One-Woman Show

Why I'm transitioning from a slowly dying online business, to writing again.

If a year ago, you showed me a snapshot of what my life looks like today, I probably wouldn't have believed you.

My work life is different.

My home life is different.

My love life is different.

My mental state is different.

Ten years ago I went through a divorce, pregnancy, birth, and launching a business all within the span of a single year. Maybe I'm an all-or-nothing girl, because this year I'm racking up big life changes again.

In the last 12 months, I...

• ended a toxic relationship AND unexpectedly fell into an extremely healthy one (so lucky).

• experienced the lowest lows of panic attacks, anxiety, and depression AND put in the work to heal, let go, and open my heart again (so grateful).

• took a hard look at my slowly dying business AND decided to take a full-time job working for someone else (so scary).

• said a heartbreaking goodbye to my 4-legged sidekick of 12+ years AND felt the freedom to enter a totally different phase of my life without him (so painful).

Let's zero in on just one of those massive changes: WORK.

For the last decade, I’ve run an online business called Paper + Oats. It’s a one-woman show (it’s me, hi, I’m the woman, it’s me), where I teach online courses about graphic design, marketing, and digital products. I’ve made a living for myself thanks to this business — I was able to buy a house, renovate it, go on trips, stay home with my daughter when she was little, and connect with countless fellow creatives both in the Internet world and in real life. I would not be where I am today without that business, and I’m beyond grateful for it.

But for the last few months, maybe even years, I've let my business flounder. It took a gnarly hit during the pandemic, and it never quite recovered. It's been on a steady decline ever since. And so has my motivation to fix it.

Back in the spring, I was in a bad place. I was BreakupKelsey™. I was crawling my way out of a chaotic, anxiety-riddled relationship with a maybe-narcissist... and lemmetellyou, your girl was tiiiiired. That's when my friend Katie asked if I wanted to come work for her. She was a Marketing Director in need of a graphic designer, and I was a graphic designer in need of a predictable income.

I said yes to contract work, and for the next 6 months I enjoyed a steady income where someone else was calling the shots — something I missed terribly after running Paper + Oats solo for the last decade. I had serious decision fatigue, and I was so relieved to not have my income directly tied to my performance. (This is something business owners don't talk about nearly enough, but that's for another day.)

After a few months of contract work, I felt ready to make a bigger move. The indecision of just watching my business baby fizzle felt worse than actually making a decision on a new direction and just going.

I had been stalled out for years, and I needed to make a move.

But 10 years?! Working tirelessly to grow this thing from the ground up? A blank canvas I had spent the last decade filling with colors and shapes and lines and life? The online presence I had worked so hard to build, the one that was all wrapped up in my identity? This business that's literally older than my own daughter — am I just supposed to... walk away from it? (Not entirely.)

While it's not completely going away, it has felt like a kind of death for me. A friend on Instagram, who went through a similar change with her business, said it best in my DMs, "There'a a period of ambiguous grieving. It's just a job, but for awhile it was my whole entire life."

And so I made the incredibly hard, but wildly freeing decision to accept a full-time job at that company I was contracting for — The Virtual Savvy, a positively wonderful company that helps virtual assistants launch, grow, and scale their businesses. I've been a full-time employee for a couple months now, and the mental and financial weight it's taken off my shoulders is SO right for this season I'm in.

Like this is exactly where I'm supposed to be.

One reason I wanted to shift to this full-time job was to free up some mental space for another thing that I've been wishing I had more energy for — WRITING.

I’m so excited (and terrified) to start sharing my writing again.

Again?

Yes, again.

I released my first book back in 2018 (you can order it here!), and then I didn't write a lick for the next year. Didn't even journal. But slowly I got back into the habit of writing, and now I can feel my second book is brewing. But first, I need to flex a muscle that hasn't moved in awhile — sharing my writing again.

That feels harder than the actual writing part. It's the vulnerability that can be scary. Also, imposter syndrome. Who am I to think people want to read about my life?! I haven't shown up online as much as I used to, so it's quite intimidating to start doing that again.

What kind of writing will I be sharing here? Here's a smattering...

• Single parenting

• Co-parenting

• Dating as a parent

• Breakups as a parent

• Parents, parents, parents

• Big life changes (HELLO)

• Healing through pottery, yoga, therapy, and bowls of pasta

• Burnout, but not just in business

• What the heck I've been doing the last 3 years

• Taylor Swift, I'm sure at some point

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Oof, what a terribly curated list, but that's part of it. You'll see the shitty first drafts as I build back up my writing habit and start forming ideas for my next book.

You ready to do this with me? Subscribe below, and we’ll be off to the races.

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