This month has held a lot of contemplation.
A lot of recollection of what once was, what is no longer, what is yet to be.
Something that Owen and I have been reminding ourselves of in the last few months is— no great thing worth doing is without some unknown.
Some amount of scary feeling.
Some amount of “but what if…”
I’ve been reading some of my writing from 2018 and feeling so deeply—“I miss that person”.
It’s a strange thing to miss yourself. But there are elements of who I am that I have let go of, set aside and placed on the back burner out of what I perceived at the time as necessary in order to survive.
I look back on the last four years and recognize that I’ve largely been operating in survival mode.
A mode that strips away the fringe and unnecessary to some degree, but can also strip away the core of something and push it into a state of otherness and something unrecognizable.
Something it was never meant to be.
All of this probably seems vague and ominous.
And in some ways it is.
I didn’t set out to write this post and be melodramatic.
But I suppose I’m not quite ready to talk about the shifts and changes that are coming, so much as I am ready to talk about the feelings that got me here.
Or rather, more so, the things that I miss.
I miss being curious about people.
I miss being open to people.
I miss loving people.
I miss writing.
I miss taking pictures just for the sake of it, and not to sell something.
I miss reading.
I miss doing less.
I miss living slower.
I miss spending more time off of a screen than on it.
I miss walking in grass barefoot.
I miss the water.
I miss sailing.
I miss creating and not feeling like I have to incorporate and monetize it into the brand.
I miss sharing things on a kinder internet, in a kinder world.
I miss being more open and free with my feelings/thoughts without waking the next morning to hurtful and hateful DMs. Of strangers feeling like it was their duty and right to correct/shame/educate me on how I was wrong for doing what I did, saying what I said.
Or what I didn’t do, didn’t say.
I miss being Leney vs. “you’re the girl with that store!”
I miss being more of a human and less of a brand.
I miss privacy.
I miss not managing people.
I miss weekends.
I miss my family.
I miss my friends. Friends that knew me before Folkling. That loved me before Folkling.
I miss believing in and expecting the best out of people instead of the worst.
I miss Owen.
I miss when my life wasn’t wholly and entirely— Folkling.