Today, I needed to step away from Pink After Dark for a little while.
Not because I don’t love it. I do—there is always another product that needs work, another picture that could be better, another description to rewrite, and another part of the website waiting for my attention. Even when I am technically finished for the day, my brain keeps working like it never received the memo. I will never understand how Dahlia can just shut it off. 🫠
I spend so much time thinking about what the store still needs that I forget to notice everything I have already accomplished.
So today, I gave myself permission to put it down.
I had some clothes I wanted to list, and I decided to focus on that instead. Of course, my skeleton was an amazing model. lol
Dahlia helped me with the pictures, and dressing our model for the day, which made the whole thing even better. She helped me get him ready while I adjusted everything, and somehow we managed to take the entire situation seriously—sorta. I had to laugh at how completely ridiculous we looked at that moment.
Honestly, I needed that.
I have carried a lot of pressure lately. Some of it comes from circumstances I cannot control, but plenty of it comes from me. I want everything I create to work. I want the store to grow. I want my ideas to become something real, and I want to prove—to myself more than anyone—that I can build the life I keep imagining.
That determination helps me keep moving, but sometimes it also makes me feel guilty whenever I slow down. Today reminded me that changing direction for a few hours is not the same thing as giving up. A break does not erase my progress. Resting one part of my mind can make room for another part of me to breathe.
After working on the listings, I went back to the shoebox project I started. I originally wanted a practical way to organize and display my shoes, but apparently “practical” left the building the moment I brought out the ribbon. 😂
Each box is slowly becoming its own tiny world.
They are nowhere near perfect, but hey, perfect is boring, right?
Lucian supervised in the judgmental way he does. Always watching, always judging. 😂 Dorian planted himself right in the middle of the blast radius of ribbon and glue. Titan would have happily volunteered to “help,” but his preferred artistic method currently involves stealing supplies and chewing them.
So, I didn’t have some huge breakthrough. I didn’t solve every problem or suddenly figure out the future. I just had a different kind of day—one where I could make something with my hands and remember that productivity is not the only measure of whether a day is worthwhile.
Tomorrow, Pink After Dark will still be there.
🩷 Adriana