I'm Building a Life, Not an Audience

As weird as I feel sometimes, I'm not that much different from any other content creator out there. 

I wouldn't say I'm doing all this to get famous or anything. I don't care about being an influencer, and at nearly 50 years old, I'm hardly still hung up on the idea of making my parents proud.

But my inner critic still occasionally likes to pop up uninvited and go, "Shouldn't you have more to show for this by now?" More followers. More reach. More evidence that what I make is actually seen, understood, and wanted. 

It’s just so easy to internalize the idea that visibility equals value. That if your work isn’t constantly going viral or leaving you rolling in dough every month, it must not matter.

I know that isn’t true. I also know I don’t post every day. I don’t play the game the way you're supposed to. And sometimes, the algorithm makes me feel like a ghost inside my own house, present but unseen.

But lately, I've been embracing a quieter truth. A truth I’ve known for a long time but haven’t always been lucid (or ballsy) enough to step up and claim. I don't actually think I'm building an audience anymore. I’m building a life.

A Life Worth Living From the Inside

I want a life I actually feel good about living on every level. Not a product. Not a personal brand in hyper-focus, trimmed and polished until there’s nothing strange, unpolished, or surprising left.

I want late mornings with the windows open and my favorite old music playing from the garden. I want homemade meals that slow-cook all day and make the neighbors jealous when they smell them cooking. I want firelight in the evenings and soft clothes and the sense that Seth and I are building something substantial together.

I want to write things that feel real, honest, and alive. Not pristinely optimized and scientifically calibrated for reach or restructured for engagement. (I do that more than often enough for my clients.) I want to make art that confuses people a little and makes them think a little harder. I want to pull tarot cards, light incense, stare at the moon, talk to spirits, and keep just a few little things just for me.

And I absolutely want to share with people, but not to gather likes or followers. I want to share for the same reasons birds sing. Because it's a completely natural thing for a living being to want to do.

Letting Go of the Growth Machine

When I write, I’m not imagining a room full of strangers applauding. I’m imagining one person — maybe someone like me — reading it alone, steaming cup of herbal tea in hand, and feeling a little less invisible. Maybe they smile or laugh. And then maybe they close the tab and go make something of their own.

I'm honestly not interested in growing a huge platform if it means sacrificing my peace. I don’t want to lose the beauty of my life chasing someone else’s idea of success. And I definitely don’t want to perform my trauma or turn my joy into a marketing funnel.

That doesn’t mean I don’t care about my work. It means I care about it too much to let it be twisted into something that doesn’t feel sacred anymore. I don’t want to be “relatable.” I want to be real. I don’t want to go viral. I want to go deep.

If This Resonated, Try This

If you’ve been feeling the pressure to “show up” online in ways that drain the life out of you, here are a few tips that might help:

• Make something just for you. Write a piece you don’t plan to publish. Take a photo to remember something instead of just to keep your Instagram feed full. Make art you might not even show anyone else. Reclaim the joy of creating without witnesses.
• Curate your space, not just your feed. Tend to the life around you and all your essentials. Your desk, your garden, your favorite cup. Let your physical world reflect the internal one you’re building. As with everything in life, the little things are the big things.
• Figure out why you're even doing this. And write it down so it's easier to sort out and refer back to. Keep it somewhere close. Read it when the noise gets loud. Don't focus on what drives traffic or gets likes.

A Garden, Not a Stage

I think of my online presence like a garden, and you should think of yours the same way. Some parts are wild, while others are carefully tended. Some things bloom right away. Others take their sweet time, and not everything is necessarily meant to be seen by everyone.

But it all belongs.

And if someone wanders in and finds a flower that speaks to them, that's fantastic. But in my case, I didn’t plant it for them. I plant for the bees, the wind, and the sun. I plant for myself. My creative life feels like the best fit when its foundation is living soil, not someone else's borrowed notion of a stage.

Because at the end of the day, I’d rather grow roots than chase applause.