.

The Little List

Three small things that made this week better

• Our yellow Lady Banks roses blooming in our yard, practically yelling, Spring is here!
• iced coffee season starting again
• waking up and having a few minutes of “me time” before my kids (thank you daylight savings!)

A Little Something I Loved

How had I never tried Levi’s before? I ordered these Levi’s 501 ’90s ankle jeans on a whim and they might be my new favorite pair.

They’re mid-rise with a straight leg, not too tight, not too baggy, and feel like actual denim instead of leggings pretending to be jeans. Basically the kind of pair you can wear with sneakers during the day but still feel put together.

Even better, they’re on sale right now, which makes the find feel even more satisfying.

Why is finding good jeans always harder than it should be?

A Little Something I’m Reading

Right now I’m reading Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, and it feels very on theme for this season of life.

The whole idea is that success isn’t just about persistence. Sometimes the real skill is knowing when something isn’t the right path anymore and having the confidence to change direction.

It’s one of those books that makes you stop and think about decisions you’ve been putting off.

A Little Something I Tried

Tried this chicken taquitos recipe from Be Well By Kelly and it was one of those rare dinners that everyone actually ate. My toddler even requested them a second time this week.

You cook the chicken in the slow cooker with enchilada sauce, roll it in tortillas, bake them until crispy, and somehow it feels like fun food but still pretty healthy. I didn’t actually make them grain-free (hello flour tortillas!) and they were delicious.

Always a win when dinner doesn’t turn into a negotiation.

A Little Something for Your Littles

Currently refreshing my kids’ wardrobe with some new finds for Spring/Summer. Here are a few of my favorite finds:

Toddler Boy: This terry cloth set are you kidding me? These striped shorts. These striped linen pants. Yes, I have a thing for stripes.

Toddler Girl: This blue gingham dress or this seersucker set (both on sale!). Also, hello Old Navy!

A Little Workout

Lately I’ve been loving quick at-home workouts using the weights I already have. I found Heather Robertson’s videos through Liz Adams, and they’re exactly my speed.

They’re short, easy to follow, and she doesn’t talk during the workout, which makes them perfect for putting on while you listen to a podcast or watch something in the background.

A Little Follow

One of my favorite parts of writing here has been finding new Substacks to read.

There are so many thoughtful, funny, interesting writers, and it makes the internet feel smaller in a good way. This week’s favorite is Motherhood, Untitled, which publishes anonymous, first-person accounts of one week in motherhood. It reminds me a little of The Cut’s Sex Diaries or Refinery29’s Money Diaries, but focused on what motherhood actually looks like day to day.

If you have a favorite, send it my way. I’m always looking for new ones.

That’s it for this week’s A Little Fun.

What’s something you’ve been loving lately?

~ Alex

For the past few months, a thought has been sitting quietly in the back of my mind.

I think I might want to quit my job.

Not tomorrow. Not dramatically. And not because I’m unhappy or ungrateful.

In many ways, the opposite is true.

I’ve spent the past 15 years building a career in tech and brand partnerships. I’ve worked at interesting companies, with smart people, helping platforms grow from early-stage startups to post-IPO businesses. Along the way, I’ve learned a lot about how the internet, and the business of the internet, actually works.

I’ve spent most of my adult life inside the internet economy, watching companies grow, platforms evolve, and the nature of work itself change along the way.

On paper, it’s the kind of career I worked really hard to build in my twenties. One that required ambition, momentum, and a willingness to keep pushing forward.

But life looks a lot different now than it did when I started.

I have two little kids. My mornings start early, my evenings feel shorter, and the time between the end of the workday and bedtime has become the most precious part of my day.

Somewhere along the way, I noticed something I hadn’t expected.

The career I built in my twenties, the one that required constant energy, availability, and forward momentum, doesn’t quite fit the life I’m building in my thirties.

Not because it was the wrong path.

But because the equation has changed.

I still care about work. I still care about building things, contributing ideas, and being part of interesting conversations.

But lately, I find myself thinking more and more about time.

Time with my kids while they’re little.
Time to think more creatively.
Time to build something that fits the life we’re actually living now, not just the one we’ve been sprinting through.

There’s a narrative around working motherhood that says you don’t have to lose your ambition when you have kids- that you can keep pushing forward exactly as before.

And for many women, that’s absolutely true.

But motherhood has changed me.

My ambition hasn’t disappeared. It’s just evolved.

These days, I feel a deep sense of accomplishment in places that would never show up on a resume. Helping my kids learn to share their toys at the park, navigating a public toddler meltdown without losing my patience, being present for the small moments that make up their childhood.

Lately, I’ve realized the question I keep coming back to isn’t really about quitting a job.

It’s about something bigger.

What does a meaningful career look like in this season of life?

Is it possible to stay ambitious while also building a life that feels a little more spacious? A little more aligned with the person you are now than the one you were at 26?

I don’t have an answer yet… which is exactly why I’m writing this.

This newsletter is where I want to think through some of these questions out loud. About work, ambition, motherhood, and the strange recalibration that seems to happen when the career you built no longer perfectly fits the life you’re living.

I suspect I’m not the only one standing in this messy middle of work and life.

If you are too, I’m really glad you’re here.

~ Alex

P.S. If this resonates with you, feel free to subscribe or share it with a friend who might also be navigating this season of life.

A Little Observation

I’ve realized toddlers operate under one universal rule:

If you buy raspberries, they will eat them nonstop.
If you buy blueberries, they will suddenly decide they hate fruit.

Parenting is mostly just trying to stay one step ahead of the berry market.

Parenting is mostly just trying to stay one step ahead of the berry market.

The Little List

Three small things that made this week better

• the view from my office of horses roaming in the distant hills

• later sunsets = 5pm at the park

• 70 degrees and sunshine

A Little Overheard

Things my kids said this week

My son after a particularly epic tantrum:

“Mama, I’m melting down like a snowman.”

A Little Something for Your Littles

A small idea for the kids

Where’s Waldo?

Always comes in handy- whether waiting for our food at a restaurant or winding down during quiet time.

A Little Something for You

A small treat for you

Because we’re all trying to eat more protein…

These edamame snacks are my latest obsession.

A Little Question

For readers

What’s something small that made your week better?

A little fun for the week.

~ Alex

If this made you smile, feel free to forward it to a friend who might enjoy a little fun in their inbox.