What Now?

And so, almost a month to the day after walking out of my brick & mortar shop for the last time, and then completely falling apart— I am sitting here working on piecing myself back together.

I have written so many paragraphs, rambling prose, and bullet point lists to try and make sense of what I want to come next, how to figure out what’s next, how to reconcile with decisions made, and chances lost.
Coming to terms with choosing, once again, this town. Which I struggled calling my home the first time around, let alone the second. It being far from the county lines I am much more akin and accustomed to.

This transition was not forced on me.
I chose it. Welcomed it. Was eager for it.
For the thing that preceded it was breaking me. In more than one way. In many ways. But namely in one that has all but eradicated my ability to be curious about other people. A trait I always used to pride myself on.
For curiosity is the window to the world.

But now that I am here on the other side of this transition, I am aware all too fully of the weight of it, what it means. How holding this, means that is now no longer an option.

I thought I knew fully, thought I knew that this was the next right thing, and then I all-at-once realized that I didn’t.
This wasn’t the next right thing, merely the thing that I chose.
But I am also coming to realize that I largely will always feel that way, no matter the decision, with each new direction dictated and decided, I will feel as though there is something over there, that I should move towards instead.

My Father, in indirectly hurtful terms has called this flakiness.
My friends— what makes me the artist that I am.
My husband— something that just is.
And so I am coming to terms with that too. Holding that gently and working in and around what that looks like and means in this context of being 32, not 22. When a decade ago, this wandering and searching spirit was more expected, accepted. A decade later, the wanton rambling way of decision making and solidification of a life constantly untethered is less charming and more chaotic.

And yet, there are elements of this sample self that need not be so critiqued and redirected. There is something to learn here, as there always is. A gentle balance of course must be struck between all of our opposing parts.

And parts I certainly have.

For instance—I thought that the resentment part that I had growing inside of me would go away upon closing this one door, but instead I found that it only grew.

I came to the realization over the summer that it has been fourteen years since I started sharing pieces of myself on the internet.

That realization has come with an alarming awakening of grief.
Grief for the life I have spent on and behind a screen.
Grief for the lives I could have lived but can no longer.
Grief for the young girl who innocently started a blog and now feels as though she spent the majority of her life selling her soul online to pay her bills.
Grief for feeling as though I had no choice.

What comes after feelings like that?
How to separate the weight and meaning and the realization that this self-made world was one of my choosing?
What would I rather have in exchange, if not this?

And as much as I long for privacy, for quiet, for slowness and especially anonymity… I can’t stop.

I feel the urge, the tugging, to share.
If even into a void.
(Sometimes, blessedly into a void— with no response or feedback of any kind…)

And as I wrestle with the dichotomy of it all, what it is to have built a successful and thriving business from the ground up, but the success of which relies on one woman’s heart being shared intimately and compellingly nearly every day…

That comes to the present figuring out— What now?

A Confession Pt. 2

It was never fully my intention to completely step away from this space. This particular corner of the internet. This curation of my creation and dreams and thoughts.
Over a decade of work displayed on a platform that I kept paying $200+ a year to keep alive.

I’ll come back one day…

I kept thinking to myself.

I am more than just Folkling…

And yet— it very quickly seemed otherwise.
My identity became so wrapped up in this shop, this business, this brand that I had created from the ground up.
So much would transpire in three and a half years that I never even considered before then.

I would make more money than I ever dreamed of.
I would pay in taxes what I used to make in a single year.
I would get so low and out-of-my-mind unhealthy to a degree I never thought was possible.
I would be so fiercely proud and exuberant over what has become a career for me.
I would work harder and longer than at any other time in my life thus far.

When I hear about how overworked finance guys on Wall Street are, how demanding the pace and the hours, I think: I know what that’s like.

I have worked 16+ hour days, every day, for months on end, years on end. My brain is never turned off.
I am always, always, thinking about Folkling. About what I have to do to make it work. To make it succeed. To keep paying my bills.
”Vacations” are just picking trips rebranded.
I am writing this in the present tense because, indeed, it is still true. I have made huge shifts since the height of the shops success in 2022, but even still, it is so hard for me to step away. To not check messages. To think about something other than that space.

This makes it sound as though this entire brand and business was something calculated, a sham, a facade of my own creation.

But it was the opposite.

Folkling is one of the most genuine and whole hearted and honest things I’ve ever created.

Which is the problem of course, when it comes to creating and running a business.
My lack of ability to separate myself from this thing that I created nearly destroyed me to say nothing of many of my relationships.

I have thought for a very long time about sharing these thoughts and feelings on the Folkling Instagram, pretty much the only corner of the internet I keep up with on a regular basis nowadays.

But I think that in order to be able to speak more openly and honestly, apart from what is my job and what literally puts food on my table and a roof over my head, I need the freedom of this platform—largely unseen by most anyone, to process this upcoming shift and season.

Admittedly I am also exhausted by everyones thoughts, opinions and voices on my thoughts, opinions and voice.

I very much miss the early days of the internet. When you largely just shared into an unresponsive void. Before like buttons, hearts, comments, threads, direct messages.

Now I wake up to DMs where complete strangers correct me on how I should be behaving, what I should be doing, how I should be feeling, what I should be saying.

As much as I am on the internet for work, I actually rarely, if ever, engage with it outside of the Folkling community and the necessary communications I have to implement for work.
And so it truly baffles me to have people so vehemently and cruelly tell me what I can and cannot do.
(I would absolutely never dream of doing such a thing with someone I didn’t know. Honestly— even someone I did know.)

But oh how quickly we forget that what we see on the internet, especially Instagram, is only a fraction of the story.

And even now, as I write this perspective, share these thoughts, this is still only a fraction of the story.

But the gist of this fraction is this:
I created this thing that people drove across the country to see and experience.
I put immense pressures on myself as a result.
And now, after doing it full time for four years, I am questioning— What else is there?
What else makes up a life aside from the work that day in and day out has largely been for others?
What comes after this, amidst this, because of this?

What now?

A Confession

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.

Two Years Ago Today

grass clippings are hitchhiking on the bottoms of my feet as i cross the lawn and i have the milky dew of the figs i just picked dripping down my fingers. 

the sun reaches my skin through the cotton shirt i’m wearing. because i’m moving, and because it’s early in the day, its rays aren’t yet powerful enough to make my skin dewy like that of the figs. but you can tell, even this early, that it’s only a matter of time before the heat will be labeled oppressive.

the crate myrtle is in bloom and the river is shushing by as it always does. i have to pause for a moment to remember what day it is. “...Wednesday” i think to myself “it’s Wednesday...”

the half moon brick steps lead me up into the house and i make a half hearted attempt to leave the grass clippings outside, though i am sure some end up trailing behind me on the well worn carpet. 

i select a knife from the chopping block in the kitchen and hesitate for a brief moment at its odd shape, only mildly considering that it’s probably not the right knife for this specific job. 

no matter— it’s sharp. 

and now ribbed moss is imprinted onto the backs of my thighs as a sit with a plate in the center of my crossed legs

and i eat the slices of rose colored fruit off of my lap. 

—A journal entry from August 29, 2018

This Is Virginia In The Summer

You have to close your mouth when biking at night.

This is Virginia in the summer.

The air is thick and hung with winged creatures.

The moon winks at me from the water filled ditch, newly filled after the afternoon’s down pour.

The low-hanging magnolias unfold their skirts towards the grass beds, entangled in a flirtation with the sweet scented leaves.

I cut some Queen Anne’s Lace with my pocket knife and revel in its silhouette against the dusk.

Petal pushing, pedal pushing.

This routine is one of the few I perform without fail.

A small days end respite from the unrelenting speed of time.

My bike basket fills with little pink slips of paper.
They hold a promise of something more if I choose to exchange them at the post office down the road.

(I never do take them with me, somewhat absentmindedly but more so as an act of defiance of the one mean post master in town…)

I hoist my bike up onto my shoulder and ascend the porch stairs 
1-2-3-4-5-6
and into the house.

I run upstairs to my computer, where I can record my thoughts faster than any other medium.

My feet are so hot I start to pull off my boots (because I wear boots year round…) but I’m afraid I’ll lose the words so I stop half way.

Typing feverishly with one boot on and one boot off.

“Are you awake?”
He asks.

“Yes but I can’t talk right now.
I don’t want to lose the words I just found.”

What's Coming Next

I am coming back to blogging.

I have found myself saying that often over the past few years in my sporadic sharing on this platform. This is the year I am really going to do it! And then….. five posts later, Okay now THIS is *really* the year I am going to do it…. cue same result.
And perhaps this time is just like all of those other times, but honestly this time feels different.

Because now this time, in many ways, it’s all I have.

With the world in its current state of social distancing and staying at home and daily doses of fear that invite so much confusion and anxiety—It feels like now is the time more than ever that I need to remember who I am.

And one of the things that has always pulled me back from any edge I have ever found myself on (we won’t get into how many there have been… I am an emotional creature) is sharing the beauty I see in the world.
Through words.
Through images.
Through stories.

It is a common understanding that we are all made of stories, and yet it is one of my biggest pulls to any individual I cross paths with.
Everyone’s unique narrative and my ability to bear witness to it.

I am living out one of my own that feels important to share. Not for the validation, though that is often the temptation, rather for the specific ability to offer a communal understanding and empathetic view of shared experience. Of opening up our minds and hearts to things unknown to us until exactly now that were found only within the bravery of open expression.

I also feel the need to share honestly in that part of me has felt empty since coming home.

And that’s largely because when I pulled into Virginia four months ago, after living a life on The Road for 333 days last year, I stopped telling stories.

Sure, verbally I told a few to some friends and family, and the occasional stranger who I’d meet that would pull one out of me because they’d comment on my jacket, or my hat, or the fact that I-don’t-look-like-I’m-from-around-here-even-though-I-am-it’s-just-that-I-hang-out-with-cowboys-too-much….
But mostly I’ve kept to myself and closed up in the unknown of what’s coming next in my life.

I stopped writing.

And writing has always been an integral part of me.
I have long felt that as long as I made time for both reading and writing, it was a day well lived.
The coupling of learning something new, and sharing my experience.

All of our experiences are different, especially during a time like this, but it feels important now more than ever to share that.
Resources, stories, kindness, wisdom, love, understanding, empathy…
It is within the recognition that there are experiences outside of your own that life is most often meant to be lived.

Which is why yours is one worth sharing.