I Never Thought I'd be Someone Who Posted Silly Reels on Instagram.

And, well, HERE WE ARE. Giddyup mfers.

Something has been brewing. For a while. Months. Years. Maybe decades. An itch under my skin always searching for more. Not designer bags or gadgets or promotions— not stuff. Rather: More life, more art, more creativity, more connection, more meaning, more purpose.

I have known for probably forever that I was never meant for a corporate life, a 9-5 in-the-box life. There is no shade to the happily 9-5 minded in that statement. You don’t know how much I sometimes wish I could have picked A Career™ and been done with it. But some hearts simply don’t work like that.

As we all know (soz still working through some of that ptsd CLEARLY) I sort of just fell into teaching and spent the next 18 years with one foot out the door, always searching for the next Thing, move, side hustle, project — searching for more.

In search of more, I have:

• gone to grad school too many three times and earned three postgraduate degrees.

• become a really devoted yoga and vegan person.

• moved to Ireland.

• signed up for one million writing workshops, groups, classes, ad nauseum.

• moved in with an absolute lunatic after one hot second bc PaSsIoN ok.

• quit my job to start a virtual study hall company in the throes of the covid new world order.

• put my heart on the line more times than I care to count.

• started so. many. blogs.

• become a really devoted CrossFit and paleo person.

• called an audible writing my PhD dissertation, successfully persuading my supervising committee to allow me to write a dystopian young adult novel instead of the standard critical exploration of literature.

You get the idea. Some of these Choices set my soul on fire and others I still think about peeking out from behind hands covering my eyes.

I regret nothing.

Because here am I today. Still searching. But getting there, to the heart of the whole thing, more than I ever have. It can be hard to be nice to ourselves, to give ourselves credit for who we are and what we have accomplished. Especially if we’re not exactly where we want to be career / body / relationship / labubu whatever -wise.

But if there is one thing I can loudly and unequivocally appreciate about myself it is this: I do not give up. I may move on, or pivot, but damn, if your girl doesn’t keep fucking going no matter what. Keeps searching. Keeps trying again.

And I will continue to be unrelenting in pursuit of my most authentic life — the one that honors the totality of this creative, rebel heart.

And I don’t care what age I am, what age you are: The Thing that keeps tugging at your heart, living rent free in your wildest fantasy daydream as you fall asleep… listen to it.

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I was reading one of those old blogs the other day, dropped right into the starry-eyed honeymoon phase of becoming a vegan and discovering Jivamukti yoga. I was so enamored by her, the me, writing from 2010. She almost convinced me to be a vegan again. Almost. So eager, so earnest. So so honest. Clearly lit up at having found something that felt so very aligned in that moment.

Maybe some of us are “late bloomers”. Maybe some of us just really need to understand who we are before we can take The Leap. Because when we are finally ready to go, good luck to the rest of you because we are GOING. And we are not looking back.

So here I am, making a run at the bigger, wilder, creatively-centered life that refuses to be pushed off any longer. So here I am, making reels and saying crap on Instagram. If you look closely you can see how red my face is because of how abjectly mortified I am at filming myself. You know, the Who does she think she is? of it all.

But to borrow a phrase from my homeland¹: She thinks who she is.

LFG. 🤘🏼
xoxo EMG

1. On the Isle of Staten we say “She thinks who she is” to refer to someone with an inflated sense of self-importance, one who is full of themselves and unapologetic about it. So yeah. She thinks who she is.