Where I'm At — The Color Floral

Aug 1

Aug 1 Where I'm At

Now Playing: Call if You Need Me - Vance Joy

Current Location: Intrigue Chocolate and Coffee - Cap Hill, Seattle

Where to even begin. It's been so many months since I've posted...and many many things have happened.

I guess I'll start with the upcoming changes that will be coming to TCF. This blog is almost 2 years old! Crazy!! And as I went back and looked at the About Me I wrote 2 years ago when I started...it's so funny to see how I described myself then. I said I didn't want a blog that was just like everyone else's, and yet...what did I create? A blog basically just like everyone else's. Fuck that. I'm kind of over blogging as it's currently being utilized. I'm over the fluff and phoniness, and overall lack of depth and realness. It seems like we're all just copying everything the other bloggers are doing, and quite frankly, I've stopped caring about all of that. I'm done just showcasing my outfits and trying to tell people how to style themselves. I think that's fun and definitely is somewhat meaningful.....but as I used to say to my clients all the time, I can do better.

SO. With that said, I've decided to take TCF a new direction. My new focus for this site is going to be style and stories. I've been through some shit. I've made some incredibly horrible mistakes in life, and I think they are worth sharing. Not for attention...but for impact. I want to connect with others. I want to talk about shit that matters more than what pair of shoes I got from the N Sale. You guys feel me? A little preview of what I'm going to be talking about:

Being raised by a single mother with my 3 older sisters and how that shaped me
Alcohol and poor choices
Greg and the joys of married life
Anxiety and it's continuous hold on me
For the love of the game... 4 surgeries and counting

Now, this isn't to say I've lost my sense of humor and this is just going to be all serious shit all the time. Definitely not. This blog started with style and self-expression, and that will always be central to who I am...But I can be more too.

Now that you guys now the direction I'm heading, I'll hop right in to where I'm at. I just quit my job and am back hunting again. Back coffee shop hopping, back to being a broke ass hoe. I mean that in the best possible way, of course. Why did I leave Armoire? Well...put simply, I outgrew my role. I was the first stylist they hired, and am honored to have forever been that. I love the Armoire team and made some incredible friends. I still 100% believe in the company and idea of renting clothing, but I wanted more. I wanted to have a bigger voice, freedom to pursue my ideas, and a higher level of thinking I think. As much as it pains me to say, I miss working on a complex engineering circuit problem all week and literally starting from the, I have no idea what I'm doing stage, and then slowing figuring it out step by step..then finally figuring out the solution, and just being like....my brain did that. That's so dope to me. I didn't realize I would miss that..but I very much did. Armoire gave me problems to solve, but in a different way...and I got to the point where the growth trajectory for my role was too far off for me. I worked with the founders to see if we could come up with a position that could feed me again, and they were great trying to help me, but it just became obvious that my needs and the companies needs just didn't align right now, so I had to leave. There comes a point in every job where I have to ask myself, am I learning? Am I growing? Am I challenged? And if all of those answers are no for a period of time, then that's when the decision becomes clear. Armoire was great because it taught me a lot about myself and what I need from a role. I need it be fast-paced. I learned that I actually thrive in that type of environment. It wakes me up. I need to be juggling multiple things, I need to be BUSY. But...at the same time, I need to be compensated for my value. And that can be difficult to navigate at a startup. How do you negotiate salary in a small company of 18 people when your managers are also your friends? I could write an entire post on that alone. Anyway, I left on good terms, and they insist that I'll be back again when they're bigger and they have more for me. I never say never, but for now I feel great about my decision.

So....where does that leave me? Currently, unemployed. Ha...just super! I don't know, I'm good with it. I've had several interviews and I have several more irons in the fire, so I'm honestly excited to find my next role. I'm also at a point where I know my worth, so I'm being more selective, but also open to where the search takes me. I'm looking for something that can combine a semi-high level of thinking and problem solving like in engineering, with the creative independence as well. I'm applying for project/product/brand manager roles in various industries that I'm interested in, not just in fashion, and we shall see how it goes!! I'll update you guys in like a month or something.

On to what happened Monday. As most of you know, for the last 2-3 months I've really stepped up my fitness game and have gotten my body back into shape. I was not happy with where I was at the beginning of summer, so I've put in a shit ton of work to get healthy and fit again. Somewhere along the way, I think in a soccer game, I got tackled and tore my meniscus again in my right knee...which was previously my "good knee". Without going too much into it, I already tore my ACL and meniscus in my right knee and had reconstructive surgery in 2014. I got an internal infection from that surgery and had to have an urgent followup surgery 2 weeks later, and I remember feeling so fucking terrible, physically from the infection... and I was also frustrated that it set me back in my recovery. I like to be a PT workhorse. But anyway, those were surgeries 3 and 4. They followed me tearing my ACL and meniscus on my left knee and having surgery on that one in college, and then tearing my left meniscus again 6 months after that initial surgery and tearing it beyond the point of repair, so that in 2011, they had to remove it with another surgery. That's why I had to stop playing for Purdue.

So....for the past 4 years I've been very healthy and kind of thought I was in the clear. I've been active pretty consistently and have not had any issues. So to get this news yesterday that I'm most likely going to have my 5th knee surgery, right when I've gotten back to a healthy and fit place, is slightly devastating. Yesterday was tough. I have not cried yet. I think I don't want to let myself go down that road. It's so frustrating, and painful, and I just hate having surgery. I just want to be healthy?! It takes a physical and mental toll on me, but also on Greg too. I know it's hard on him. I'm going to do a whole post on this knee shit so I'm going to hold back and not go into it all the way, especially because this post is already long enough...but I'm just trying to focus on the positive. It's not my ACL, so that's something. Also, there's a small chance it could heel on it's own with physical therapy and not surgery. We're going to try that first. I'm not super optimistic, but I'm willing to try it and see. I just want to be able to run and not be in pain, that's what I need from my body, and I don't think that's too much to ask.

I have to move on or I'm going to start crying in this damn coffee shop.

Okay so.....that's kind of where I'm at. I hope you guys will keep following along as I share my stories with you. I hope you like the new direction. My hope is to just be a real person and connect with other people in a real and authentic way. That's paramount to me at this point.

Also, thank you for the overwhelming support about my knee news Monday. You guys, seriously. Thank you for all of the texts and messages!!!!!! I'm a tough ole broad, as Greg always says...so I'll get through this the same way I get through everything.

And finally, here are some photos of this beautiful Yumi Kim I dress I rented from Armoire last week, just because. :)