life

This past weekend I worked a women’s expo as one of my main side hustles: a brand ambassador. I was looking forward to the gig as it wasn’t a typical event and it would be around a bunch of awesome women.

When I was in line to get my vendor pass, I saw the women lined up outside waiting to get into the expo. There was already a huge line waiting to come inside.

The slogan for the expo was “love yourself first.”

“I can dig that,” I thought. We do need to love ourselves first.

So I get set up at my booth and throughout the day, I made the rounds to look at the other booths. After all, I wanted to see what other cool things were going on at the women’s expo.

My research proved to be so disappointing. Over 90% of the booths were somehow about weight loss, skin tightening, waxing, makeup, and sexy outfits.

I don’t know what I was expecting at a women’s expo, but it sure wasn’t this. “Love yourself first?,” I thought. Yeah, right.

Love yourself after you lose 10 pounds, wax your vag, straighten your hair, and tighten your wrinkles. It felt like an expo that was supposed to be about loving yourself first, was really about buying products to make you look better and feel better.

Ummmm?

This is the kind of marketing that we’ve been dealing with for years in traditional media and I guess I was just sort of hoping for something different. Something that didn’t put all of our power into our looks or our youth, but more into our contributions to the community and our families.

All of this got me thinking: is this really what women empowerment looks like?

I think you know my answer.

So, if that’s not it,  what does women empowerment look like? I started to think about what my ideal version of the expo would be. I would want to see classes on negotiating, how to start a business, relaxation techniques, and more community based products and services. I’d want to have more classes, products, and workshops that enhance our social network and respect our buying power, without just focusing on superficial stuff.

And I do have to say, I like some of the superficial stuff too. There is a time and place for that. But to have a whole expo that was mostly focused on beauty just felt like a disservice to the power and potential of women. I know a bunch of money was thrown into this thing and that many people probably made a bunch of money as well.

As more and more women become breadwinners, I think it’s so important that we find avenues to support each other and ourselves. But we have to get rid of the old, tired model and stop marketing to our insecurities.

I know this is a big question, but: what does women empowerment look like to you? (in an ideal world, it’s okay to be ridiculous)

Time is just flying by. I can feel the year whizzing by me as I blink and realize it’s Mid-March. This year has been a blur, filled with hard work and hustling, good times and bad. Things are starting to settle, ever so slowly, as I attempt to search for that elusive balance.

One thing that is perpetually on my mind these days is the move. Though we have six months to sort out all the details, it feels weird to have a date set. Everything could change for all I know, but as of now, we will be leaving Portland.

It feels so weird, because I’ve been ready to go. But now that little voice in my head keeps popping up.

Is it the right time?

Do you really want to move somewhere more expensive?

Are you ready for even more change?

But then some semblance of rationality creeps in.

There is never a good time.

I have to remember this as I try to convince myself otherwise. Like so many big decisions in life, there is never a good time.

There is never a good time to have kids, or to quit your job, or to move across country. If we all waited for the right time, then I’m afraid that day would never come.  If I waited for the right time, I would have never left LA or gone to New York, or gotten my master’s degree. I would have never quit my job.

Sure, there are better times to do things than others — like when you have a fully funded emergency fund or are debt free. But I firmly believe I can’t hold back all of my life decisions for a few more years until I’m debt free.

I’ll make myself miserable and Lord knows I haven’t been the happiest of campers lately.

All of this got me thinking. What else in my life am I waiting for that right time? Like that e-book I said I would write, or that novel filled with stories this blog will never see. But I haven’t written a word on those things, because I’ve been paid to write other words for other people. And for that, I’m so grateful, but I have to say no to this good time business, because the time is now.

I want to make sure I am living life to the fullest and reaching my full potential. Isn’t that what being your own boss is all about? I don’t want to feel like I’m still just working for others, using it as a means to an end, towards debt freedom. Because at that rate, I’m bound to have (yet) another existential crisis once I’m debt free.

There has to be more and it has to be now. Time only goes forward, not backward, so I want to grasp these moments and make them mine. Be content with my decisions and embrace all life’s messiness and not be paralyzed with fear about what will happen.

Because no one knows. Our life is a book that has yet to be written. I want to make sure I keep turning the page and not let my book collect dust.

Over the holiday break, I got to spend two delightful weeks with my family and my partner’s family. It was truly wonderful to catch up, relax, and spend quality time together.

But it wasn’t all about relaxing. Ryan and I knew that we had to have some difficult conversations during our holiday visit.

Just a few months before, his dad had a health scare that put us in a panicked frenzy. At first he was fainting and in the hospital — we had so little information, and being a few states away, we assumed the worst.

Questions ran through our head. Should we go down there? When do we go down there? It was a stressful situation not having all the information upfront. For all we knew it could have been nothing, or it could have been very serious. It was the first time in my life that I realized how difficult it is living away from your parents. Even if we did hop on the next flight, nothing is promised to us.

Luckily, everything turned out alright. It was a pretty severe ulcer that kept him out of work for weeks.

Of course we were scared about his dad’s health — but to be honest, we were more scared for his mom. His mom relies on his dad 100% financially and has chosen a life as a homemaker — a relic of her old world in Romania. It’s all she knows. While she is an amazing cook and a wonderful homemaker, in her own words, she “doesn’t know how to pay a bill.”

Imagine our fright when we weren’t sure about his dad’s situation. We would have to go digging for his financial information, his insurance info, and more. We’d have to help her set-up everything and teach her how to pay bills, etc. It was a daunting thought.

We got off lucky this time, but we knew we had to have a difficult conversation during the holidays. We realized we knew nothing. Were they in debt? Did they have life insurance? Do they have plans in place when something happens? We were ill-equipped with answers and had only questions.

During the break, Ryan had a one-on-one with his dad. They started to talk about the future and current state of affairs. Thank goodness he did have a life insurance policy!

This situation was a pretty big wake up call for us. Both Ryan and I have one parent that relies 100% on the other financially. That tough reality is exacerbated by the fact that we are both only children and have no one else to call or rely on — we are our parents’ help, and we don’t have many resources either.

I’m so glad that we were able to have this important talk with our parents. More importantly, I’m glad that our parents have life insurance, to provide for their partners, if something happens.

I urge you to have a talk with your parents. Get a life insurance policy and prepare in advance. No one wants to deal with financial stuff in the face of emergency — so prepare now!

If you’re looking for an easy way to get started, check out Quotacy, a one-of-a-kind life insurance brokerage. Their website is super user-friendly and it takes only a matter of minutes to get a quote. Best part is that you don’t even have to put your contact info in to get a quote, so you won’t get spammed 🙂 What surprised me the most is just how affordable life insurance is, given how much it covers.

Have you ever been in a situation like this? Do you have any other advice to add?

This post was created in partnership with Quotacy

They say that home is where the heart is and for the most part I believe that to be true. But there is also a different sense of feeling at home. A feeling of comfort, a feeling of belonging, and a sensory experience that jives with your well-being.

I feel at home in several different places, but most notably, not where I actually live.

You see, I’m a big city girl. I grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, experiencing all the culture and diversity, and appreciating all of it. The sounds, smells, and sights were part of me. Then I moved to New York City for graduate school.

I fell in love with New York hard — it’s a city for dreamers and believers, hustlers and hard workers. People come to New York for a reason and everyone has a purpose. I didn’t want to leave New York, but my long-distance relationship was strained and I wasn’t exactly rolling in dough in New York.

So I moved to Portland, which is a lovely city, but for me feels like a small town. I remember the first few weeks in Portland were so eerie for me. Why was it so quiet? Where were all the people? Why was it so white? Portland and I didn’t get along at all for the first year. For a city that boasts retiring in your 20s, I felt like my ambition was out of place.

In New York and LA, I always felt pushed — you had to work hard, or you’d sink or swim. Now, I have a cordial relationship with Portland, but to be honest, I’m always longing for LA and New York.

I really miss the culture, the diversity, the design of the city, the sense of being enveloped in something bigger than yourself. I like the ooze of entertainment in LA and the abrupt honesty of New York. I can’t stand the overly nice, politically correct, passive-aggressive communication style of many Portlanders.

I have always known that Portland was not my forever home. It’s tough to fully enjoy a city when you know it’s not where you belong — but I’ve made the best of it (lately) and am enjoying it for what it is.

Now, the lingering question that my partner and I face is when to move. Just like so many other big decisions in life, it feels like there is never a good time. I’m still paying off debt and growing my business, and he is getting experience at his job.

But several things have happened lately that make us question whether it makes sense for us to stay — another move could be on the horizon. It’s too soon to say and I’m not at liberty to discuss everything. I’m the type of person who gets overwhelmed with big decisions — decisions you know will change the course of your life. I freaked out when I moved to NYC, I freaked out when I moved to Portland, and I’ll probably freak out again.

Except this time, I’ll know it’s the right move, I just don’t know the right time. I feel guilty and terrible that we want to move to LA or NYC — two of the most expensive cities in the U.S. But those places are home and they equal possibility. It would be hard, but I truly believe there are more opportunities — especially for my boyfriend who is a musician. He’s already played the biggest venue in Portland and he’s done pretty well. But there’s a cap of success.

So, we’ll see where this journey — this tale of two cities — takes us. I have no news yet, but will keep you posted.

How do you make big decisions? How did you choose where you currently live?

For as long as I could remember, I have been a minimalist. I don’t like stuff. It actually overwhelms me at times.

I have a huge disdain for shopping, which I know makes me some sort of freak as I do biologically identify as a female (but how much of that is cultural conditioning, I wonder). But shopping, especially clothes shopping, simply represents a plethora of choices and inevitable disappointment. Clothes never fit the way you want, it always looks better on someone else and there is so much pressure to buy the best thing.

I much prefer experiences over things. I love traveling to far and away places, hearing live music, eating delectable food that I could never make, and sipping tasty libations.

My minimalism has gotten me in trouble though.

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