I want to lose weight

Like so many women, i’ve been suffocating under the weight that guilt carries.

The weight I want to lose is that of expectation. Both the heavy weight of societal expectation and the unrelenting weight I put on myself to do more and be more.

I’ve asked myself time and time again, what would you write if you weren’t afraid? What would you do if you were brave enough to be exactly who you are at this moment, in this season of life?

There are several inevitable truths that I can’t out run anymore, and I no longer have the energy to. I’ve told myself too many times to just shut the fuck up and write about clothes, but I have so much more to say and I refuse to put myself in a box.

While I appreciate I don’t owe the internet an explanation, writing for me is deeply cathartic, especially as I navigate so much change. I hate change, i’m terrified of it. Something about it makes me want to stick a fork in the ground and hold on for dear life while everything and everyone else around me moves forward with haste and clarity of direction (or at least it feels that way). I need a little longer to get my bearings. It takes me a long time to adjust to change and i’m definitely what i’d consider a slow learner when it comes to the lessons life has to offer. Instead of making this a negative, I’ve been choosing to see it as a positive and permission to live in the grey.

I’ve been telling myself for a long time that I don’t know what I want, but i’ve had to accept that for what it is…a lie. I do know what I want, but there is resistance to claiming it. A fear of putting it out in the world for fear I can’t go back, once I say it, saying it makes it real.

After spending the majority of my life checking all the boxes that were supposed to make me happy, getting all the stuff, and doing all the things, there’s a deep understanding there’s no magic fix to fulfilment and happiness. When I stepped back from being a multiple six figure CEO, running a team and being constantly online some time last year, I always presumed at some point i’d go back. But even after close to a year since my official burnout, there is still so little left in the tank. I sometimes think I worked so hard throughout my life that I used up every ounce of energy that could ever have existed in one lifetime for one person. Not all energy resources are infinite.

My year long no buy showed me I can live with so much less, and that having less only increased my creativity and the connection I had with myself. Instead of taking away, it opened up something in me that refuses to stay quiet. It wants me to live this life according to the values I understand to be true in this moment, irrelevant of what I believed in the past or what the future holds and who I become. I have to remind myself i’m allowed to change my mind.

What I want is to create freely, not for an algorithm, not for other people, but for myself. I want to be an artist. I want to make things. I don’t want work to be my number one focus.

In so many ways it feels like going back to the start, a full circle moment. I want to find out if I can live a life that centres around my creativity above everything else? A life centred around living instead of working? Is it irresponsible to do this? Maybe. Am I scared? Yes. But i’m more terrified of what will happen if I don’t do this. I’ve been the sensible person, i’ve been a good girl, and now more than ever I want to see what happens, what can life look like when you say balls to the wall and just go for it? Even if you don’t know exactly what ‘it’ is, other than the pursuit of joy. A sense of warmer warmer, where one thing leads to another thing without trying to manipulate every outcome to be the one you think it should be.

I want a slow, quiet life. I want to do less. I want to wake up and read. I want to write whatever I feel called to. Often that is centred around style, but I don’t want to exist in any singular box. I’m not for everyone and I don’t want to be.

Everytime someone calls me a writer my heart does a little happy dance. I don’t care about being a New York Times best seller, or to see my work in Vogue. If it happens, great, but it’s not the why. I’m no longer trying to win the award for being the best at everything, or even the best at something.

I’ve also come to a conclusion that i’m sure will shock nobody…I don’t want to do Instagram. I’m so tired of it. After a few months of going back to it, it’s just not for me at this moment in time. I’ve chosen to honor that my gut is telling me to leave it alone. I want to see if I can make my art on my terms without it. I love Substack so much and really feel at home here. Creating here adds to my cup, rather than taking away. In this space, in this moment in time, energy is created and it is sustainable. That is my north star.

Playing by somebody else’s rules didn’t make me happy, even when I got the money, the big clients and the good on paper stuff that society promised would make me feel enough.

I’m no longer willing to make decisions based on society’s version of success. That has been my drug of choice (along with control) and the come down has taken a lot from me. Namely my confidence and the ability to feel proud of myself for anything that isn’t in alignment with a capitalist society.

I’m making peace with the fact I might not make as much money, and I think this has been a huge part of the fear. I live in LA, I have a mortgage to pay and while I accept there was always a presumption i’d live a rich life, a rich life has many meanings. I’d rather earn less and feel content.

Fear has thrown every scenario at me - I might have to leave LA one day, maybe my marriage will fall apart, maybe my friends will abandon me, the truth is I just don’t know. None of us know what the future holds. It’s all possible, but also I have to remind myself what if it all works out? I can’t keep making decisions based on fear.

The heavy hands of fear squeezed and contorted every fibre of my being this past year, so much so my brain resembled a tube of toothpaste with next to nothing left to give. The guilt of turning away from my ‘successful’ business has exhausted me, making it impossible to trust myself and my own intuition. But that is starting to change. No matter how much I will myself to go back to it ‘for financial security’ I just can’t. My emotional security needs to be a part of the conversation too.

I like thinking about old lady Harry. I try to imagine what she would say. I think she’d want me to do the thing/s that scare me. I always come back to the belief i’d rather regret something I did do, than something I didn’t. I’m willing to take the path less travelled, the one that a past version of myself would never let me put on the table. My Dad always says nothing ever fails 100%, so let’s find out if he’s right.

Here’s to being proud of ourselves for the small stuff, the tiny insignificant things that often go uncelebrated. Here’s to breathing out, and taking the weight off.

Thanks for reading

Yours sincerely

The OG overthinker, oversharer and one who continues to contradict herself in the pursuit of joy.

(Harry x)