My story goes a little like this.

I come from a modest family. I didn’t grow up with the luxury of getting a million Christmas presents every year or a brand-new car. I got my first job pretty early on, at an ice cream shop. Eventually, I saved up everything I could and was able to buy myself my first car. Let’s just say, the car was not very nice to me. I have nightmares even thinking about it. But it did the job.

I’ve worked at so many different places. I did retail, I was a babysitter, camp counselor, assistant preschool teacher, and hostess. You name it, I did it. Money was always a struggle for me, and it still is. I wanted more for my family and for myself, and I still do. For the most part, I think that’s true for a lot of people. But the point is, I never quit.

Whatever it was, I did it. I knew what I wanted from life and I was determined to go out and get it. I didn’t necessarily like staying at a job for too long because it made me feel like I was getting too comfortable or like I wasn’t doing everything I could at the time. I remember hearing coworkers tell me “oh, I’ve been working here for 6 years” … and that scared the shit out of me.

So I worked harder. Even if I had a job I was always looking for the “next best thing” and somehow I always managed to find it. Or, it managed to find me.

I am a very strong believer that what you seek, is also seeking you. Now, to put things into perspective, this was all going on while I was still in high school. I knew very early on that I wanted my life to be different and that if I did the work to make it happen, it could be. Since I had good grades, I decided to graduate early from high school so that I could work full time before college.

Basically, after Christmas break, I didn’t have to go back. After I graduated, I was working at a preschool as an assistant teacher. FIT was always my dream college. It was the only college I was interested in. End of story.

In fact, I did what I would not advise anyone to ever do, and I put all of my eggs into one basket. I only applied to FIT. I didn’t even apply to the community college that was literally right next to my house.

“Jesus take the wheel”, literally.

I found out I got accepted in an email while I was at work. I will never forget that day, I cried the entire way home.

When the time finally came around to move to the city, everything changed, but in a good way. Still, though, not everything was all sunshine and rainbows, it was hard being on my own for the first time. I felt confused and in a way like there was something I was supposed to be doing that I wasn’t.

Now, I think we need to take a step back and talk about when and why I started this blog, which was right after I graduated early from high school, and before I got into FIT. It’s a weird story and right now I’m telling it 2 years after the fact, so bear with me.

Something you should probably know about me is that I get bored, very easily. When I finished high school I was working full time. Still, I had some free time to spare and soon came across the little topic of blogging, and to make a long story short, it was like love at first sight. I knew I wanted one. I didn’t know whether or not I was going to get into FIT so the thought of a “successful life” seemed pretty far away. I basically thought, okay let’s give this a try. Why not?

I devoted every second of my spare time to looking up youtube videos about blogging. My first website was horrible. I started with a free WordPress site and made so many mistakes, I’m surprised I even lasted after that.

I feel like this sounds as though I know what I’m doing now, which would be a lie, I still have no idea what’s going on. Somehow I managed to get a website up and running. I didn’t know what to name my website or what to even write about since I really had no idea about the fashion industry yet. I was so focused on building a website that I never thought about what I would write once it was up. I eventually got the thing to work, and then boom, I got my acceptance letter from FIT and put my entire blogging business on hold.

I think this was the reason why I felt the way I did when I finally got to FIT. I was in total college mode and was ready to start internships and get a big job in fashion so that I could be a huge fashion star when I grew up.

At least, that’s what I thought I wanted.

For the most part, I was really bored. I eventually got so bored that I started to stress about how much free time I had. When I’m bored, I’m stressed. I was confused and constantly felt like there was something I was supposed to be doing that I wasn’t.

*Hint hint, the blog.

But instead of working on my blog again, I decided it was time for me to get another job.

The first job I got while in college was at Michael Kors in Rockefeller Center. It was cool while it lasted, but all it did was remind me of all the other part-time jobs I had in my life. Don’t get me wrong, it was amazing, but I knew I didn’t want it forever.

Then…. 2020 happened.

By March of Spring 2020, we were being sent home from college. I can’t complain since I’m from Long Island and all I had to do was call my dad to come and pick me up. I packed all of my stuff in a record-breaking 4 hours. Michael Kors closed for a while, along with every single other store in NYC and the whole world for that matter. I went back home happy though because I missed my family and all of my friends. I am a strong believer that everything happens for a reason. There are really only two types of people in this world. The ones that think everything happens for a reason, and the ones that think it’s all random.

I don’t know about you, but I think that where you are, is just as important as where you are not. And as of March 2020, I sure as hell wasn’t at college or even Michael Kors for that matter. It had to mean something, I just didn’t know what.

That would soon change.

I spent most of the quarantine pondering the question that is, what do I want to be when I grow up. I worked as an intern for a celebrity stylist during this time and learned so much from doing so. I was living at home because of the pandemic but I would take the train to the city to work for the stylist. Since I was an intern, I was doing everything for free. Not getting paid a dime. I did this for about 8 months.

It was in August of 2021 that I finally had to stop because school was starting again. I really thought that the styling industry was what I wanted to do. I loved it. But after my internship ended I was back at square one, realizing for the millionth time that I wanted to work for myself. I knew I could do it, I just didn’t know how to do it.

I was finally back in NYC living in the dorms, and I had never felt so out of place. All I kept thinking was that I would never “make it.” I started researching every way possible to make money online and came across things like Amazon FBA, selling e-books, selling a course, etc

I was heading down a rabbit hole and thought everything I’d ever worked towards was meaningless.

Somehow though I stumbled across email marketing.

Honestly, the whole story still makes me question myself and how on earth it took me 3 years to finally realize that I had been on to something huge in 2018. Email marketing was what brought me back to my website. If I’m being totally honest I don’t even remember what it used to look like. It was really bad though.

But I was back. And this time I was ready.

This time, I had something to say.

I spent the rest of the semester making the website. I wrote about 10 blog posts in a matter of a week. My sleep schedule was definitely unhealthy but I had so many ideas that I needed to get out. What you are reading right now is not that website, but without that one, you wouldn’t be reading this right now.

I guess I’m just here to tell my story, in hopes that it reaches the people that need to hear it most. As a reminder that you’re not alone in the way you feel.

I guess what I’ve also realized is that I don’t want to know what’s coming.

I don’t want to have everything planned out. I don’t want to know.

But I can’t wait to find out.